Starr is a marketing professional who lives in Del Mar.
I am Israeli American, as are my husband and children. I live in San Diego and we raised our children here. With over 60 relatives in Israel and a daughter in Tel Aviv, on a gap year, we’re on edge, as the current war continues. My 18-year-old wakes to explosions at night and runs to the shelter when the sirens blare. We are praying for an end to the violence.
In 1939, my dad’s family fled its home in Poland when it was told the Jews would be killed by the Nazis if they didn’t leave. My dad was 5, the youngest of four children. My dad’s family left for Bialystok hoping to find safety. Four years later, still refugees, and fearing the worst, my dad’s parents left my dad and two siblings in a monastery in Uzbekistan where they were promised shelter and food.
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My dad and over 1,000 other orphaned Jewish children were found in 1943 and gathered in Tehran for a voyage that took them to Karachi, then Egypt, and to their final destination and safety in Israel. The group was known as the Children of Tehran. My dad and the other children were raised in various children’s villages in Israel. After serving in the Israeli Army, my dad emigrated to the United States. His sisters and their children and grandchildren all live in Israel.
The Nazis were behind the hatred of Jews back then. This hatred has plagued the Jewish people with murder and expulsions from our homes since biblical times. Hamas and Hezbollah continue that hatred today in the Middle East. Hamas, recognized by the U.S. and Europe as a terrorist organization, wages war on Israel because, in its own words, its members hate Jews and will not accept the existence of the Jewish country, Israel.
Palestinians suffer because they have no legitimate leadership. Israel suffers because Hamas goes unchecked and rains terror and evil. And so it goes, year after year. Since Israel’s founding in 1948, as a Jewish country established by the United Nations, some Palestinians chose to stay, building businesses, educating their children and serving in Israel’s government. They have enjoyed some privileges and liberties similar to our own in the United States. No democracy, not even ours, is perfect, but Israelis and Palestinians work to overcome their challenges and strive for unity.
Read more San Diego opinions on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict:
There is clarity here about light and darkness, good and evil. Hamas, in Gaza, compensates Palestinians who kill Jews. It teaches Palestinian children to hate Jews. It threatens and oppresses any who are different, including LGBTQ individuals and Christians. The U.S. media ignores the violence initiated by Hamas and worse legitimizes the violence as somehow justified. There is no moral equivalency about this war and we, the general public, should hold the media to task. Hamas’ charter seeks to drive the Jews into the sea: simply put, this is genocide. The media should call out Hamas’ intentional use of Palestinian women and children as human shields and Hamas’ threats against Palestinians who seek peace or collaboration with Israel.
We can be pro-Israeli and pro-Palestinian and support Israel, a democratic safe haven for both. The Palestinians’ plight continues, and their reliance on Hamas, whose mission is focused on death and destruction, holds everyone hostage and leaves Israel with terrible options. Israel’s former Prime Minister Golda Meir once said, “[w]hen peace comes we will perhaps in time be able to forgive the Arabs for killing our sons, but it will be harder for us to forgive them for having forced us to kill their sons.”
This sentiment drives one of the most moral armies in the world as the Israel Defense Force, the IDF, tries to preserve Palestinian civilian lives by targeting Hamas terrorists and weaponry. The Israelis leaflet Gaza before bombing. They bomb buildings used to target Israel, but warn civilians and give them time to depart, first. Meanwhile, Hamas targets every Christian, Muslim and Jewish civilian in Israel. Hamas also kills many Palestinians along the way, when some of Gaza’s rockets fall directly down into Gaza after being fired.
My grandparents would be as devastated as I am to learn their great-granddaughter must run for shelter from hatred and a deadly war raining down terror. This time those bombs fall not only on her, as a Jew, but on her Christian and Muslim neighbors as well. It’s a somber reminder that we must stand up to evil to get to peace and I pray we will get there soon.
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May 20, 2021 at 04:46AM
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Opinion: My 18-year-old daughter in Tel Aviv wakes to explosions at night and runs to the shelter - The San Diego Union-Tribune
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