42.6 F
New York
Friday, March 29, 2024

Winning the Information War: History is our Arsenal

Related Articles

-Advertisement-

Must read

Jewish students on America’s high school and college campuses are constantly deluged with pernicious anti-Israel messages by a burgeoning movement dedicated to the destruction of the Jewish State.
Jewish students on America’s high school and college campuses are constantly deluged with pernicious anti-Israel messages by a burgeoning movement dedicated to the destruction of the Jewish State.
The Jewish community is becoming increasingly aware of the fact that high schools and colleges are turning Jewish youth into Israel’s strongest castigators. As modern orthodox Jews who study in a New York City public high school, we can certainly appreciate this threat. In our classrooms, there is a very clear anti-Israel attitude. To remedy this issue, the Jewish community has doubled-down on its effort to teach its youth “Jewish values.” This is a good start, but will not solve the problem. Teaching our youth Jewish history is the only way to give them the confidence they need to call themselves Zionists, and better yet, fight on Israel’s behalf.

Prevalent anti-Zionism on college and high-school campuses is widely accepted. The Institute for the Study of Global Anti-Semitism and Policy has identified this as one of the primary reasons that Israel is losing ground on the “battlefield of ideas.” This is something we’ve had a lot of firsthand experience with, since most of our friends and teachers are anti-Israel. They complain that Israel persecutes its Palestinian population, and condemn it as an occupying force in the West Bank. They do so out of ignorance, not out of malice. Most are unable to explain what “Palestinian persecution” actually involves, and are baffled to learn that Israel has offered the Palestinians a State at least four times, and that these offers have been consistently rebuffed.

In response to the peddling of this anti-Israel narrative in our schools, many leaders of the Jewish community have proposed that Jews need to be “proactive” in defending Israel. If we acknowledge and confront the problem, they argue, we can mitigate its effects. But we are not doing so; we’re replacing critical facts with unresponsive bombast. This approach is best embodied by the annual AIPAC Schusterman High School Summit, where emphasis is placed on rhetoric (“Israel shares our values”) as opposed to facts (“Israel’s security fence on the West Bank resulted in 90% decrease in terrorist attacks”). By relying on the same tactics as their opponents, empty catch phrases, AIPAC leaves students unprepared for what can only be described as an information war. This is strategy is a house of cards. It will collapse as soon as students hear their friends chanting different slogans (“end the occupation!”).

Since the AIPAC summit, both of us have done a considerable amount of self-reflection. What gives us such an unwavering confidence in the State of Israel? What drives us to fight for Israel? Why have we been able to withstand the pressure to label Israel as the enemy, while our peers have not? The answer we came up with is that our robust study of Jewish history has given us the courage of our convictions.

Indeed, the battle for Israel is largely a battle to define the past. Professors influence their students by teaching them about the Durban Conference, but not about Israeli offers of a Palestinian state in 1937 (the Peel Commission), 1947 (UN partition plan), 2000 (Camp David), and 2008 (Olmert Plan).They teach about the Intifadas, but not about suicide bombers and anti-Semitism. In George Orwell’s 1984 he aptly notes “he who controls the past controls the future.”

Our training for this information war occurred in 8th grade, when we both studied under Dr. Judy Sokolow. Though we didn’t know it then, her non-partisan and in-depth coverage of every aspect of Israeli history gave us an arsenal that we have built upon ever since. Unlike its enemies, the Jewish people don’t need to rely on empty rhetoric. The facts are our best weapon.

Obviously, teachers like Dr. Sokolow are one-of-a-kind and most Jews will never sit in a six-month long Jewish history class. So if Dr. Sokolow is special-ops, we need foot soldiers – a feasible and accessible alternative that can be applied on a nation-wide scale. WriteOn for Israel, an organization dedicated to developing pro-Israel Jewish leaders through monthly full-day sessions about Zionist and Israeli history and culminates in a trip to Israel, appears to offer a working model. We should invest our resources in developing more such programs. But though strong, it is a model that even if expanded to ten times its current size, would reach a tiny fraction of America’s young Jews. We need more.

Jewish organizations should put together an impartial Jewish history curriculum and lobby universities and high schools to teach this curriculum alongside their current materials. Zionists also need to get vocal – being ‘active’ isn’t enough. Jewish leaders (youth and establishment) should challenge anti-Israel professors and students to public debates. The facts are on our side, so let’s use them. Social media campaigns require funding, but if they are content-based (as opposed to rhetoric only), they can be immensely powerful.

The most effective way to teach our youth about Israeli history is for parents to teach their children. Remembering our roots has always been an integral part of Jewish culture – from telling the story of the Exodus on Passover, to reading the Torah annually. All Jews, no matter how observant or secular they might be, should spend time teaching their children the facts, because if they don’t, they might wake up one day to find their Jewish child locked in arms with fellow protestors during Apartheid Week at their college. They’ll proudly brag about their open-mindedness. “I’m Jewish, and even I know that Zionist is racism,” they’ll say.

The authors are students in New York City and frequent contributors to the Huffington Post.

 

balance of natureDonate

Latest article

- Advertisement -