As a hardcore pro Israel advocate, I spend at least six hours a day staring at a screen. Six hours, often considerably more, during which I post on numerous social media platforms, follow the news, read thousands of comments, check facts, investigate claims, and write articles for The Algemeiner, Israelseen.com, and The Times of Israel. I have been doing this for years, driven by an unconditional love for Israel and a determination to defend a country and a people who have been subjected to an almost unimaginable amount of hatred, misinformation, demonization, and double standards. But there is something I have noticed about myself lately, something that worries me deeply. The more I read, the more I investigate, and the more I witness what is happening around us, the more convinced I become that our world is rotten to the core. The hatred of Israel and the Jewish people has reached proportions that I find almost impossible to comprehend, and what frightens me perhaps even more is how completely normal this hatred has become in the eyes of so many people.
Last Sunday, the Netherlands witnessed another Red Line demonstration against Israel, and once again I found myself staring at the images in absolute disbelief. The amount of ignorance, historical distortion, outright lies, and moral hypocrisy was mindblowing. Former mayors, including Jewish former mayors, politicians, teachers, academics, and supposedly educated members of society were walking side by side with people expressing support for Hamas, while allegations of connections to Hamas fundraising surrounded parts of the broader protest movement. I saw slogans and messages that made my blood run cold, including the grotesque contradiction of people claiming to oppose antisemitism while spreading hostility toward Jews. Entire families participated. Men, women, children, elderly people, people from every imaginable background, educated and uneducated alike. Reports spoke of enormous crowds, and the spectacle reminded me of the terrifying power of mass hysteria. I looked at those images and saw something that, to me, resembled the darkest chapters of European history. The collective anger, the slogans, the certainty of being morally superior, the willingness to demonize an entire nation. I could not help thinking about the atmosphere that enabled the persecution of Jews during the Second World War. I am not claiming that every demonstrator is a Nazi, but the historical echoes are disturbing enough to make me furious.
And furious is exactly what I become. Furious, frustrated, stressed, sometimes deeply depressed, and occasionally so overwhelmed by anger that I have to make a conscious effort to keep my aggression under control. I am not proud of those feelings, but I refuse to pretend they do not exist. I have spent so much of my life defending Israel, explaining its history, celebrating its achievements, confronting lies, and trying to make people understand that behind every headline are human beings who simply want to live. Yet sometimes it feels as though I am screaming into a hurricane, desperately trying to make myself heard while the noise of hatred grows louder and louder. There are moments when I genuinely wonder how much more of this I can tolerate without allowing it to destroy my own peace of mind. Because hatred is exhausting, even when you are not its direct target. Watching it, confronting it, and trying to counter it every single day can slowly consume you.
And then, at precisely those moments, my thoughts turn to my dearest Israeli friends. Some of them hold prominent positions in Israeli society. Some have served at the highest levels of the Israel Defense Forces. These are men who have experienced things that most Europeans cannot even begin to imagine. They have lived through wars, buried friends, lost people they loved, faced enemies who genuinely wanted them dead, and carried responsibilities involving the lives of countless others. They know what real danger looks like. They know what it means to make decisions under unimaginable pressure. They know the sound of incoming rockets, the reality of terrorism, and the unbearable grief of losing people who should still be alive today. These men know how to use weapons. They are strong as lions, not merely physically, but mentally and emotionally. They have witnessed the darkest sides of humanity, and unlike me, they have not experienced these horrors primarily through a computer screen. They have lived them.
And yet, somehow, they keep smiling.
That is what astonishes me most. While I sit safely in my home in the Netherlands, becoming furious, stressed, aggressive, and depressed over what I see happening in the world, these men continue living their lives with a positivity that almost defies explanation. They laugh, they joke, they make plans, they work, they love, and they somehow manage to preserve an extraordinary sense of perspective. Of course, I know that their smiles do not mean they are unaffected. I am not naive enough to believe that their losses, fears, and memories simply disappear. I know that behind those smiles there must be pain, exhaustion, and perhaps memories they would rather forget. But what I find so remarkable is that they refuse to allow those experiences to define every moment of their existence. They seem to possess an inner strength that I admire beyond words, a determination to continue living rather than merely surviving.
This morning, I asked one of my dearest Israeli friends a question that came straight from my heart. I did not ask him about politics, military strategy, international diplomacy, or the latest developments in the Middle East. I asked him something far more personal.
Tell me, how do you manage to remain so positive? How do you keep smiling when you have experienced so much suffering? How do you prevent all this hatred from getting under your skin? Please, teach me how to do it.
His answer was almost disarmingly simple.
Do not let it get to you. You know it is a lot of noise, but very little strength.
A lot of noise, but very little strength.
I have been thinking about those words ever since. Perhaps that is precisely where the difference lies between people like me, who spend countless hours fighting hatred through words, and people like him, who have spent much of their lives confronting actual threats. I see the noise and experience it as something enormous, overwhelming, almost invincible. He sees the same noise but recognizes that shouting is not the same as strength, that hatred is not the same as courage, and that a crowd screaming slogans does not automatically possess the power to destroy the spirit of a nation. He has learned something that I am still desperately trying to understand. You cannot control the hatred of others, but you can decide how much space you allow it to occupy in your own life.
And perhaps this is one of the greatest lessons that Israel has to offer the world.
Because my friends are not exceptions to some mysterious rule. Look at the millions of ordinary Israelis who wake up every morning in a country that has lived with threats throughout its existence. Look at the families who have lost children, the parents who send their sons and daughters into military service, the people who have spent nights in bomb shelters, the survivors of terrorist attacks, and the countless Israelis whose lives changed forever on October 7, 2023. They have every reason to surrender to bitterness, fear, and despair. And certainly, some struggle profoundly, because Israelis are human beings, not indestructible superheroes. But what continues to amaze me is how many refuse to surrender their love of life.
They keep living. They keep laughing. They keep building. They keep loving.
They celebrate weddings, welcome babies, dance at parties, fill restaurants, crowd beaches, develop extraordinary medical technologies, establish businesses, create music, help strangers, argue passionately about politics, and embrace life with an intensity that I have rarely encountered anywhere else. They mourn their dead without forgetting the living. They remember their history without allowing history to become their entire future. They understand that joy is not a betrayal of those they have lost, but perhaps one of the most meaningful ways to honor them.
And that is where I must admit something.
I envy my Israeli friends. I envy their resilience, their perspective, their ability to laugh when the world seems determined to give them every reason to cry.
I envy those millions of anonymous Israelis who possess more savoir vivre in their little finger than I sometimes feel I possess in my entire body. Not because they do not suffer, but because so many of them have learned to live alongside suffering without allowing it to consume everything beautiful in their lives. They understand something fundamental that I, despite all my years of advocacy, still struggle to practice. Defending life means absolutely nothing if you forget to live it yourself.
Perhaps I have become so absorbed in fighting the enemies of Israel that I have unintentionally allowed those enemies to occupy far too much space in my own mind. Perhaps every hour I spend reading another vicious comment, every moment I allow myself to become furious over another outrageous accusation, is an hour or a moment that I have surrendered to people who do not deserve that power over me. This does not mean I should stop speaking out. Absolutely not. I will continue defending Israel, confronting antisemitism, exposing lies, and standing up for the Jewish people for as long as I am capable of doing so. My love for Israel is unconditional, and that will never change.
But perhaps I need to learn how to fight without allowing the fight to consume me.
Perhaps I need to understand that strength is not measured by how loudly we respond to hatred, how furious we become, or how many hours we sacrifice trying to convince people who have already decided not to listen. Sometimes strength is the ability to close the computer, walk outside, enjoy the sunshine, laugh with a friend, and remember that life contains infinitely more than the ugliness we encounter online.
My Israeli friends have taught me many things over the years, but perhaps this is the most important lesson of all. Courage is not merely the ability to confront an enemy. It is also the ability to preserve your humanity, your humor, your compassion, and your love of life when circumstances give you every excuse to abandon them.
So, to my dearest Israeli friend, and to the millions of Israelis who continue living with extraordinary courage, I want to say something from the bottom of my heart.
I admire you more than words can express. I admire your strength, your resilience, your ability to turn grief into determination and fear into an even greater appreciation of life. I admire the fact that you refuse to allow hatred to become the center of your existence. And although I may never fully understand how you manage to remain so positive, I sincerely hope that one day I will learn to follow your example.
Because perhaps the greatest victory over those who hate Israel is not merely that Israel continues to exist.
It is that Israel continues to live. To laugh. To love. To create. To celebrate. And to look toward tomorrow with hope.
My dearest Israeli friend, you are a hero to me. Not simply because of your military rank, your achievements, or the dangers you have faced, but because after everything you have experienced, you still know how to smile.
And that, in a world increasingly consumed by hatred, is a form of courage I deeply admire.
Respect. Profound, heartfelt respect for all Israelis.
