Hillel Fuld is the CMO of Zula, strategic advisor at various startups and startup incubators, startup mentor, and a tech blogger who contributes to sites such as The Huffington Post, Business Insider, Mashable,Gigaom, and others.
You can also read his personal blog at TechNmarketing or watch some of his lectures/interviews at Microsoft,TechCrunch Disrupt, and others on hisYouTube channel.
Ok, here goes.
This is now the third post I’ve written with my thoughts on the current situation in Israel. I deleted the first two.
I sit here reading the minute to minute updates. Literally another attack every minute for days. Depending on how you define the word “Terrorist attack”, there have been anywhere between 75-200 attacks in 48 hours.
I usually say the following sentence in a totally different context but please, let’s not forget that this country is the size of New Jersey. Do I need to finish the thought? Alright. I will. 200 attacks on NJ in two days, what would happen? Don’t answer. Think.
So while many of my friends and colleagues were posting updates on FB all day expressing their opinion, I kept writing and deleting.
You see, I didn’t want to react from my gut. I didn’t want to write while angry and frustrated. So I tried to write objectively and failed. Twice.
But really, as I lay here at 11:45 PM, I cannot not write. I cannot not express my thoughts. So here they are.
But first, let’s just get this out of the way. I do not believe all Muslims are bad, I might even go as far as to say that not all Palestinians are bad. I know, I’m an extreme liberal.
Not all Muslims are bad. My friend and colleague Farhana is a practicing and proud Muslim. She loves Jews more than most Jews I know. She had tears coming down her face when she left Israel from her first visit here. She loves Jews and she loves Israel.
Ok? We good now? Excellent.
Now to my thoughts.
This war we are fighting here has a whopping zero percent to do with some fabricated occupation or some delusional fantasy of a Palestinian state. They say it day and night but we refuse to believe it.
If you’re watching from afar, you may have this perception that Jews came to Israel and demolished the state of Palestine and kicked all the Palestinians out of their homes.
So let me tell you something but sit down, because despite it being factually accurate, it is viewed as an extreme opinion. There never was such a state. Never. Ever.
I am misleading? Ok. Year the Palestinian state was established please? Its president? Borders? National anthem? What’s that? No record? Yes, it never existed. Wait, I’m just getting started.
Ready? The Palestinian people, as we all like to call them, is a figment of someone very special’s imagination. Yasser Arafat, the arch terrorist who started this PLO thing. Yes, he made up the term, not centuries ago, decades ago. Till that day, they never existed.
Great. Now fast forward to 2015. They want a home. We “occupy” their land. Again, what land? But let’s go with the flow.
Gaza! We left. Not one Jew in Gaza!
They are pretty grateful for that. Sent us tens of thousands of thank you gifts in the form of rockets on our heads.
The West Bank? That is the cause of the violence. Someone show me ONE rock thrower, one fire bomber, one stabber who will say the following sentence “If Israel leaves the West Bank, we are good and we will put down our weapons.” ONE!
Doesn’t exist. To them, yes, all of “them”, all of Israel is occupied. How do I know? Because in 1948, the UN gave them a state alongside ours. The plan was called The Partition Plan. Israel, alongside a state for these refugees from surrounding countries, now referred to as Palestinians.
What happened next? They responded. “Nope. No partition. No Israel. Attack!!” And they did. Know what happened next? They lost. That scenario repeated itself several times since then. They had a chance for a state. They attacked. They lost.
So it’s the occupation at the root of the terror?
Because if that’s the case, and again, I repeat, not all Muslims are bad, what do you have to say about this?
The Shoe Bomber was a Muslim
The Beltway Snipers were Muslims
The Fort Hood Shooter was a Muslim
The underwear Bomber was a Muslim
The U-S.S. Cole Bombers were Muslims
The Madrid Train Bombers were Muslims
The Bali Nightclub Bombers were Muslims
The London Subway Bombers were Muslims
The Moscow Theatre Attackers were Muslims
The Boston Marathon Bombers were Muslims
The Pan-Am flight #93 Bombers were Muslims
The Air France Entebbe Hijackers were Muslims
The Iranian Embassy Takeover, was by Muslims
The Beirut U.S. Embassy bombers were Muslims
The Libyan U.S. Embassy Attack was by Muslims
The Buenos Aires Suicide Bombers were Muslims
The Israeli Olympic Team Attackers were Muslims
The Kenyan U.S, Embassy Bombers were Muslims
The Saudi, Khobar Towers Bombers were Muslims
The Beirut Marine Barracks bombers were Muslims
The Besian Russian School Attackers were Muslims
The first World Trade Center Bombers were Muslims
The Bombay & Mumbai India Attackers were Muslims
The Achille Lauro Cruise Ship Hijackers were Muslims
The September 11th 2001 Airline Hijackers were Muslims
Occupation? Statehood?
Islamic terror. Period. Full stop. Anyone who still can’t say out loud that Islamic terror is a global plague at the root of a vast majority of terrorism in 2015 is simply delusional. Harsh.
Oops.
Now to us. Discrimination is bad. Racism is bad. Should I repeat that? Those are bad things. But let me let you in on a little secret.
In war, when you need to figure out how you’ll survive that day without getting stabbed in any of the cities mentioned below, your concern should not be not insulting your enemy or being politically incorrect. It should be unity and survival.
Just a few months ago, we were all so unified when a deranged Jew went on a stabbing rampage in the gay parade and murdered people. We all agreed that was a disgraceful abomination (Yes, using that word intentionally).
Those same people who were so vocal about the horror of murdering innocent people are today silent at best, and searching for self blame, at worst.
“How could they live there?” “Bibi caused all this. He isolated us.” “It’s all Bibi’s fault.” “It’s all the settlers’ fault”. And on and on and on.
What happened to murder and terror is never ever justified ever?
And so the bottom line is, stop focusing on BBC, CNN, the UN, Obama, or anyone else. We got some serious internal issues to work out. We are facing Islamic terror no different or more justified than ISIS. Except most of us don’t know it yet. We, like many “victims” do, continue to blame ourselves here.
Repeat after me; This is not an Israel issue. This is a radical Islam issue. This is not your fault. This is not our fault.
The hypocrisy of the world knows no bounds and at his point, given the knowledge that we have about Obama’s actions, the UN’s declarations, they are literally of no concern to me. They are irrelevant.
So what’s the solution? Recognize the problem. We have a headache and are treating it like a cold. That won’t work.
Recognize the source of it all, and treat it the only way extremism can be treated. With zero mercy, a tight and strong fist, and full force.
You don’t like the sound of that? Then you haven’t realized where you are or what you’re up against.
As for some optimism, these so-called Palestinians, with every boulder they throw, are digging their own grave. The world likes to remind us that we are the stronger side. Yes we are and that is not a reason to feel ashamed. Stand proud. For the first time in history, the Jews are the stronger side.
The world isn’t quite sure what to make of that.
If we own it, they’ll learn to deal with it. Sooner or later.
We will win this. Because we always do.
