My Turn | A five-minute hero

"Denial of Jewish accomplishment is old. Now it’s simply hate, version infinity," Robert Silverman writes.

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com . Want to purchase today’s print edition? Here’s a map of single-copy locations. Sign up for our daily newsletter here A five-minute hero surprised me.



On Dec. 19, 2023, the Center for Strategic and International Studies published an article stating “The Hamas terrorist attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, will go down as one of the worst terrorist attacks in history.

” This same publication reported that Oct. 7 was “the deadliest per capita terrorist attack since the Global Terrorism Database started data collection in 1970, with a rate of slightly over one person killed per every 10,000 Israelis. This metric adds context for the national impact .

.. and sense of loss for Israel.

As President Biden invoked in his reaction to the attack, it is as if 40,000 to 50,000 Americans had died on 9/11.” Can America imagine 15 9/11s happening at once? Everybody dreams of war ending, except Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran’s supporters; fighters keeping the hostages caged. Four-hundred and two days ago, 251 hostages were taken, with 101 remaining lost, including infants and seniors.

Iran and its proxies, Hamas and Hezbollah, care neither about the rule of law nor anybody’s freedoms. Israel totally withdrew from Gaza in 2005. In 2006, Gaza’s first — and only — election made Hamas its dominator.

Afterward, Hamas discarded voting. On a theory, for 17 years, tens of billions in aid flowed through the United Nations into Hamas’ Gaza. Fungible donations built hundreds of miles of concrete tunnels, some wide enough for vehicles.

Photos showed bombs and weaponry stacked to the ceilings. Hezbollah dominated southern Lebanon, then headed north, incapacitating the entire country. This tragically included ancient Beirut, once designated the Paris of the Middle East.

Ignoring U.N. Resolution 1701, which forbade weapons accumulation within southern Lebanon, Hezbollah built armament stockpiles and hundreds more tunnels, farcically surveilled by U.

N. peacekeepers. The fraudulent U.

N. always ignored Hezbollah’s incessant shelling of northern Israel, which simultaneously rendered the Lebanese people paralyzed and defenseless. The “new Israeli normal” represents 60,000 northern Israelis still prevented from returning to their homes.

The U.N. abandoned Israel long ago, ignoring decades of goodwill during which Israel welcomed Arab leaders and countless families with children into their world-class hospitals.

Willfully unseen was the engineering shared between the Jewish state and many Arab countries, improving agriculture, among other advances. On Jan. 25, 2018, the Times of Israel wrote: “Arab students in Israeli universities grew by 78.

5 percent over the past seven years, according to Israel’s Council for Higher Education.” Denial of Jewish accomplishment is old. Now it’s simply hate, version infinity.

But on Nov. 14, 2023, my five-minute hero showed his face at the Jewish March, where an estimated 290,000 stood in Washington, D.C.

The third-most-powerful Democrat in existence gave the most pro-Zionist speech in American history, then disappeared. Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, this Baptist from Harlem, held the world’s sick heart up to the light. Seemingly, nobody heard him but me.

I’ve waited all year. He never returned. So, here I am giving my five-minute hero his due.

I quote: “The moral Case for Israel is anchored in the painful history of the Jewish people. For centuries, Jews have been persecuted, brutalized by antisemitism and violently thrown out of country after country. “The Jewish people were violently expelled from Jerusalem by the Roman Empire.

The Jewish people were violently expelled from Alexandria. The Jewish people were violently expelled from France. The Jewish people were violently expelled from England.

The Jewish people were violently expelled from Spain. The Jewish people were violently expelled from Switzerland. The Jewish people were violently expelled from Portugal.

The Jewish people were violently expelled from countries all throughout Europe. The Jewish people were violently expelled from the Middle East. The Jewish people were systematically murdered by the Nazi regime.

“The Jewish people were violently attacked by Hamas on Oct. 7, resulting in the largest loss of Jewish life in a single day since the Holocaust. So we are here more than 100,000 people strong to unequivocally declare: Never again.

“The state of Israel must always exist as a safe haven for the Jewish people, and so we stand together with the Jewish community in Israel. We stand together with the Jewish community in America. We stand together with the Jewish community all throughout the world.

“We stand together in the effort to crush antisemitism. We stand together in the effort to crush anti-Jewish hate. We stand together in the effort to bring home the hostages.

“We stand together in the effort to make sure America will always always be a safe space for the Jewish community in every single ZIP code. “God bless the hostages. God bless Israel.

God bless the United States of America.” Instead of throwing Israel — the world’s Jews — under the bus yet again, as too many politicians, clergy and educators still do, Jeffries chose not to play this game. That’s how it’s done.

I don’t care who does it. Pass it on..