Vidya Root

Muslims have to find a way to co-exist with the Jews. There’s only 16 million Jews in the world. They are not a threat. They have no world domination ambitions. They only have one tiny piece of land that they call home. Drop this hatred, this world is big enough for all of us.

My dad, who is a moderate Muslim, finally expressed his concern and asked me, 'Why are you supporting this genocide?' He mentioned that he's stopped looking at his phone because he can no longer bear to watch videos of Palestinian children being bombed by Israel. I replied, 'I empathize with the suffering, and it's not easy for me either.' Then I showed him a photo, and we both agreed on the gravity of the situation in Palestine. I then informed him that the photo was actually of a Yemeni child pulled from the rubble resulting from a Saudi bombing in Yemen. I pointed out that Israel has allegedly killed 7,000 Palestinians, while the Saudis have killed at least 150,000 Yemeni Muslims. Some estimates suggest upto 300,000. How can we call the current conflict a 'genocide' when what the Saudis did is hardly even discussed by Muslims? Don’t get me started on 200,000 Muslims killed by Bashar Al Asad in Syria. He responded that if that's the case, he also disagrees with what the Saudis did. I replied, 'How convenient. Nearly half a MILLION fellow Muslims have been killed by other Muslims, and you didn't even know about it. Yet when Israel retaliates against a terrorist organization that has killed, raped, and maimed 1,500 of its citizens, the whole Muslim world reacts?' It seems to have less to do with preserving Muslim lives and more to do with a religious fantasy of hostility toward Jews.