We are taking our power back!

This blog post currently appears in The Times of Israel:

http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/we-are-taking-our-power-back/

I don’t know about you but I am angry. Anti-Semitism has reached alarming levels on a global scale that we have not seen since pre-World War 2 and some of the invective is worthy of Der Sturmer circa 1938. From the United States to South Africa, France to Australia, Jews are being singled out for persecution.  Facebook has become a battlefield where the lines have become clearly demarcated and many can claim losing life-long “friends” due to differing opinions. Twitter has brought the worst out in twits who tweet nasty. Some twit called me “a bimbo who should change my handle to occupier Barbie”. Hey, I have been called worse! It is merely symptomatic of something far more nefarious.

I have a message for all the haters and intolerators (dig my rhyming skills? Yes, I know it is not an actual word but hey, creative licence!) and it goes something like this:

To those who say we as Jews have no right to a country of our own I say, we are taking our power back

To those who say that we have no right to organize ourselves politically and call it Zionism, I say we are taking our power back.

To those who call for our destruction, we take our power back.

To those who are outraged at our audacity to defend ourselves, we take our power back.

To those who call our army and security forces “war criminal” and “baby killer”, we take our power back.

To those who intimidate and threaten our Muslim, Druze, Christian and other non-Jewish citizens of Israel, we take our power back.

To those who intimidate and threaten our many non-Jewish supporters around the world, we take our power back.

To those who get hysterical because we don’t rack up those high casualty numbers in a time of war, we take our power back.

To those world bodies and organisations who focus their attention on the State of Israel and pass a disproportionate (yup, I used THAT word) amount of resolutions against us, we take our power back.

To those who call Israel an Apartheid state, negating the suffering of the millions of South Africans who lived under this heinous regime, we take our power back.

To those who think that chanting hate speech at protest rallies intimidates and shames us, we are taking our power back.

To those who draw a moral equivalence between Israel and terror organisations, we are taking our power back.

To those who call for Boycotts, Sanctions and Divestment, causing more harm than good to the Palestinian people, who you purport to help, we are taking our power back.

To those who try to camouflage their ill-disguised hatred behind the concept of human rights, you are transparent and we take our power back.

To those who take their anger and hatred out on Jewish community members across the world in museums, synagogues and schools, we are taking our power back.

And finally, to the world media who can’t be bothered to fact check, provide balanced coverage or would rather turn a complicated situation into sensationalistic tabloid style journalism in order to get those ratings, I hold you responsible for a lot of the insanity we are experiencing right now. We take our power back!

We will stand up against you at protests and rallies. We will wear our religious insignia proudly. We will call our name Zionist. We will proudly purchase and support Israeli industry. We will use every platform at our disposal to fight your invective. We have learnt from our historical experience and the hideous double standard that is applied to us at the expense of those who deserve the attention we receive.

A large part of taking your power back is just showing up. This is why it is important to be armed with facts and disseminate and speak them as far and as often as possible.  We cannot abdicate responsibility anymore by saying it is the work of the government or politicians. We are all responsible for each other.

You detractors, you haters, you intolerators, you genteel anti-Semites, you out and loud hatemongers – you do not have the power you think you have to intimidate and hurt us.

We have taken our power back.