Contributed by Chloé Valdary, a consultant at CAMERA. This piece has been republished in the Algemeiner.
To the keffiyeh-wearing, American-born university student who insists on lamenting a piece of property lost over sixty years ago:
While you are excellent at competing in the apparently never-ending Oppression Olympics, (and while yours truly can also play this game) it will serve you poorly once you enter the real world. You are no more a refugee of the Levant than I am a refugee of Africa. Stop complaining about the past and instead move forward.
Indeed, you must accept that life is unfair. You will do better if you devote yourself to being the best that you can be instead of harping on the fact that a group of countries failed miserably at stopping the reestablishment of an indigenous state. You lost the war; get over it. You are not a victim. Make something of yourself.
To the E.U., a personal favorite of mine when it comes to contradictory and largely useless entities:
Given your, shall we say, ‘murky’ record of honoring Jewish rights, I have no idea what on earth possessed you to think you would have any right to give commentary on anything regarding the Jewish state, let alone critique it, but you have been woefully misinformed. Your careless financing of the Palestinian Authority with no accountability whatsoever has contributed directly to the misery of the Palestinian people. It has created an environment wherein a kleptocratic enterprise steals millions from Palestinians—your money—and engages in human rights abuses with no oversight and no consequences for mismanagement.
Just to be crystal clear, let me reiterate:
Your policies have contributed directly to the disenfranchisement of the Palestinian people.
Moreover, you have promoted wholesale discrimination against Jews, and you are directly responsible for the growing anti-Jewish animus within your own borders. To admonish your citizens not to attack Jews in your streets while simultaneously stating unequivocally that Jews should be legally banned from walking in the streets of Judea is to commit and promote intellectual perjury and social injustice. You raise monuments to honor the memory of the Holocaust while simultaneously justifying prejudice against Jews in Israel; this is an exercise in historical redundancy and societal regression.
To the solipsistic Jew who thinks that he is so “privileged” that he must call for the “liberation” of Palestinian Arabs, only to come at the expense of denying a life of dignity to his own people, unfortunately some axiomatic truths need to be repeated:
Your people deserve the right to live in their country in peace. They will resist anyone who undermines that right.
Your people deserve the right to live anywhere in their land. And they will resist anyone who undermines that right.
Your people deserve the right to be free of psychopathic homicidal supremacists who want to murder them. And they will resist anyone who undermines that right.
You may think that your genuflecting before the altar of self-aggrandizement will somehow bring you peace; you are delusional. They will murder your own, which you betrayed; and then they will murder you.
To the State of Israel:
It goes without saying that I respect the challenges you face, the complexities of your society, your place in the history of your people, and your existence as the fulfillment of dreams for generations of Jews for thousands of years. Understand that international opinion matters and that you must invest in ensuring your story is told. Narrative is the key to changing the way the game is played. Adopt one.
Do not take it for granted that because your positions on a myriad of issues are morally sound, the world will come to understand and empathize with your perspective. It will not. You must invest more in holding fast to your identity and and proclaiming your truth. Tell your story.
You are free. The constant refrain of your people since 1945 has been ‘Never Again.’
Discover what it is you are never again willing to put up with as a people; then make sure such occurrences never happen again.
Lastly, remember to keep your head up; your people are strong. Your cause is noble. It is the most important of all causes that has ever concerned mankind: Freedom.
Chloé Valdary is a recent graduate of the University of New Orleans and a consultant for CAMERA.