We are a unique people

The problem isn’t that Israel has power. It’s that we don’t use it the way the world expects us to.

Most people are accustomed to nation-states that, once they acquire power, seek expansion: land, wealth, control.

History is full of empires built on taxes, gr*ed, ensl*vement, c*nquest, forced religion, s*bjugation, and hegemony.

But the State of Israel doesn’t fit that model.

We are not fighting to become an empire.

We already have power.

We have the minds, the innovation, the technology, the allies, the a*my, and the resilience to do far more than we do.

And what we want is remarkably simple: to live in peace.

That is what confuses people.

In a world that insists on reading everything through the blunt lens of oppressor and victim, Israel doesn’t compute.

Black-and-white frameworks collapse here.

We are not interested in lands that aren’t ours.

We are not interested in dominating anyone else’s future.

We build: ideas, technologies, medical advances, sustainable systems; things that quietly make the world better.

We build we*pons only to protect ourselves, not to rule others.

We are not interested in converting you to our religion or exporting our way of life.

We want to live in our ancient homeland.

Celebrate our holidays in peace.

Be good neighbors and reliable allies.

Study, argue, create, build families, and imagine a future.

We are a people coming home from exile, still figuring out who we can be when survival is no longer theoretical, but never guaranteed.

So if Israel doesn’t make sense through TikTok soundbites or campus slogans, that isn’t surprising.

It requires denying history, ignoring facts, and usually never having set foot here.

Because we are a unique people.

And Israel is a singular place.

We are, quite literally, modern Maccabees, forced to defend ourselves against those who would d*stroy us, while refusing to become what history trained us to fear.

As Chanukah draws to a close, I feel this daily.

I live in Modi’in, the hometown of the ancient Maccabees.

This Friday night, my husband went just outside our neighborhood to one of the oldest known synagogue sites in Israel; an archaeological Hasmonean site.

On Shabbat Chanukah, hundreds of people gather there to pray, just as our ancestors once did, lighting a menorah before Shabbat begins.

We live in the same hills.

Walk the same land.

Carry the same story forward.

It's so odd when my posts are slathered in v*le antiz*onist lies.

They make no sense because our lives here speak for themselves.

Chanukah doesn’t ask the world to agree with us.

It asks us to remember who we are, and to live accordingly.

And we do.