OPINION:
On Saturday, Alma (aged 11) and Johnny (aged 13) headed out to play soccer in the town of Majdal Shams, whose name means “tower of sun” in Aramaic. Majdal Shams is a predominantly Druze town located in the Golan Heights, recognized as part of Israeli proper.
Crushingly, Alma, Johnny, and at least 10 other children never made it home. They were directly hit by a rocket launched by Hezbollah – an Iranian-made Falaq-1 carrying a warhead of over 110 pounds of explosives.
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Living under 10 months of Hezbollah’s uncondemned rocket fire
Since Oct. 8, 2023 the Islamic Republic of Iran-backed terror organization Hezbollah has been lobbying rockets from bases in Lebanon. They aim at Israeli civilians of all religions – Jewish, Muslim, Druze, and Christian – on a near daily basis. Their efforts have resulted in 25 civilian deaths on the Israeli side, as well as the deaths of 18 IDF soldiers and reservists. As a result of this unacceptable reality, over 50% of residents in northern Israel have been evacuated from their homes.
Nisreen Abo Asale, a Druze advocate and lawyer and Research Assistant at the Israel Democracy Institute, explains: “The world must know that in the North, most of the Jews are evacuated, but the Druze, the vast majority of whom live in the North, do not leave their homes and do not immigrate because according to culture we are not allowed to abandon our lands – therefore we are in real danger.”
SEE ALSO: Hezbollah attack on Israel: Who are the Druze that were killed and why it matters
We must ask ourselves why the United Nations till now has chosen to remain silent about Israelis who are refugees fleeing their homes, or speaking up for the Druze who are clearly in Hezbollah’s line of fire.
“We are all Druze”
Even more disturbing, the UN has refrained from strongly condemning Hezbollah’s targeting of civilians or its breaking of UN Security Council resolution 1701. Bizarre, as the UN Interim Force in Lebanon was created by the UN precisely to “monitor the cessation of hostilities.” UNIFIL is a well-funded initiative, with an annual budget of over $500 million and 13,000 uniformed personnel according to the UN’s own accounting. Yet it is utterly inept and ineffective, as Hezbollah has been launching rockets towards Israel for close to 10 months.
In light of the Majdal Shams tragedy, it feels as if all of Israel has become united with the Druze. On social media, I see this on my friends’ stories and on the official Instagram account of Israel. The cities of Tel Aviv and Jerusalem have lit up major monuments with the Druze flag. Microsoft Israel and its employees have donated around 250,000 NIS to the town of Majdal Shams. Israel stands firmly in solidarity with the entire Druze people. After everything, the Druze are a peace seeking people.
As Nisreen shares, “At the end of the day, we are all united after one message and that is peace.”
The Islamic Republic of Iran’s far-reaching tentacles
The massacre of the children of Mahdal Shams is heart wrenching, and beyond that, it is shocking. Nisreen Abo Asale explains: “No one expected that the Golan Heights would be attacked since in the Arab mind, it is a Syrian area under Israeli occupation! From our point of view, and even though the area was attacked by Hezbollah throughout the war, we were in denial that this area would be a target for Hezbollah, but it’s very attack shows that Hezbollah is a terrorist organization that does not fight [for] the Palestinian struggle […] Even among the Arab world – this is a terrorist organization [that] continues to launch missiles at mainly Arab areas and villages.”
Of course, lest we ever forget, we all know who is driving this evil – the Islamic Republic of Iran, the financial and spiritual backers of Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza and beyond. Yet, perplexingly, no one is holding the Islamic Republic accountable for the horrific terror they have unleashed upon the world.
As I have written before, the UN’s Secretary General António Guterres has a warm spot for the Isalmic Republic, even mourning the loss of the butcher of Tehran. Each day I wonder how we can continue to speak about the UN as if it is a legitimate organization that will bring peace and justice to the world. Under António, the UN has increasingly legitimized the Islamic Republic by giving it a place to sit on the UN’s Human Rights Council and allowing it to be elected to the UN Committee on Disarmament and International Security, even as the country can produce “three bombs within a month.”
Humanitarian organizations the Islamic Republic’s diplomatic arm
The UN’s complicity and silence regarding Hezbollah’s attack on the children of Majdal Shams is part of a broader pattern where it refuses to hold Hezbollah accountable. Rather than feel any sense of embarrassment or responsibility over the failure of UNICIL, it took the UN Secretary General António Guterres over 24 hours to condemn the Majdal Shams massacre. Even then, he refused to call out Hezbollah; this is in line with the wording of UN’s security resolution 1701, which also does not mention that it is Hezbollah that needs to be removed from the border. António Guterres’ X/Twitter, which has remained all but radio silent on Hezbollah’s barrage of rockets for over nine months, has continued his pattern of ignoring Israeli death, trauma, and pain. He has been too busy enjoying the Olympics in Paris.
Perhaps we should celebrate that Guterres’ spokesperson reposted a Tweet condemning the rocket attack, failing yet again to hold Hezbollah responsible. The Tweet comes from Tor Wennesland, the UN’s Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process; immediately after, he called for “all to exercise maximum restraint.” Yet Tweets like these only serve to embolden and empower terror orgs around the world, playing directly into the Islamic Republic of Iran’s hands. UN Women’s very active Instagram, which never fails to perpetuate Hamas’ propaganda in Gaza, too continues its pattern of ignoring women and girls from Israel; days after the massacre, their Instagram is radio silent about the young girls that Hezbollah murdered in cold blood.
Indeed, from the bottom to the top and across agencies, the UN actively refuses to do even the bare minimum to hold Hezbollah, a recognized terror organization that just murdered a dozen children, accountable. From Nisreen’s perspective, “you have turned patriarchal, anti-democratic, terrorist organizations into legitimate organizations for ‘resistance’ in the positive sense, [… which] even before the war received a fine platform at the United Nations. What happened on Saturday […] is one of the consequences of the West’s support for the network.”
The UN’s refusal to support justice at this pivotal time and in the past unfortunately brings additional far-reaching consequences. Indeed, despite its many failings, the UN is still looked up to as the “esteemed leaders” within the world of so-called humanitarian organizations. This means that the UN’s influence, bias, and rot extend much further.
Take Doctors without Borders. On Saturday, the day of the Majdal Shams attack, DWB’s Instagram shared a short film about Jumana, a Lebanese woman who was displaced due to “escalating violence” that started in October 2023. This escalating violence was of course triggered by Hezbollah’s aggression against Israeli civilians, yet you would never know it from the way DWB’s chose to frame the story. In the Instagram post Jumana says “All human beings need safety and access to health care.” We can only wonder if she and Doctors without Borders include Israeli children playing soccer in their beliefs.
Amnesty International has extensively and unquestioningly shared Hamas propaganda. The organization has had little to say about the brutality of the Oct. 7, 2023 massacre, which saw the torture and murder of people of diverse backgrounds, nationalities, and religions. Once again, Amnesty International and their leader Agnès Callamard, now have nothing to say about a dozen dead children brutally murdered by a satellite of the Islamic Republic of Iran. This should hardly be surprising – scratch the surface and you will see example after example of how Amnesty International has a clear anti-Israel agenda and consistently spreads antisemetic propaganda and lies. Agnès is even a bit of a Hezbollah fan girl. Yet I was still shocked by their apathy given the horrific massacre of innocent children.
The failures of humanitarian organizations to remain neutral and seek justice for the children and people of Israel has horrifying implications to the world at large. Surely it can be no coincidence that the mainstream media has demonstrated an overwhelming bias against Israel throughout the war. In the case of Majdal Shams, reporters have stooped even lower, bizarrely seeking to justify the fact that the terror org Hezbollah attacked a soccer field where innocent children were playing. Nisreen Abo Asale also shares that similarly and “as expected, the Arab media very quickly diverted the discourse from Hezbollah’s responsibility for attacking an area considered to be Syrian to a discourse asking how many of the residents of Migdal Shams have Israeli citizenship, all in an attempt to justify the massacre.”
Where we are now
For the past 10 months, we have encountered a world where Israelis of all ages and religions are dehumanized, and where brutal terrorists are reframed as freedom fighters. Where “humanitarian organizations” are so biased and twisted that the Islamic Republic of Iran and its terror proxies are legitimized.
With the treatment of the victims of the Majdal Shams rocket attack, we witness victim-blaming at its finest. Why is it that Hezbollah is never held accountable for the death and destruction it causes? Why is Hamas never held accountable for the damage it does – for occupying humanitarian zones, hospitals, and UNRWA schools?
Why is it only for Israelis – of all stripes and colors – that the location they are in renders them at fault? Why is our blood cheap? Why is it that these innocent Druze children somehow had it coming according to the mainstream media? In Nisreen Abo Asale’s own words: “ As a woman, as a Druze, and as an Arab, I am sorry that all the facts we had the day before Oct. 7 against Hamas and Hezbollah are suddenly irrelevant because of unregulated algorithms. I am sorry that the people of the West do not understand that this is a war of principles and values, terrorism and patriarchy against democracy and equality.”
The tragedy at Majdal Shams paints a very alarming picture. It shows what bias looks like and the harm it can do. It demonstrates quite clearly what reporting looks like when it has an agenda. It shows how the UN and biased media fuel hatred and the demonization of the entire people of Israel – the Druze, Bedouins, the Jews, the Christians, the Samaritans, the Baháʼí, and the Muslims, who make up the country’s rich tapestry of citizens.
It starts with the Jews, but never ends with us.
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Danielle Ofek is an Israeli activist and a pioneering figure in tech and social entrepreneurship, known for her dynamic approach to gender parity and women’s rights. Recognizing a significant gap in the international community’s response to the sexual violence perpetrated against Israeli women and girls on October 7th, Danielle founded Angle, an initiative aimed at addressing this critical issue.
Angle was born out of a necessity to challenge the prevalent misinformation and biases in the reporting and responses to these incidents. Under Danielle’s guidance, the initiative has been instrumental in redirecting the narrative towards a more accurate and unbiased portrayal of the events.
Over the past six years, Danielle has been actively involved in working with enterprises and corporations, focusing on bridging the gender parity divide. She has been a fervent advocate for encouraging women to ascend to leadership positions, a commitment that is evident in her groundbreaking work.
The #MeToo_Unless_UR_A_Jew campaign is one of Angle’s key projects, launched to bring these pressing issues into the spotlight of international discourse. This campaign reflects Danielle’s dedication to not just highlighting problems but actively seeking solutions and advocating for change.
In 2019, Danielle’s expertise and passion led her to speak at the UN - CSW63. There, she discussed women in tech as part of her project, Parliament51, further showcasing her commitment to empowering women in all sectors. Danielle’s work, both through Angle and her various other initiatives, positions her as a formidable force in the fight for women’s rights and gender equality on the global stage.
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