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Israel Wants the Same Rights as Every Other Nation
(National Post-Canada) Leslie Roberts - Every time Israel defends itself, people are quick to condemn. Every time it fights to exist, critics demand it explain itself. But what would you do if your neighbors wanted to burn your house down? The day Israel declared independence, five Arab armies attacked because they couldn't accept a Jewish state. On Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas crossed into Israel and carried out one of the worst massacres of Jews since the Holocaust. They murdered babies, burned families alive, and took hostages. It wasn't resistance. It was hatred, deliberate and unrelenting. And still, when Israel fights back, the world tells it to be measured, to show restraint. Try diplomacy, they say, with people who want to kill them. UN panels, human rights groups, politicians and celebrities line up to judge Israel by a different standard. They just expect Israel to take the punches and apologize for surviving. Why are the rules different? Israel is doing what any nation would do under attack. The double standard is dangerous. It tells a global audience that Jewish suffering is negotiable, and that Jewish self-defense is somehow unacceptable. The Jewish people have had to learn to survive in every kind of darkness, to rebuild in the ashes, and to grow stronger than those who tried to destroy them. That strength isn't aggression. It's resilience. It's experience. And it's what keeps Israel alive today. Israel isn't asking for sympathy. It's asking for the same right every nation demands, the right to defend itself, and the right to live.