The Intifada is now global—and it’s personal

The Palestinian Intifada has gone global, and it’s no longer something I can compartmentalize as distant or abstract. It’s personal—painfully and repeatedly so.

My connection began over two decades ago, during a semester abroad at Hebrew University in Jerusalem. I ate daily at the Frank Sinatra cafeteria, which, shortly after I returned to the U.S., was attacked by a Palestinian suicide bomber. Nine people were murdered. That was during the Second Intifada, a wave of terror that left an indelible mark on Israelis and Jews around the world.

While living in Washington, D.C. as a student at American University and post-graduation, I was deeply involved in the Jewish and pro-Israel community. I often attended conferences and Jewish community events. Which is why it hit so hard when, just a couple of weeks ago on May 21, two Israeli embassy staffers were murdered after leaving a conference sponsored by a Jewish organization, ironically on the topic of how to achieve peace between Israelis and Palestinians. It’s not a stretch to say that during a different time in my life, I could have been there.

The violence hit even closer to home this past Sunday. My cousins were at the same shopping mall in Boulder, Colorado, just 30 minutes before Mohamed Sabry Soliman allegedly launched a brutal attack—using a homemade flamethrower and Molotov cocktails—on a group of Jewish Americans peacefully protesting for the release of Israeli hostages still held by Hamas. My aunt and uncle had considered meeting them there, but instead stayed home to watch their grandchildren. That decision may have saved their lives. Had they gone, they almost certainly would have joined the protest; they’re deeply engaged in this cause and even hosted a survivor of the Oct. 7 Nova Music Festival massacre at their summer home in Mahopac last year. Twelve Jews were injured in the Colorado attack. These weren’t soldiers. These were American civilians—mothers, fathers, grandparents—standing in a public square, calling for the safe return of innocent hostages, including children.

There are far too many of these incidents in my life for this to remain academic. And yet, somehow, antisemitism from the left is consistently downplayed, excused or ignored—especially when it's couched in anti-Israel rhetoric. I don’t raise this to score political points, but because I genuinely believe that the language coming out of elite academic institutions and progressive activist circles has consequences. The rhetoric on college campuses—where Jews are labeled as oppressors and colonizers—is not just false; it’s dangerous. This kind of language leads to the violence we've seen in our own country over the past few weeks. It mirrors the age-old blood libels that have fueled violence against Jews for centuries. Today, those libels are wrapped in the language of “decolonization” and “liberation,” but the outcome is the same: Jews are once again cast as uniquely evil, and therefore uniquely deserving of harm. I’m tired of seeing our community’s pain acknowledged only when the perpetrator wears a white hood or waves a Confederate flag. But when the hatred comes from a campus protest, a DEI-informed activist group or an anti-Zionist clique, the silence is deafening.

Supporting Israel isn’t a matter of tribal loyalty for me. It’s moral. It’s ethical. It’s logical. Israel is a pluralistic democracy defending itself from a terror group that intentionally targets civilians and uses its own people as shields. No one in the pro-Israel camp I know is blind to the suffering in Gaza. But we do place blame where it belongs: on Hamas.

Hamas has diverted humanitarian aid, built miles of terror tunnels, used hospitals and schools as weapons depots and created a black market for food and medicine. They starve their own people to maintain power. And let’s be honest: the idea that Gaza is starving is not just tragic—it’s politically exploited, manipulated for optics and outrage while ignoring the true cause.

My skepticism of the American pro-Palestinian movement isn’t rooted in hatred—it’s rooted in timing. This movement erupted in full force not in response to Israeli policies or long-standing suffering, but immediately after the Oct. 7 massacre of Jews. That date matters. On that day, Hamas terrorists didn’t just “engage in battle.” They butchered. They raped. They burned babies alive. They shot parents in front of their children—and children in front of their parents. They even murdered family pets. This wasn’t warfare. It was ritualized, sadistic murder.

So yes, I am suspicious of anyone who saw that and chose to support the perpetrators.

And no, I don’t completely accept the distinction between Hamas and “the Palestinians.” Hamas was elected. Polls show the majority of Palestinians either supported the atrocities or deny they occurred. And it wasn’t just Hamas operatives complicit in the hostage-taking. Ordinary Palestinian families have held Jewish captives in their homes. Americans who criticize Israel's actions when Hamas hides behind human shields are being played for fools. When Israel responds to terror launched from hospitals, schools or mosques, it’s branded as committing war crimes. But who put the weapons there in the first place?

Years ago, I visited Gaza. I met people living in what was described as a "refugee camp." I had a Palestinian guide. I saw children playing near crumbling buildings, families eking out survival. I felt sympathy. I still do.

But even then, something didn’t add up. These weren’t refugees in a foreign land—they were born and raised in Gaza. Why were they still living in "camps"? Why had no Palestinian leadership built proper housing, schools, infrastructure? In Israel, Mizrahi Jews—those who fled Arab countries—aren’t kept in camps for generations. They were absorbed, housed, integrated. Why can’t the same happen under Palestinian leadership?

And that brings us to the moral failure of Western progressive movements. The left claims to care about diversity, equity and inclusion—but its lens is distorted, historically illiterate, and grossly oversimplified. It paints Israel as a white colonial project, when in truth Jews have had an unbroken presence in Israel since Biblical times. Many Israeli Jews never stepped foot in Europe. Their ancestors lived in Baghdad, Aleppo, Tehran and Cairo. Others, like the Ethiopian Jews I met while living in Israel, walked across deserts to come home. And they are among Israel’s fiercest defenders.

Meanwhile, Israel is home to a vibrant population of Muslims, Christians and Druze. Arab citizens serve in the Knesset, sit on the Supreme Court and serve in the Israel Defense Forces. Remarkably, in the aftermath of Oct. 7, many Israeli Muslims have reported feeling an even stronger sense of connection to the state of Israel. That’s an important distinction, especially given how misunderstood the region often is. Israel proper—that is, land within the pre-1967 borders—is 100% Israeli territory, fully recognized by the international community. In contrast, in Judea and Samaria (commonly referred to as the West Bank), Jewish “settlers” live among Palestinian communities in contested territory. It’s a tense and complex situation, with a fragile but ongoing level of cooperation between the Israeli government and the Palestinian Authority. But Gaza is different. Gaza is, in essence, a separate political and geographic entity, governed not by the Palestinian Authority but by Hamas—an internationally recognized terrorist organization.

Let’s remember: in 2005, Israel withdrew unilaterally from Gaza. Jews who had built lush farms and communities were forcibly removed by their own government, led by Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, in hopes that Palestinians would take that land and create a peaceful society. Instead, the synagogues were burned. The greenhouses were looted. And Gaza became a launchpad for rockets.

Gaza could be a jewel of the Mediterranean. It has 24 miles of coastline. Trump’s vision for Gaza isn’t wrong: it could be the Riviera of the Middle East. Instead, Hamas chose tunnels over towers, terror over trade.

Americans have been taught to view this conflict as the “big Israel” versus the “tiny Palestinians.” But look at a map. Israel is the speck in a vast sea of authoritarian, theocratic regimes. Israel is the only pluralistic, democratic society in that region. And that is precisely why it is hated.

Here’s what may be hardest to say: Jews have no political home in America today. On the left, we are accused of being white, privileged oppressors—held collectively responsible for Israel’s right to exist. On the right, we are cast as foreign neoconservatives manipulating U.S. policy. We are simultaneously called colonizers and outsiders. Powerful and weak. Globalists and nationalists. It’s no wonder Jews feel like strangers on every side.

In this moment, Jews are forced to explain their own survival. To apologize for their success. To justify their right to exist. Again.

And yet—we persist. Because we know the arc of Jewish history isn’t just a story of suffering. It’s a story of resilience. Of moral clarity. Of deep, unwavering commitment to justice, even when the world loses its way.

I’ve struggled with how to speak out. As a publisher, I carry a professional responsibility to keep our newspaper strong and relevant for all readers. I don’t write this to offend anyone. But I do write it because I believe truth is the highest calling of journalism—and silence in the face of hatred is a dangerous choice.

Recently, I attended a church service—yes, a church. My Jewish identity remains central to who I am, but my spiritual journey has led me to find wisdom in Christian theology as well, which I believe is inextricably connected to Judaism. The message that day focused on the story of Esther. Specifically, Esther 4:14:

“For if you keep silent at this time, relief and deliverance will rise for the Jews from another place, but you and your father's house will perish. And who knows whether you have not come to the kingdom for such a time as this?”

That verse stopped me cold. It’s a call to speak, not to shrink. A reminder that history doesn’t just happen to us—we are part of it.

The history of the Jewish people is the history of civilization itself. A people that brought the world the idea of ethical monotheism, of justice, of law, of compassion. A people whose suffering has so often mirrored the moral failures of the societies around them. Those who align themselves against the Jews are not merely making a political choice. They are choosing the side that, time and time again, has stood against civilization.

History, I believe, is poetic. Jesus’ own life mirrored the Jewish journey: born in Israel, exiled to Egypt, returned home, and ultimately martyred. Why must the Jewish people continue to be martyred to satisfy the world’s ever-shifting conscience?

To those marching in lockstep with Hamas, with the Muslim Brotherhood, with open Jew-haters: understand what you’re choosing. Understand who you’re siding with. And understand that history will remember.

The question is—when history looks back, where will you have stood?