I am not an enlightened person. I once tried to be, but I am done now. I have not written until now, almost a week later, because my hands were trembling with rage, and my eyes were clouded with sorrow. I once had sympathy for the Palestinians. I had supported the idea that they should have their own state, that they have the right of self-determination, as we do, within the secure borders of their own land. But now, I want them dead. All of them. I want to see their land razed and salted afterward.

I know that this makes me a bad person. I know that this makes me, in part, the kind of person the enemy wants me to be—like them. And yes, I do feel guilty for that. But you know what? We Jews have always been good at dealing with guilt.

Had they attacked our military and police installations, I would probably have been upset, but then I would have shrugged and said, “Well, we are at war, after all.” But that’s not what happened. What they did was beyond the pale of humanity. I am sure I needn’t go into detail; the videos and reports are out there still, most of them put up by the enemy themselves. This was a pogrom, the perpetration of which is comparable to Babi Yar, to Iasi, to Bergen-Belsen, to anything Chmielnicki and his Cossacks had done.

It is not about land. It never was. It was about driving us out of The Land, of making Judea and Samaria judenrein. You cry “Oh, we are not Jew-haters; we are simply ‘anti-Zionist.’” This is a lie. How do I know this?

Because killing wasn’t enough for you. You had to inflict torture and rape. And torture and rape were not enough for you. You made parents watch their children die, you made children watch their parents die. You tortured people in front of their loved ones. And even this was not enough for you. You had to abuse the dead, and display your victims to your fellows and to the world.

And most of all, I know this because you do not cry out against the State of Israel; you cry out against Jews. In the streets of London, New York, Sydney, Paris, in universities and schools, you attack Jews. Why? A Jew in New York is an American citizen, one who has no say in Israeli governmental policies, one who has never lifted so much as a finger against you. But you attack us in the streets. Jewish owned businesses in London are attacked in the aftermath of the Hamas Pogrom, even though a Jew in London is a British subject, who has no influence on Israeli policy, nor have they so much as lifted their voices to call for your oppression and death.

You see a single incident, and make excuses that we brought it on ourselves, or that we deserved it all for some reason. We see just another in a long line of attempts to destroy us.

My sympathy is done. It is exhausted. How many times has peace been offered, and how many times have you slapped our hands away? During the British Peel Commission, your Grand Mufti Hajj Amin Husseini refused to cooperate, and declared that every last Jew in Palestine would be expelled, despite the fact that Jews had already been living in The Land for centuries. You again rejected the 1947 partition plan, rejecting a two-state solution even then. When the invading Arab armies failed to destroy us, you continued to whine about the “catastrophe” and carried out campaigns of terror throughout the 1960s and 70s. You attacked, and lost again in 1967, but presume to dictate terms to the victors about your land. In the 2000s, you were offered everything, including East Jerusalem, but you rejected this again, without a counterproposal. More terror campaigns were launched. Israel unilaterally left Gaza, leaving infrastructure and resources, but in return, the Strip was turned into a terrorist base, and then you whined when we barricaded the area off from Israel for our own safety.

You pretend that Jews are colonial invaders. Fine—what foreign country is trying to colonize you? You pretend that from time immemorial, you were peaceful farmers and herdsmen until a modern foreign army fell upon you and took your land. But we have struggled at least as much as you, and even more so; the world was not trying to eradicate you Arabs.

Now the world cries as we strike back.

You whine about collective punishment. But you did not target your Haredi instigators, nor the police and troops that protect them, nor any personnel of State.

You say, “Jews did the same thing!” Setting aside the lie, you are simply saying that you are no better than those to whom you would claim to be better. That it’s okay for you to treat us this way, but it is not okay for you to be treated as you treat others.

You say, “We are justified because we are resisting occupation.” Why then, again, did you not confine yourself to military and police targets?

You say, “We are fighting for liberation.” Fine. How do rape, torture, kidnapping, corpse desecration, and the use of human shields liberate you?

You say, “We are fighting the Zionist Entity, not Jews.” But then, again, why are you attacking Jews in other countries around the world besides Israel? Why do you specifically call to murder Jews?

No one took anything from you in 1948. We were both afforded the same chance after the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire. Neither of us got what we wanted in full; but we took what was offered and built upon it. What did you do? Hold out like petulant children because you didn’t get everything you wanted at once.

Now you whine that Gaza is attacked after what you did. You claim the Palestinians are innocent; it’s just Hamas. But tear-falling pity dwells not in this eye. I have been lessoned to weep millstones by Hamas. I do not believe the Palestinians are any more innocent than the Germans who claimed to know nothing of the death camps in their own towns and villages.

The world has only loved Jews when we were weak, and helpless, and without agency. Now, when there is a price to be exacted in return for Jewish blood, you call for calm, and restraint, and compassion on the innocent.

No.

No more.

I know this makes me a bad person. I know this makes me an evil and wicked man. And I blame you also for making me thus.

And as a coda to this little screed, let me also wish ill upon the messianic Haredi settlers, who have done nothing but provoke our neighbors, stealing their property and destroying their work, under the protection of a military they do not serve in. Who do nothing for Israel but are paid to simply study their books of fairy tales all day, and who have been given the authority to say who is and who isn’t a Jew.

And another curse upon Netanyahu for turning our Israel into an authoritarian religious nightmare, no better than our neighbors’ governments, for pushing us ever closer to fascism for the sake of their own personal gain, for filling the government with racist authoritarian mamzers, for thinking to buy the safety of the Jewish body at the cost of the Jewish soul.

Damn you all.

Am Yisroel Chai.