Why I'm now proud to say: I'm a ZIONIST! Sickened by the Hamas horrors he saw firsthand in Israel, DAVID MARCUS reveals a deeply personal revelation - and why he demands America never abandon the Jewish state
By David Marcus
Daily Mail
Mar 24, 2024
More than five months after the October 7 Hamas terror attacks, the kibbutz of nearly 800 residents, is a ghost town. (Above: Memorial to Hamas victims in Kfar Aza near the Gaza border)
Shachar and Ayelet Kohn are the only people who've returned to live in Kfar Aza near the Gaza border.
More than five months after the October 7 Hamas terror attacks, the kibbutz of nearly 800 residents is a ghost town.
Sixty-three innocents were murdered here. All the survivors, save the Kohns, are gone.
In their late 50s, Shachar and Ayelet now act as guides to journalists like me who come from around the world to see evidence of Hamas' atrocities.
Shachar could be mistaken for a suburban American dad - except for the date 07.10.23 tattooed on the inside of his forearm. He walks my group of assorted international media through the rubble-strewn streets.
Pictures of the dead are displayed on banners stretched across homes pocked with bullet holes.
Sivan Elkabets and Naor Hasidim were just 23 years old - a couple since they were teens. They were dragged from the safe room of their small house and murdered on the living room couch.
The misery is suffocating.
Why would Shachar come back?
'I cannot be a refugee in my own country,' he told us matter-of-factly.
If Jews can't live freely in Israel – where else can they?
Shachar (above) and Ayelet Kohn are the only people who've returned to live in Kfar Aza near the Gaza border.
Shachar could be mistaken for a suburban American dad - except for the date 07.10.23 tattooed on the inside of his forearm.
Before visiting this great nation month, I never considered myself a Zionist (a proponent of a self-governed Jewish state).
I've long supported the Middle East's lone democracy and, while raised Catholic, I've always felt pride in my Jewish heritage.
Still, Zionism felt a touch extreme.
Perhaps, I felt I was too sophisticated, too cosmopolitan to pick a side in an ancient feud. Zionists were old men like my grandfather, who had bookshelves filled with Judaica, Ben Shahn drawings on the walls and, I thought, paranoia in their minds.
It's clear to me now that I was the one caught up in irrational thinking.
Zionism is not an option for Jews.
It's a last resort.
Inside an Israeli military base in Tel Aviv, I'm shown footage of the October 7 massacres.
Much of these filmed horrors have been written about before – but they must be repeated.
Home surveillance cameras capture the moment Hamas killers threw a grenade into a bomb shelter where a father huddles with his three young sons.
Moments later, only two boys walked out.
'Daddy's dead,' the 12-year-old tells his younger brother. 'It's not a prank.'
'I know it's not a prank,' the 10-year-old replies. He is blinded in one eye.
'Why am I alive?' the older boy cries.
Some of the videos the Israeli Defense Force now screen for journalists were shot by the terrorists themselves.
In this footage, these fiends rejoice with ghoulish glee, taking selfies with corpses.
But these monsters aren't chanting 'Free Palestine.' They aren't celebrating the death of Israelis.
Sivan Elkabets and Naor Hasidim were just 23 years old - a couple since they were teens. They were dragged from the safe room of their small house and murdered on the living room couch.
More than five months after the October 7 Hamas terror attacks, the kibbutz of nearly 800 residents, is a ghost town. (Mourner at funeral for victims killed in Kfar Aza)
A soldier looks on in a home riddled with bullets, following the deadly October 7 attack by Hamas gunmen from the Gaza Strip, in Kibbutz Kfar Aza
No, they cheer for having 'killed a Jew.'
Israel's enemies don't fight for their own liberation. They want to exterminate Jews, in Israel or anywhere else.
My grandfather wasn't paranoid. To him the Holocaust was a living memory, not a TV show on the History Channel.
He understood the phenomenon we're witnessing today. That when the world tips toward chaos and democracy is in retreat, anti-Semitism rises like a foul stench.
Jews live as a religious minority in every country on Earth, save one, so they're always vulnerable to the whims of the majority when evil is on the march.
In the north, by the Lebanon border, wearing a flak jacket and a helmet, I see the abandoned homes of more than 60,000 Israelis, who have been forced to flee as Hezbollah, an Iranian proxy, launches rockets across the border.
Buildings in once-quiet communities lie in rubble. Others are now become makeshift IDF army barracks.
Here it is an active battle zone.
But back in the U.S., the Democratic leader of the Senate gave a speech just this month undermining Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's war effort.
Everyone I have spoken to in Israel, from top government officials to taxi drivers and people in the local cafes, knows this war is a fight for survival.
As I enter Jerusalem on the final day of my trip, I think again of my grandfather. He fought in Korea and served as a rabbi in Vietnam. He traveled the world, but never set foot in this ancient citadel. (Above: Marcus in Jerusalem)
Thousands of years of conflict from the crashing fall of the Temple, to the clatter of Crusade, to the scimitar din of Saladin, and the echo of artillery from 1948, 1967, and 1973, live and breathe in the City of David.
It cannot end without destroying Hamas. These terrorists and their allies must know that they are worse off after October 7, or they'll attack again… and again… until the Jewish state is gone.
But fickle American politics are removed from this reality.
A new poll shows 38 percent of U.S. adults believe Netanyahu's handling of the war has been appropriate, while 34 percent believe it's unacceptable. That three-in-ten may be important to President Joe Biden's re-election campaign.
So, Democrats tell the one nation devoted to the survival of the Jewish people to stand down from their own defense.
As I enter Jerusalem on the final day of my trip, I think again of my grandfather.
He fought in Korea and served as a rabbi in Vietnam. He traveled the world, but never set foot in this ancient citadel.
Standing before the Catholic Church of the Holy Sepulchre I hear the Muslim call to prayer just steps away from the Western Wall, the holiest site in Judaism.
Thousands of years of conflict from the crashing fall of the Temple, to the clatter of Crusade, to the scimitar din of Saladin, and the echo of artillery from 1948, 1967, and 1973, live and breathe in the City of David.
It is a testament to the spirit of the Jews, who will never stop fighting for their survival.
For centuries at Passover my ancestors said, 'next year in Jerusalem'.
Well, this Catholic kid got there.
And now he's a proud Zionist.
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