The war may be between Israel and Hamas, but the war of words and the fight against rampant antisemitism is right here at home. Fight the fiction and the misinformation with the facts and resources below.
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Quick Facts about the Israeli/Palestinian Conflict
- More than 240 Israelis are being held captive by Hamas terrorists. They include peace activists, young mothers, elderly, a nursing baby, a teen with disabilities and 30 children.
- There is no equivocation or justification that can excuse the brutality and heinous murder of 1,400 innocent civilians committed by Hamas.
- Israel has every right — indeed an obligation — to defend itself, its citizens, and to ensure that Hamas can never attack Israeli civilians again.
- Hamas is responsible for the death and suffering of innocent civilians in Gaza. Hamas started this war and then hides from it embedded in Palestinian civilian neighborhoods. The world must hold Hamas responsible for this sad reality.
- The Jewish people do not celebrate the suffering of the Palestinians.
- Israel does not occupy Gaza. Israel left Gaza in 2005 and Gaza has been controlled by Hamas since 2007.
- Hamas is a recognized terrorist organization. Its charter calls for killing Jews, destroying Israel and establishing a fundamentalist Islamist state in its place.
- “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” is a call for the genocide of Jews. It is a call to establish a Palestinian state that replaces the State of Israel—and to eradicate the Jews living there today.
- Hamas does not believe in a two-state solution and never has. The Palestinians have been offered and rejected 6 plans that would have given them their own state.
- Hamas keeps civilians in Gaza in poverty, diverting billions of dollars of international aid and supplies intended for Palestinian civilians to purchase and manufacture weapons and construct underground tunnels to smuggle terrorists and weapons into Israel.
- 80% of Gaza’s population lives in poverty while Hamas has a $500 million investment portfolio and a $350 million military budget. Hamas’ political leadership lives in luxury in Qatar.
- Hamas terrorists have fired more than 8,500 missiles toward Israel since October 7. Every one of those rockets was paid for with international dollars intended to aid Palestinian civilians.
- Gaza has a border with Egypt—which Egypt always could open to give Palestinians shelter. Hamas destroyed the other gateways to Gaza from Israel.
- Israel does not intentionally target civilians. Israel takes great pains to avoid harming civilians, with measures such as maintaining safe corridors for people to migrate away from the bombing.
- Hamas regularly uses civilians as human shields and embeds its command centers and military operations within hospitals, mosques, schools, commercial districts, and neighborhoods.
- There is no Israeli “apartheid.” Arab citizens in Israel have equal rights, are elected to the Knesset (Israeli parliament) and sit on Israel’s Supreme Court.
- Israel provides equal rights for people of all faiths, genders and backgrounds. In Gaza and many Middle Eastern countries, women, minorities and members of the LGBTQ community are persecuted. Tel Aviv annually hosts one of the largest Pride Parades in the world.
- Jews aren’t colonizers—they are Israel’s indigenous people and have lived in Israel for 4,000 years.
- Archeological digs in Israel have unearthed ancient scrolls written Hebrew—the same language Israeli Jews speak today—describing the same Jewish rituals observed today.
9 Important Facts about the Israel‑Gaza War
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