Orr Ben-Asuli

Yesterday, a film accusing Israel of genocide premiered. It’s a horrific blood libel against our sons and daughters. What makes it especially painful and infuriating is that this lie comes from Israeli filmmakers and is now being spread around the world. Let’s get the facts straight: On October 7th, Hamas invaded Israel to murder Jews. Hamas terrorists slaughtered children in front of their parents and parents in front of their children. They burned homes, raped women, and kidnapped babies, children and elderly people. Then Hamas fled back to Gaza and deliberately hid behind its own civilians, using them as human shields in homes, schools, and hospitals. And when Israel fights back, and civilians are tragically killed in this terrible war, Israel is accused of “genocide.” There is no magic button that can destroy Hamas, or any terrorist organization hiding behind civilians, without harming a single civilian. It simply does not exist. In interviews with the international media, I always ask: “What would you do?” They never have an answer. If Israel wanted to hurt the people of Gaza, we would not send our sons and daughters to fight house to house, through alleyways and tunnels, at the terrible cost of our own soldiers being killed and wounded. We would not warn civilians before strikes and evacuate them from combat zones. We would not help vaccinate hundreds of thousands of children in Gaza against polio. The war in Gaza is terrible. The death of every child is a tragedy. But a terrible war is not genocide. Even now, Hamas doesn’t regret October 7th. It’s rearming and waiting for another opportunity to carry out a massacre. The people standing between us and that next massacre are our soldiers and reservists. Our sons and daughters who put their lives at risk so that we can live here safely. I love them. I am proud of them. And I am deeply grateful to them. To portray them as perpetrators of “genocide” is not courageous art. It is a cowardly blood libel. And I will not remain silent.