I never supported hate—ever. I don’t have that kind of anger or cruelty in me. But that doesn’t matter because the silence I kept, the choices I made to go along with the crowd, still caused harm. I hurt people, and I can’t take that back. That realization stays with me every day.

I grew up in Asia in a conservative religious family, where questioning things was just not part of how we were raised. My parents were strict—they taught me to follow the rules, to respect authority, to do what’s expected and not be different.

And I did that because it’s what I knew. At school, at home, even in conversations with extended family, we didn’t talk about “both sides” of things. We didn’t challenge what the majority believed. When I heard about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict growing up, it was always: Israel was the oppressor, and Palestinians were the victims. That was it.

When I came to NYC, I went to events held by pro-Palestinian students. Not because I really understood the cause, but because of a friend. She said this was the right thing to do, and I believed her. I wanted to support her, to feel like I was doing something important.

But I never stopped to think critically about what I was getting involved in. I didn’t educate myself. I just went along with it.

At first, being part of the group made me feel like I was standing for something that mattered. However, then there were moments in the gatherings when people said things that didn’t sit right with me.

I remember one time, someone said, “Israel shouldn’t exist.” I tried to put myself in the shoes of the Israeli students, who have lived their whole lives in Israel. How would they feel if their own peers denounced their existence?

I looked around, everyone nodded, and so I told myself maybe I was overthinking it.

Later on, I started noticing that the conversations weren’t just about governments anymore. They were about people. They were about communities.

The language felt more like blame and anger than a call for justice. It didn’t feel right, but I didn’t say anything. I didn’t want to upset anyone, especially my friend. I was scared of being judged.

In the months since I left that community, I’ve tried to educate myself. I’ve read books like People Love Dead Jews by Dara Horn.

I watched a documentary about the Holocaust, and I remember crying just reflecting on the comments I stayed silent about, the ones that painted an entire community as evil or undeserving of respect. It made me feel sick.

One of the hardest conversations I had was with a Jewish student who shared how unsafe they felt during protests on campus. They said, “You don’t understand how it feels to constantly be told your existence is the problem.”

I didn’t know what to say. They were right. I didn’t understand.

To people reading this: don’t make the same mistakes I did.

We all have so much privilege of being in a university, being able to sit in classes—we need to be better. We need to create a safe space for others like how we wish we would be treated.

I strongly condemn the hateful actions that have been carried out by these student organizations that have made the Jewish and Israeli communities feel scared to exist.

As a minority, I should have been the last person to even be part of these harmful movements because I know exactly how much it stings when I am judged for something I have no control over.

This is also why it hurts even more to admit that I contributed to this in my silence. I truly and sincerely regret it so much.

For the Jewish and Israeli students who I have failed to understand, care for, and protect, I am sorry that I cannot undo what’s been done, but I will do everything I can to make things better.

To my peers who are still in university:

1. Be more intentional and careful with what you say. Words matter. They might feel harmless to you when you say them, but they could still cut deep for someone else.

2. Be there for the Jewish and Israeli community. If we stay silent when others are hurt, we are part of the problem. I don’t want to do that anymore.

   
   

Again, I would like to state that I strongly condemn movements that attempt to amplify violence and aggression against others.

No one should feel like their existence is invalid and that they deserve no space on this earth. We share this space.

In October 2024, a year after the horrible and inhumane attack on Israel, I took a class where I sat next to a friend who was Jewish and had friends back in Israel. The entire time that she spoke, she couldn't help but cry even harder in the next sentence.

She explained how isolating it feels to come to campus to hear the loudest chants that wish death against Israel, home to friends whom she is still close to today. I had never participated in a protest and was only around to observe, just to see the dynamics of the conflict since it is what I study as a degree.

However, the quote "silence is complicity" had never felt so loud in my entire life.

In another class, I engaged with a Professor and a friend who did their 'Aliyah.' As I interacted with them to ask about their experiences going back, they couldn't control themselves and shed tears as they said that no other place feels like home if not Israel.

I was so insensitive towards the fact that my own circle of people I cared about had so much connection and love to Israel. I have shamelessly let the environment I grew up in shape how I perceive the world. Had I really let myself become so conditioned by my surroundings that I forgot to think for myself?

The first book I picked up was Letters to My Palestinian Neighbor by Yossi Klein Halevi which really resonated with me in ways I didn’t expect. The way the author explained who Israelis are, not just as a nation but as individuals and a community with history, faith, and connection to the land, really shifted my perspective.

His attempt to show why Israelis believe they are indigenous to the land made me stop and think. It helped me understand why they feel so strongly about their place in the region. I wish I had read his book earlier so I could help my friends see why those protests are painful on a human level.

Then, I read What Do Zionists Believe by Colin Shindler, which gave me an entirely new understanding of Zionism as a movement for national liberation. This book challenged so many of the misconceptions I had unknowingly accepted about Zionism. It was almost like unlearning years of misinformation that had been reinforced by media and social media narratives.

The rise of accounts that work to delegitimize Israel and Zionism has made it harder for this community to share their story or explain what they actually believe. For so many people who support Palestine, any opposing view feels impossible to accept. Words like "genocide" are used without nuance or context.

I also read The Jewish State: A Readable New Translation by Theodor Herzl. This book made me realize that if you have never picked up a book by the father of Modern Israel, you should not have the loudest opinion in the room.

He had sacrificed so much for the formation of an Israeli state and it really shaped my understanding of how the Israeli and Jewish community is where they are with what they stand.

It is criminally insane for the Pro-Palestinians to expect that those who have found a home in Israel would not be hurt by the antisemitic statements that the world constantly pushes on social media. I hope that every Israeli and Jew who feels hopeless can find peace through Herzl's dedication and love for Israel in this book.

An honourable mention here is A History of Israel: From the Rise of Zionism to Our Time by Howard Sachar, which was gifted to me by a Jewish friend. While reading it, I kept thinking about something an Israeli student once said on campus: "To be a Jew was to have to run away all the time."

This book made me realize how much of Jewish history has been about survival and how, at its core, Zionism was a way to preserve the faith of their fathers. It also showed me how much Jewish communities, throughout history, have tried to find peace in the places they lived.

In November 2024, I participated in an event on campus called, "I Just Returned from Israel: Ask Me Anything" and another one called "I am an Arab from the Middle East and I Support Israel: Ask Me Anything". I was always told to avoid events like this by my community because I was informed that they would not be welcoming of me (or so they say).

My first question at these events was "How are you feeling being on this campus right now?" and they started sharing about how they have been excluded from their own circle of friends, from classes, and even from social communities outside of campus that they were a part of (book clubs, running groups).

I learned from my conversations that it was always easy to blame them as the "oppressors" because it was convenient and the most "logical" way according to the Arab world.

When I went to my class the following week in which our Professor did a class check-in where we can share about how our week went and if we had anything to share, I brought up this discussion and just simply asked my classmates, to just look around for your Israeli and Jewish friends and ask things that we don't ask enough.

How are they doing? Why do they feel strongly about their cause? These are questions that everyone deserves a chance to answer. I’ve been thinking about this for a while now, and the more I reflect, the more ashamed I feel. I let myself be swept up in narratives I didn’t fully understand, and I can’t believe how careless I was.

For years, I prided myself on being the first in my family to attend university, on being someone who was supposed to understand the world better. But what good is any of that if I couldn’t see what was right in front of me?

I didn’t question what I was told. I didn’t try to understand what it really means to be Jewish or why Israel’s existence matters so much. I just accepted what was easier to believe and was convenient.

Israel has every right to exist. It’s not a political statement; it’s a moral truth.

For centuries, Jewish people have been forced to run, to flee, to survive in a world that refused to accept them. They’ve carried a history of trauma that I couldn’t even begin to comprehend.

I hate that the world has made it so easy to normalize this hate, to frame Jewish survival as something wrong. That’s the cost of being a Jew, it seems?

To fight for your right to live and to constantly live in a flight-or-fight mode and defend your existence against people who refuse to see you as human.

How could I not see that normalizing the demonization of Israel and its people is just another way of erasing their history, their pain, and their right to live in peace?

I thought I was being neutral, maybe even thoughtful, by staying silent or going along with what everyone else was saying. But what I was really doing was being complicit.

I was feeding into a cycle of hate that has followed Jewish people for centuries.