On Friday, June 13, I departed from Tel Aviv on one of the last flights out of Israel before the Israel Defense Forces’ (IDF) preemptive strike on Iran. Three hours into the flight, chatter rose as travelers heard from friends and family about nationwide sirens back in Israel. I was only half awake. When we landed, I opened my nearly dead phone and, seeing the news, texted my friends and family that I was safe.
It took a few days to prayerfully process how the Lord had delivered Young Women for America’s (YWA) group of 40 women out of Israel just hours before the country became an active warzone. We spent ten life-changing days in Israel worshipping in the places where Jesus Christ lived and ministered, creating friendships with locals, and learning about all things Israel: history, geography, religion, politics, and the October 7th War.
The night of our last day, we sat together and asked: What does it mean to stand with Israel? As I reflect on our trip, a few things come to mind. And as keffiyeh-clad college students chant genocidal mantras in our streets and universities, I think I ought to share those answers.
First, supporting Israel means praying for and promoting a democratic Jewish state that hosts a free, prosperous, and diverse society in a region much the opposite.
Jews, ultra-orthodox and secular, live freely in Israel. And because Israel is a democratic nation with a Jewish majority, Muslims live freely there, too. Israeli Muslims serve as elected members of the Knesset, and Muslim women are free to marry when they wish, attend universities, and speak in public (none of which is the case in neighboring countries governed by Sharia law). Muslims live and work beside Jews and Christians, and the Muslim call to prayer is heard five times a day in the Old City of Jerusalem. Christians live free from persecution and martyrdom in Israel as well, a rarity in the Middle East.
Secular Israelis live freely in Israel, too. I was surprised to see gay “pride” flags flying in Jerusalem, a stark contrast to the fact that homosexuals are often killed in Sharia governed nations. In Israel’s democracy, citizens can disagree on identity issues; under Islamic regimes, identity issues can be a death sentence.
Israel stands alone in the Middle East as a flourishing stronghold for religious liberty, equal dignity of the sexes, and freedom from Islamic tyranny and Jihadi terror. For the sake of Israel’s diverse society, standing with Israel means supporting its democratic government. The state of Israel is the last of its kind in the Middle East.
Second, standing with Israel means supporting the IDF’s right to defend its country from terrorists seeking genocide against the Jewish people and an indiscriminate conquest of their country.
On day four of our trip, we spent a morning at the Nova Music Festival Victims Memorial where Hamas murdered 378 young Israelis on October 7, 2023. There were too many testimonies to read, and it was hard to focus with machine gun fire and bombs sounding off in the not-too-far away distance.
There at the memorial, a Nova Festival survivor shared his story with us. In the fray of the attack, he managed to run several miles to a Bedouin farm where a Muslim man, now his dear friend, hid him. Eventually, several motorcycles carrying Hamas terrorist demanded to search the farm. The only phrase the survivor recognized in all the Arabic yelling was this one: “Bring me the Jews.”
In that moment, the gravity of the wicked bloodlust that the Jewish people still face struck home for me. We had only just left Yad Vashem, the Israeli Holocaust Museum, days prior with the same feeling. I knew that Hamas wanted the Jewish people dead at any cost, but that was a matter of head knowledge. This survivor’s story made that head knowledge into a chilling heartfelt reality.
Even under existential threats, the joy of the Israeli people is a testament to their strength. When I ate Shabbat dinner with an orthodox family, their hospitality was the same despite the empty seats at their table where other family members once sat. Now, as my Israeli friends spend day in and day out in bomb shelters as Iran deliberately targets civilians, they are dancing and singing just as they would above ground. The survivor we met is one of them.
Standing with Israel means defending the right of the Jewish people to their ancestral homeland where they may flourish in a state free from antisemitism in the wake of the Holocaust and remain safe in a present reality riddled with jihadi attempts at genocide.
So, here is my charge to my fellow Americans. To students and others shouting “from the river to the sea”: you must know you are calling for genocide. What’s more, you are chanting for a genocide against a people who already survived one in the last century. Whether you realize it or not, you are calling for the murder of every man, woman, and child from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea.
To those in the streets screaming for Jihad and “global intifada”: we heard it from Palestinian friends in Israel that your hatred is empty and useless. Palestinians don’t need you to regurgitate Hamas’ rhetoric; Hamas’ first victims are the Palestinian people themselves. From Jerusalem to the West Bank to the kibbutz of the Gaza Envelope, Israeli Arabs and Jews want one thing: peace through dialogue, not war. And for both, that means Hamas must be destroyed. Only when Palestinians get thoughtful, non-violent, and democratic representation will fruitful steps toward peace begin.
On the opposite end of the political spectrum, I must urge conservatives to stand with Israel as it wages war on Iran. Israel’s strikes on Iran’s nuclear sites and top military personnel were long overdue—Iran has waged a proxy war on Israel via funding and arming Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Yemeni Houthis for years. Iran’s money fueled the October 7th attack and the ongoing war which rages on as Israel fights for the return of the remaining 53 hostages.
United States involvement is certainly something to carefully discern and discuss, but it must not be forgotten that Israel’s new conflict deeply concerns the U.S. Seven hundred thousand American citizens live in Israel. The country’s leadership is our only ally in the Middle East, and Israel is singlehandedly taking on a nation whose mantra is “Death to America, Death to Israel, and a Curse Upon the Jews.”
So please: Toss the keffiyehs. Stop screaming for genocide. Appreciate the IDF’s stand against a terrorist state and its proxies. Let’s realize that Israel stands as the last line of defense against numerous bloodthirsty enemies of the West. All in all, the least we can do on this side of the Atlantic is stand with Israel.