Israel Doesn’t Get Enough Credit And It’s Time It Does!

I am not here to play the blame game on who is right and who isn’t. Yet, many people have a very closed minded opinion on my beloved country, Israel and the only real place I call home and it’s time they opened their eyes and stopped being so naive, ignorant and careless.

*I will start off by saying this, as much as I love my job as a professional travel writer, I don’t care to lose friends or readers for my strong opinions and beliefs in my country. I am here as a writer, to express and share my experiences with the world. The good, the bad and the TRUTH. I don’t mean to be harsh, but the reality that this world lives in, believing that Israel is the enemy has gotten on my last nerves. Israel doesn’t get enough credit and it’s time it does!

A little background story about me

In my short years of living, most of which I wasn’t even living in Israel, I have experienced 3 wars in Israel. The Gulf War, Second Intifada War and most recently, the Protective Edge War.

I was born in Israel, in a small town in the desert called Arad, 15 minutes away from the Dead Sea. During my early years, I had also moved to other cities in Israel like Herzliya and Ramat Gan. When I lived in Ramat Gan, it was in the early 90’s, when the Gulf War broke out. I previously wrote a post on why I ever came to live in America in the first place and it was because I ran away from war (Read: Why Did I Move To America? I Ran Away From War). Ramat Gan, along with a few other cities in the area, got hit with bombs the worst.

I was only 6 years old when the war broke out and I already had to learn that the world was a scary and unsafe place (imagine your kids growing up like that). I had to walk around with a box everywhere that had inside my gas mask. This was everywhere: to school, to play at friends house, to a restaurants and of course at home. My dad at the time, was serving in the Israeli Army and I was left at home with my mother and my 3 year old brother, running to bomb shelters and also staying in our padded room in the house because of a chemical threat, waiting for the sirens to end. At one point, a bomb exploded a half a mile near my house, when my parents decided to bravely move to America to give us a better life. My story is one of many Israelis that have to live under these threats on a everyday base. YES, an everyday base.

Israel is under constant threat EVERY SINGLE DAY

Even if and when, we think wars are over because they aren’t technically called “wars”, Israel is under constant threat all day, every day. Even when Israelis think it’s safe to get on a bus, shop at the mall, dine at their favorite cafes, visit the Western Wall in Jerusalem or do simple things like celebrate holidays or go to synagogue, they all know in the back of their heads that nothing is really safe. All these places have been bombed by terrorist many MANY times on random occasion, when we, the Israelis thought it’s “safe”. There has been massacres that happened on so many occasions, it’s almost hard to grasp. Each story worse than the previous one. Palestinians and other Arabs, have gone on buses and blown themselves up along with innocent men, women and children. They have walked in on families celebrating holidays and stabbed, shot and murdered entire families including babies. A whole family’s existence erased in a snap of a finger.

Although I left Israel at a young age, that didn’t mean I didn’t visit Israel almost every year. Even on my vacations, something that’s suppose to let you relax and escape reality, wasn’t safe. A few years after I left Israel, before buses were getting blown up everyday sometimes 2 to 3 times a day for a few years, my mom, brother and I were waiting at a bus station in Tel Aviv. My brother was a kid then and needed to use the restroom badly. Annoyed with him not holding it in, we took him to the restroom and when we got back to the bus station we waited and waited. Then a man at the shop near us said, “Why are you guys waiting? You didn’t hear what happened? That bus just got blown up”. Shocked, scared, mortified and feeling a little blessed that my little brother basically just saved our lives, we cried with mixed emotions. We could have been on that bus! We could have just died! Since that day, I’m scared to even get close to buses in Israel by car, on the chance that it might blow up. Again, the reality of the people living in Israel.

Educate yourself, then form an opinion

Israel has done so much for this world, it’s almost unreal to me how little credit they get. It upsets me and frustrates me on how little the rest of the world really thinks about us. I am so sick of hearing uneducated people with such little knowledge, voice their opinion on something they have no idea about. Their thoughts and opinions are strictly formed by the media, which let me reveal a little secret to you all, the media lies all the time! Weather it’s about celebrities or world news. Why doesn’t the media report that Hamas murders it’s own people daily. Can you imagine if the US government was murdering thousands of Americans and no media reported it. That would be inhumane, but somehow it happens in Gaza and no one seems to care.

Have you really seen what Gaza looks like? Here are a few photos to help you understand how terrible it is to live in Gaza. These are all from Gaza. Kind of looks like Tel Aviv, but it isn’t, it’s the Gaza Strip.

I am so sick of hearing that Israelis murder innocent Palestinians. Do you have any idea how Israel really treats the Palestinians?! Half of the images that are floating around the internet are fake. Many have been identified as fake Israeli army uniform.

When have you last heard of an Israeli causing a terrorist attack? Never! It’s not what we Jews believe in. As Jews, we value each and every single life so strongly and preciously, that we are willing to do anything to save a single life, including trading over 1000 Palestinians prisoners for the life of 1 Jew, which we have in the past on more than one occasion.

How Israel REALLY treats the Palestinians

To start, Israel provides the Palestinians with EVERYTHING! Food, medicine, water, electricity and medical care. What other country do you know that gives these kinds of benefits to people who want to erase their existence? To top it all off, if a terrorist does an attack and doesn’t die, we actually take him straight to the hospital and give him full health benefits, something that a place like America doesn’t even do to their own citizens. The Palestinians terrorist who make it out alive or that were caught before a terrorist attack happened, are then kept in prison with the best benefits any country in the middle east offers, if not most countries.

To bring you in on a little history, Israel won every war that was ever fought for their country with all it’s previous enemies. We have since given land to the Palestinians. Land that wasn’t won in a normal war, land that was given to them in order to create peace and still, it isn’t enough for them because they want it all and won’t stop until they wipe Israel off the map, which will never happen.

Let’s put aside the Palestinians for a second and focus on what Israel has done for the world.

What has Israel done for the world? 

For starters, I’ll start off by stating the fact that Israel is the ONLY democratic country in the middle east. Israel is the largest immigration absorbing nation in the world and of course, is one of the smallest countries in the world. Since the founding of it’s country, Israel has more Noble Prizes per capita, than any other country. Israel is the #1 country for growing trees, in an area with 60% desert and it’s also one of the most Eco-friendly countries in the world. 93% of Israeli homes, use solar energy, the highest percent in the world. Israeli’s scientific research institutions are ranked #3 in the world and ranked #2 in the world for space sciences. Israel leads the world, ranking #1 for medical equipment. It’s the #1 leading country for startups like Whatsapp, Viber and Waze. Israeli’s invented the USB flash drive, the iron dome, PillCam, cherry tomato and much more. It is the only country in the middle east that proudly accepts the gay community, currently leading at the #2 spot for the biggest gay pride week in the world with over 200,000 people attending. Although it’s one of the smallest countries in the world, it has one of the strongest army in the world, if not THE strongest army in the world.

Any time there are natural disasters, Israel is the first to show up with the biggest aid team. If you look back at recent events like the Nepal”s earthquake, Israel sent out the most help than any other country in the world! This also happened when the Haiti and Turkey earthquake happened. Yes, we helped Turkey, although they aren’t the biggest fans of us.

and yet in some places in the world, much more recently, people try to boycott Israel and Israeli products, little do they know that when they are sick or have a loved one who is in the hospital, chances are they are using Israeli man made equipment or other things they have no idea of. But, yet, somehow people want us gone. Israel has done so much for this world and it never gets enough credit for all the good it has done.

Back to the Palestinians and Gaza

Everything we do as a nation and as a country we do with the highest of morals. Did you know that before the IDF (Israeli Defense Force military) bombs a location in the Gaza Strip, we let them know! We actually give them time to save their lives. We even have planes drop off thousands of paper messages letting them know that the area isn’t safe and to evacuate, which is a lot more than I can say about their own leaders, Hamas.

NO country in the world, warns the people/enemies before they bomb the area. NONE. Hamas forces their citizens to stay at their homes, held at gun point if they try to leave. They force them to be killed either way, so that they can blame it  on Israel and we get blamed for murdering poor innocent civilians. Hamas throws bombs from hospitals, schools and civilians houses so that Israel bombs the location where it came from. That is a nation of NO morals! What’s so ever! It’s disgusting. Plane and simple. Obama gave Gaza over a few hundred million dollars for aid to fix Gaza, after the Protect Edge War and they did nothing with it, but buy more weapons. They didn’t fix any of the homes that were lost during the war.

As sad as it may be to some, myself included, that Palestinians are being killed, you all have to understand that from the day they are born they are taught to hate Jews. No where in the Quran does it EVER say hate Jews or kill Jews, it’s all made up. They are taught military skills from as little as the age of 3 years old! Do you understand how insane that is?! How sad and unnatural it is, that instead of living life like a kid should, by playing with toys, they are taught to hate and kill. It’s heartbreaking.

When a Palestinians mother loses her beloved son or daughter to a terrorist attack that they caused, instead of mourning his or her death she celebrates! Claps, cheers and has a feast with her family and friends. Do you realize how sick that is?! She is honored by Hamas for raising such a brave and good kid and gets paid for her child going out and murdering a bunch of Jews. Children. Women. Husbands, brothers, sisters, grandparents, someone’s best friend or fiance. It’s just insane to even begin to understand.

You cant negotiate with terrorist or have peace when one side wants to erase your existence, that’s what peace means to them.

Even this week, almost every single day, there was a terrorist attack caused by Palestinians in Israel, stabbing a police officer to death or a different day stabbing an innocent civilian. Where is the media on that? MIA as usual. It seems the only thing the media is ever covering is what we do to them, never what they have done to us. I think it’s important to remember that every story has 2 sides to it and also to take into consideration that there are 26 Muslim countries in the world and over 1.6 billion Muslims, that want us all dead and only 1 Jewish state with only 13 million Jews in the world. So it honestly doesn’t surprise me why Israel gets all the bad media, you do the math, think of how little our opinion and our side is being heard.

I don’t think all Palestinians are bad.

I have many Arab friends and I’ve had encountered a few Palestinians during my travels, some that even helped me find my way back to my hotel in Barcelona and were the sweetest of people. Sadly, they aren’t all like that and it’s a shame.

I’m sure there are a lot of Palestinians that do really want peace and that don’t all hate us. I speak for the Jews because I know of many that do agree with me, we don’t want to live under constant threat and we do want peace and I think it’s horrible that we all have to live under these circumstance.

Overall, all I’m trying to say is…

open your eyes! Look around you. Educate yourself. Don’t be ignorant. Get the facts straight, don’t judge without getting both sides of the story, just like you wouldn’t if your 2 friends were fighting or your parents were fighting. It’s injustice to voice your opinion when only hearing one side of the story. If you were to get bullied and beat on a daily base for years, there would come a point where you would have to make a stop to it, otherwise you could die. Although not every attempt that the Palestinians make to murder Israelis and blow up their country is effective or successful, doesn’t mean it’s not as bad for us too. If California was getting bombed consistently from Mexico, do you really think Obama or the American army wouldn’t attack them?! If that were to happen, their wouldn’t even be a place called Mexico. During 9/11, America got attacked in 1 single event and america fought back to a war for YEARS! We get attacked on a daily base with bombs and terrorist attacks and most of the time don’t do anything about it, until it gets to a point where enough is enough.

Just because Israel chooses to invest money into protecting their citizens with things like the iron dome or a siren to warn the citizens to run for cover, doesn’t make it any less scary or dangerous. Israel has done a lot to keep it’s citizens safe so that our death toll is smaller, what’s wrong with that?! On the other hand Hamas has done nothing to protect it’s citizens and in fact, does the complete opposite by using their innocent citizens as human shields.

Israel has the right to defend itself, just like any other country in the world! Be realistic. Think of your country and the country that sides with it, if they ever tried to attack you and throw bombs, you would fight back. It’s your given right to want to live and save your loved ones and country.

Israel has lost over 24,000 people during wars and due to terrorist attacks. The country is only 67 years old! That’s a big number with a country of 6 million Jews and 2 million Arabs.

Israel wants peace, but we can’t have peace until our enemies want it too.

To those who haven’t been yet, Israel is an amazing country to visit and explore. It welcomes all people and treats tourist very well and welcoming. I just wish the rest of the world gave it a chance and saw for themselves how good the Jewish people really are.

I’ll leave you with some powerful words by Golda Meir, Israel’s formal Prime Minister.

Thoughts? Opinions? or attacks?…