The Cult of Death

5-Minute Video Presented by Rawan Osman

You’re either for Western Civilization, or you’re against it.

You must choose a side.

Freedom or barbarism.

Life or death.

It’s that simple.

I say this to Muslims, Christians, Jews, Buddhists, Hindus, Atheists.

Everyone.

October 7, 2023 should have made this crystal clear. We all know what happened on that date: Hamas slaughtered 1,200 innocent Israelis. Adjust for population, and that would be equivalent to the slaughter of 41,000 Americans.

Let me put it this way: You can be religious or secular and love freedom. But you can’t stand against Israel and love freedom, because to stand against Israel is to stand against Western Civilization.

Israel has many strengths and weaknesses. It’s a sometimes wild and messy democracy. But it’s an open society. Stay within the law, and you can say and do what you want. Read what you want. Make your own decisions, good or bad.

That’s called freedom and it’s the bedrock of the Western tradition.

Israel’s enemies, specifically Hamas, want none of these things.

Because Hamas is a death cult.

Most murderers try to hide their crimes. Not Hamas. They filmed what they did: mutilation, rape, arson, murder, abduction. They then posted the footage on social media to further humiliate the Israelis, and to boast among their fellow Islamists in Gaza and around the world.

But Gazans were locked in an “open-air prison,” apologists say. “It was just a natural reaction to oppression.” Aside from the fact that Israel had been out of Gaza for twenty years, the answer to this charge is painfully obvious. Instead of spending billions of donated dollars on tunnels and weapons, Hamas could have used the funds as intended: to build schools, roads, and businesses — in other words, a decent society. They could have chosen life. Instead, they chose death.

By contrast, Israel celebrates life.

And it protects life.

Even the lives of its enemies.

And let’s not forget who started this latest war in Gaza. It wasn’t Israel. In fact, Israel was steadily liberalizing its border process to let more and more Gazans into the country to earn a living. It was during this liberalization that Hamas launched its murderous assault.

No assault, and not a single civilian in Gaza dies.

No mothers.

No children.

When Israel counter-attacked, it was immediately condemned.

I come to all this from a Middle East perspective. I was raised in Lebanon. My father is Syrian.

Before emigrating to Europe, I was, just like my friends and family members, an antisemite. I believed what our schools and media taught us about Jews and Israel. Where I grew up, unconditional blind support for the Palestinian cause was the natural and moral position to hold.

Having access to uncensored information in Europe opened my eyes. I realized that the enemies of the people in the Middle East were not Israel and the Jews. The real enemies are the leaders who feel entitled to commit terror to achieve their religious and political goals, endangering everyone in the region, while expecting my unconditional and blind support.

The tragedy is that most of the Arab world enforces this blindness. “Anti-normalization” laws make it illegal to have any contact with Jews or Israelis. The punishment for violating these laws can be severe. They even apply outside the Middle East. An Arab who is traveling is expected to avoid any interactions with Israelis.

Why? Because Arab leaders know that the moment contact is made, the lies fall to pieces.

This was my own experience.

When I first encountered Jews in a setting as mundane as a European grocery store, I panicked. I thought these people hated me and would do me harm. I quickly realized that this was absurd. They didn’t take any more notice of me than they would anyone else in the store. And when I did finally interact with Jews, they treated me with casual kindness, as they would any new acquaintance. At that point, I knew everything I had been taught about Israel and Jews was a lie.

But this isn’t just about Israel and Jews. It’s about what Israel and Jews stand for: the Western tradition of freedom. The Jews introduced it thirty-five hundred years ago. Modern Israel embodies it.

What do you think would happen if Hamas prevailed? Israel would remain an island of Western values, just with a Muslim flavor? No, it would become another repressive Sharia-law society where women and minorities would have virtually no rights. It would be much more like Kabul than Tel Aviv.

Arabs at least have the excuse of being kept from the truth. What excuse do protesting “River to the Sea” American college students have? The truth is right in front of their faces. No one is stopping them from learning it.

We don’t need to apologize for Western Civilization. We need to defend it. In word and deed.

Or the haters will take it from us.

So: whose side are you on?

I’m Rawan Osman, Executive Director of Brit Shalom, for Prager University.

Watch PragerU’s latest 5MV here!