Sovereignty is the only thing that will protect my people
Photo Credit: Sarah mester
By Sarah Mester
I view supporting Israel as a moral, religious, and historical duty. I recognize that as a Jew not supporting Israel would be a grave mistake, because only Israel can guarantee the safety and security of the Jewish people. I have no grandiose theory about the liberal world order to put forward to support my position.
I was not wrong. At Penn, that honeymoon period of support ended on Monday October 16 when campus erupted into a fit of hateful protest and rampant verbal intimidation—it was a terrifying day that I will not soon forget. It was a surreal and quite disturbing realization that after only a week, sympathy was already starting to falter. However, while I was disturbed at the shifting of the discourse, even disappointed, I cannot say I was surprised. Israel and Hamas (and the PIJ, the Palestinian Islamic Jihad) are no stranger to conflict and each previous confrontation was also marked by campus activism—a march, a BDS resolution, or vandalism. I did my college tour around the time of the 2021 flare up and recall feeling apprehensive that I would end up on a campus with such activism. I was worried not because the student body was advocating for a position I disagreed with, but because I understood that the presence of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) and similar groups meant that I could probably expect at some point to observe my religion under guard and be forced to avoid a part of campus for fear of harassment. I have experienced both at Penn since October 7.
I want to be clear that advocating for the Palestinian people is not an inherently antisemitic activity, but the sad fact is that the pro-Palestinian movement is riddled with antisemitism to such an extent that separating the two has become nearly impossible. Indeed, when things happen in Israel, bad things happen to American Jews. It is a correlation that is tacitly understood by universities even if it is not officially acknowledged. Liz Magill’s initial message after October 7 sent on October 10 listed the Division of Public Safety as an organization available to help alongside the Office of the University Chaplain and Wellness at Penn. In a subsequent message sent on October 15, the concern about security was even more explicit: “Penn will continue monitoring threats of violence here, in our city, and in other parts of the world. As part of our planning, Penn’s Division of Public Safety has further increased security and support for centers of Jewish life on and near campus. We will continue our outreach and support for faculty, students, and staff and will keep our entire community updated.”
Why is it, when events unfold in Israel—a country half a world away—that there is an immediate assumption that American Jewish institutions have to increase their security due to anticipated “anti-Israel” protests? If it is the policy of the State of Israel being protested, why are Jews and Jewish institutions so often targeted? Alpha Epsilon Pi, one of Penn’s Jewish fraternities, was vandalized. Penn Hillel staff were threatened. Do the protestors think the fraternity or Hillel have a say in the making of Israeli policy? If you are targeting American Jews to protest the policy of the government of Israel, you are an antisemite. Antisemitism has often been called “the longest hatred” due to its persistence and adaptability and I fear that more often than not, anti-Zionist rhetoric is simply a new form of antisemitism—one that is more widely accepted and less recognizable as antisemitism and all the more dangerous for it.
I have now lived history and what I have experienced has confirmed something that I had been taught, but that I foolishly and naively did not want to believe, that the safety and security of my people will never be certain without our own country—the State of Israel—to guarantee our protection. I read an opinion column in the Times of Israel—an Israeli newspaper—that admonished the American Jewish community for thinking that hiring more armed security to guard our synagogues, our daycares, and our community centers would be enough. It is not enough. It will never be enough—no amount of security or public support will be enough to make a state not necessary, because antisemitism will always exist and will always threaten the safety of the Jewish people. I understood that reality before October 7, but what happened on that day made me face what a world without Israel might look like and since that day I have seen how fragile safety can be and how crucial Israel is. The existence and the security of the State of Israel represents a promise that the Jewish people will never again be helpless in the face of an unwelcoming world. It is a promise I support unequivocally and wholeheartedly.
Sarah Mester is a senior in the College studying Political Science and Classics from San Francisco, CA. She’s the News Editor for The Pennsylvania Post. Her email is smester@sas.upenn.edu.
