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We Should Fight the Hatred and Envy of Israel By Recommitting Ourselves to Supporting It
Some 550 new immigrants from the Bnei Menashe community visited the Western Wall for the first time on March 9, 2022. Photo: Yehoshua Halevi/Courtesy of Shavei Israel.
There is a moral decay that has damaged the fabric of American society. We can see its effects on the newly minted, indoctrinated university elite, who perceive the one Jewish state in the world as the sole source of all the problems in the Middle East. Despite Hamas’ massacre on October 7, and the multiple wars of annihilation launched by the Arab world against Israel, the same privileged elites view Israel’s seven million Jews as the oppressor, and Islam’s 1.9 billion adherents as the oppressed.
Interestingly, the hypocritical well-funded and organized “moral mob” never calls for the release of the hostages, including women and children, nor do they demand that Hamas surrender. Cowardly university administrators routinely cow-tow to faculty, students, and a horde of outside agitators, all of whom deny Hamas committed atrocities on Oct. 7, despite videos proudly displayed by the terrorists. In the interest of saving lives, the Biden administration has called on Israel to implement an immediate ceasefire, but is not saying it won’t accept a situation where Hamas remains in power after the war.
According to psychological studies, the strongest motivating forces of human behavior are fear, love, and envy. Of the three, the only negative trait is envy. Thousands of years ago, our sages recognized the destructive nature of envy. The Torah addresses that destructive human attribute and offers a prescription of how to mediate envy’s damaging effects on society. The Tenth Commandment says, “You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, his manservant, his maidservant, his ox, his donkey, nor anything that is your neighbor’s.”
The campus mobs chanting “Death to America” and “Death to Israel” are the pawns of the envious, those individuals and societies that have replaced their innate abilities to create and build what Israel has, with envy. They begrudge the accomplishments of Israel and the Jewish people. When Abraham heeded G-d’s directive: “go yourself from your land, from your birthplace, and the house of your father, to the land that I will show you,” it was a call for Abraham to reject the prevailing practices of his contemporaries. It was an answer to Richard Landes’ question about Jews in his book, Can the Whole World Be Wrong? Abraham left his hometown, Ur Kasdim, thus cutting ties with his country, his city, his neighbors, and family, to seek a better way of life.
Which brings me back to Israel. Israel’s absorption of refugees from Russia, Europe, Africa, and Arab lands hostile to Jews, is in stark contrast to Arab states that refuse Palestinians entry and citizenship in their states (even the many refugees that did not leave Israel during the 1948 war). Also, Israel’s success in medicine, science, and agriculture shows that inquisitions, pogroms, and the atrocities of the Holocaust do not have to decide a people’s fate.
Israel debunks the Marxist oppressor-oppressed narrative because it proves that a people can flourish, despite the deprivations and disadvantages of systemic racism and antisemitism.
Today more than ever, Israel needs Jews as much as Jews need Israel. There is a Hebrew expression, Kibbutz Galiyyut, it refers to the in-gathering of exiles from foreign lands and the return of the Jewish people to their ancestral homeland Israel. Since 1948, it has been the only place that will unequivocally take Jews and where they can truly feel at home.
I close with my opening statement, “there is a moral decay that has damaged the fabric of American society,” and just as G-d directed Abraham to leave Ur Kasdim, a place of bad actors, we too should heed that call and live in Israel, if not in body, then in spirit — by supporting her safety, welfare, and very existence. Understandably, because Israel is not America, she mounts challenges for which Americans are unaccustomed, therefore Israeli life, or one’s personal circumstances, may find that Israel is not for everyone, but it is comforting to know she is there for every one of us.
Steve Wenick, upon retiring from IBM as an IT analyst, took up blogging and writing articles of Jewish interest. His book reviews and articles have appeared in The Jerusalem Post, Times of Israel, and the Jewish Voice of South Jersey. He lives with his wife in Voorhees, New Jersey.
The post We Should Fight the Hatred and Envy of Israel By Recommitting Ourselves to Supporting It first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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After False Dawns, Gazans Hope Trump Will Force End to Two-Year-Old War
Palestinians walk past a residential building destroyed in previous Israeli strikes, after Hamas agreed to release hostages and accept some other terms in a US plan to end the war, in Nuseirat, central Gaza Strip October 4, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Mahmoud Issa
Exhausted Palestinians in Gaza clung to hopes on Saturday that US President Donald Trump would keep up pressure on Israel to end a two-year-old war that has killed tens of thousands and displaced the entire population of more than two million.
Hamas’ declaration that it was ready to hand over hostages and accept some terms of Trump’s plan to end the conflict while calling for more talks on several key issues was greeted with relief in the enclave, where most homes are now in ruins.
“It’s happy news, it saves those who are still alive,” said 32-year-old Saoud Qarneyta, reacting to Hamas’ response and Trump’s intervention. “This is enough. Houses have been damaged, everything has been damaged, what is left? Nothing.”
GAZAN RESIDENT HOPES ‘WE WILL BE DONE WITH WARS’
Ismail Zayda, 40, a father of three, displaced from a suburb in northern Gaza City where Israel launched a full-scale ground operation last month, said: “We want President Trump to keep pushing for an end to the war, if this chance is lost, it means that Gaza City will be destroyed by Israel and we might not survive.
“Enough, two years of bombardment, death and starvation. Enough,” he told Reuters on a social media chat.
“God willing this will be the last war. We will hopefully be done with the wars,” said 59-year-old Ali Ahmad, speaking in one of the tented camps where most Palestinians now live.
“We urge all sides not to backtrack. Every day of delay costs lives in Gaza, it is not just time wasted, lives get wasted too,” said Tamer Al-Burai, a Gaza City businessman displaced with members of his family in central Gaza Strip.
After two previous ceasefires — one near the start of the war and another earlier this year — lasted only a few weeks, he said; “I am very optimistic this time, maybe Trump’s seeking to be remembered as a man of peace, will bring us real peace this time.”
RESIDENT WORRIES THAT NETANYAHU WILL ‘SABOTAGE’ DEAL
Some voiced hopes of returning to their homes, but the Israeli military issued a fresh warning to Gazans on Saturday to stay out of Gaza City, describing it as a “dangerous combat zone.”
Gazans have faced previous false dawns during the past two years, when Trump and others declared at several points during on-off negotiations between Hamas, Israel and Arab and US mediators that a deal was close, only for war to rage on.
“Will it happen? Can we trust Trump? Maybe we trust Trump, but will Netanyahu abide this time? He has always sabotaged everything and continued the war. I hope he ends it now,” said Aya, 31, who was displaced with her family to Deir Al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip.
She added: “Maybe there is a chance the war ends at October 7, two years after it began.”
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Mass Rally in Rome on Fourth Day of Italy’s Pro-Palestinian Protests
A Pro-Palestinian demonstrator waves a Palestinian flag during a national protest for Gaza in Rome, Italy, October 4, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Claudia Greco
Large crowds assembled in central Rome on Saturday for the fourth straight day of protests in Italy since Israel intercepted an international flotilla trying to deliver aid to Gaza, and detained its activists.
People holding banners and Palestinian flags, chanting “Free Palestine” and other slogans, filed past the Colosseum, taking part in a march that organizers hoped would attract at least 1 million people.
“I’m here with a lot of other friends because I think it is important for us all to mobilize individually,” Francesco Galtieri, a 65-year-old musician from Rome, said. “If we don’t all mobilize, then nothing will change.”
Since Israel started blocking the flotilla late on Wednesday, protests have sprung up across Europe and in other parts of the world, but in Italy they have been a daily occurrence, in multiple cities.
On Friday, unions called a general strike in support of the flotilla, with demonstrations across the country that attracted more than 2 million, according to organizers. The interior ministry estimated attendance at around 400,000.
Italy’s right-wing government has been critical of the protests, with Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni suggesting that people would skip work for Gaza just as an excuse for a longer weekend break.
On Saturday, Meloni blamed protesters for insulting graffiti that appeared on a statue of the late Pope John Paul II outside Rome’s main train station, where Pro-Palestinian groups have been holding a protest picket.
“They say they are taking to the streets for peace, but then they insult the memory of a man who was a true defender and builder of peace. A shameful act committed by people blinded by ideology,” she said in a statement.
Israel launched its Gaza offensive after Hamas terrorists staged a cross border attack on October 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people and taking 251 people hostage.
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Hamas Says It Agrees to Release All Israeli Hostages Under Trump Gaza Plan
Smoke rises during an Israeli military operation in Gaza City, as seen from the central Gaza Strip, October 2, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Dawoud Abu Alkas
Hamas said on Friday it had agreed to release all Israeli hostages, alive or dead, under the terms of US President Donald Trump’s Gaza proposal, and signaled readiness to immediately enter mediated negotiations to discuss the details.