The War of Ideas is here

For me, the satanic behaviour recorded by the perpetrators during the 7 Oct 2023 attack was not as shocking as the jubilant celebration of professors, students and other members of Academia in the USA.

It's unacceptable, it's outright antisemitism, witnessing the inability of fellow Americans to treat Jewish American citizens with the same respect, the same understanding given to Iranian-Americans, Russian-Americans, Chinese-Americans. 

There is an understanding that Russian/Chinese/Iranian/Syrian Americans are NOT responsible for the actions of a foreign government that is associated with their heritage.

Russian Orthodox churches, nor Syrian, nor Chinese nor Iranian gatherings are not blocked with violent protestors of the genocides and assorted atrocities committed by the Syrian, Chinese, Iranian or Russian military.

THAT is why the onslaught of violence and hate-speech directed at ALL Jewish Americans is antisemitic. Most of my family members have never been to Israel, are not affiliated with Israel and yet, they are now clumped into a group and targeted for attacks.

It was painful and disappointing that my child and I were subjected to swastikas and ugly caricatures of Jews by my neighbors, just days after thousands of people in Israel were raped, dismembered and murdered. Some of those people were my former students and friends. This was done to us while I was trying to digest all that grief. It was perpetrated by my child's classmate while his German-born mother looked on without remorse. That child was impacted by our reaction and apologized a week later. His parents, on the other hand, stopped speaking to us. Clearly their son has a stronger sense of humaneness than his parents do.

It never occurred to me that neighbors I considered friends could manifest an intense hatred towards me and my child - triggered by an attack on a diverse group of people located in Israel, regardless that the people who were killed in Israel were not only Israelis or Jews but the victims were of every race, religion and creed.

These former friends - friends I've known for decades - who reacted to the 7 Oct attacks by treating me with disdain, who asked of me what they would never ask of any other friend. So hurtful.

The silence of the Arab-Christians who found refuge in the USA is also confounding to me. Are they truly that terrified?

Arab-Christians have been targeted by the Iranian-backed proxies which have committed the persecution, forced-conversions, beheadings - the REAL GENOCIDE of 90% of Christians living throughout Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and all the way to Egypt.

As a child in 1975, my ex-husband and his family had to flee their home in Beirut because they were persecuted as Christians. Their stories are never broadcasted.

Syria's military targeted Syria's dhimmi (non-muslim) population, basically wiping out all Yazidi males and forcing the women and children into sex slavery (yes, you read that right), committing an actual genocide of Syria's 2,000 yr old Christian population. 

Syria's Christians WIPED OUT - over 1.3M Syrian Christians have been killed since 2012, more than the Armenian genocide of 1915. 

Where is the outcry across American campuses for the actual annihilation of the non-muslim population in the Middle East? The silence is unacceptable. Why doesn't the Media report these stories? 

The world is doing a massive disservice by NOT calling out the 50-year genocide, silencing and harming the majority of Muslims, Druze, Kurds, Assyrians, Coptics, Jews, Maronites and assorted others who simply want to live in peace.

Thomas Friedman wrote a 6-part piece called "War of Ideas" published in 2004 that clearly outlined what we have been witnessing over the past few decades.

There is hope. The UAE, Morocco and Bahrain are members of the Abraham Accords with Israel, united to maintain peace among each other and hopefully to spread throughout the region.

Like Thomas Friedman, I believe that if economic opportunities are shared among the region, sharing of education, scientific, medical, technological, agricultural knowledge and resources among the countries within the region, people may win the "War of Ideas".

I think that if people can see a path for a better life for their children: Freedom, Peace, Health, Prosperity, people will be inclined to shun hateful ideologies to ensure their children's future.

After the Iraq War, the USA blew a golden opportunity to help Iraq rebuild into a multifaceted republic, similar to what Lebanon had before the start of their civil war in 1975.

There is a entrepreneur who also sat in the Israeli knesset for a short spell, Erel Margalit. His vision of uniting the region with economic opportunities, especially in technology. He was cast aside to be replaced by the current terrorists and thugs that helped keep dictator Bibi in power.

We need to focus on the few but brave people who speak out the truth: No one is going to win in the Middle East until everyone can live safely there.