We will not ask for permission to survive

By David Mildenberg Posner

The widespread antisemitic protests, the untethered vitriol directed at Israel and Jews world wide, the shear scale of such things, leaves us all drowning in a sea full of blood thirsty sharks. The level of ignorance and antisemitism is such, that it exposes the catastrophic failure of the world's leadership and its institutions, of its educational systems and putrid academia, but most notably, the absolute erosion of decency and goodness within the core of society.

It is absolutely absurd that Israel must defend itself for defending itself

Since its inception as a state, its sworn enemies have gone to great lengths to rid Israel of all its Jews. For years we have been cautious and have been apologetic for taking action against the existential threat that is Islamo-Fascism, for protecting our borders, for simply wanting what any other democracy in the world wants: security so that its people can live in peace. It is absolutely absurd that Israel must defend itself for defending itself, that it be blamed for the living conditions of the Palestinian people who have chosen their allegiances and the leadership that has robbed them of vast international funds. They have failed once and again to accept living in peace with Israel, and those who ignore their rejections or fail to condemn them are complicit with their suffering.

For those who are cheering for our destruction, for the dissolution of our state, for the liberation of the world of the "Jewish problem": During the holocaust we survived by fleeing, during the inquisition we survived by disguising ourselves, but we’ve also left historical precedent of battle and resistance. We own the story of the Maccabees who overcame the Seleucid Empire, and we also own the story of Masada, where almost 1000 Sicarii preferred to take their own lives than to give in to the Romans. We, the Jewish people of today, are not the lambs that were taken to the gas chambers by the Nazis on the wheels of the world's complicit silence.

We will not ask for permission to survive, as we have done for millennia. We will not tolerate having to hide our identities ever again. So while much of the world is silent, or even complicitly promoting false narratives on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, applauding Hamas for slaughtering Jews and claiming they are militants resisting occupation and apartheid, the truth is simple and in plain sight: The objective of Israel's neighbors, its "peace partners", has always been the extermination of the Jews. Well, we won't have it. Not any longer. We will never again be slaughtered without a fierce fight, and like the Maccabees or like the Sicarii in Masada, Israel, the sole guarantor of the security of the Jewish people, will be victorious or will go down trying.