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OPINION

Israeli or American?

The opinions expressed by columnists are their own and do not necessarily represent the views of Townhall.com.
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AP Photo/Andrew Harnik

When a person has two ways to be described, the left and the media always choose the one that suits their narrative.

Many people can be described in one of two ways. Sometimes, the descriptions are real, while at other times, they are the fancy of the left. I always get a kick from a Kenyan or Russian who competes for Israel in the Olympics. His or her association with Israel is generally of recent vintage and exists to help Israel bring home medals. But at least the Russian-Israeli or Kenyan-Israeli description is accurate, at least at the legal level. When Larry Elder, Jr. was called by the Washington Post “the black face of white supremacism" or when George Zimmerman, who shot Trayvon Martin, suddenly became a new breed called “white Hispanic,” one knows that the media is simply setting up its target for attack. President Obama was always called “the first black president” though his mother was white. Kamala Harris would like to be second in that line, though for years, she pushed the Indian side of her identity. When there are two potential handles on a person, which one do we use?

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Hersh Goldberg-Polin was murdered along with five other hostages abducted by Hamas on 10/7. Goldberg-Polin was often and correctly described as “Israeli-American” as he held both citizenship and had lived in both countries. His parents traveled the world to get their son back. They most recently spoke at the DNC, where they received a very warm response from the crowd present in Chicago. President Biden (sic) mentioned that he was quite upset about Hersh being murdered and would hold the Hamas leaders responsible. But will he?

While the US has provided more than 50,000 tons of military equipment to Israel since the dastardly Hamas pogrom, none of it is due to the dozens of American citizens who were killed or taken captive on that black day. The US has pointedly made it its business not to fight Hamas directly or declare that it will seek revenge for its citizens who were murdered or who are still being held in the Hamas dungeon. The question is, why? Why didn’t the commander-in-chief go into a flying rage against a terror organization that murdered more Americans than any other since 9/11? Why didn’t the US at least make a symbolic flyover with some F-18 Hornets to show that American blood will be avenged? The simple answer is that when someone is an Israeli-American, in the eyes of the US government, he or she is an Israeli.

I know that state of affairs from personal experience. While I hold only American citizenship, I have lived in Israel for over 30 years. I came on a Fulbright Fellowship and never left. Sure, we have visited the US many times and just bought tickets to come again soon. But once something happens to you in Israel, the US government washes its hands of your existence. Now, before you write a comment below about being outside of the US, you have to understand that the US passed anti-terror laws after Palestinian terrorists aboard the Achille Lauro murdered Leon Klinghoffer. The US granted itself both criminal and civil jurisdiction when American citizens are harmed overseas. After we were injured here in a 2002 suicide bombing, the US ambassador implored me to reach out to the FBI. I did and I sent them over sixty pages of material related to our attack. It was all thrown in the garbage. I know this latter fact because when I met an agent here years later, he told me our file was completely empty.

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In an attic, I have every scrap of paper I collected related to the bombing. Medical records, newspaper articles, legal proceedings—if I were to stack it all in a pile, it would be over five feet high. And many of those pages are my futile correspondence with the Department of Justice’s Office for Victims of Overseas Terrorism. I tried to get them to prosecute the terrorists involved in our attack or any of the dozens of attacks with American victims. They have not. I tried to get them to tell Israel not to release terrorists with American blood on their hands in the Schalit deal. They prepared a list of such perpetrators but never passed it along to the Israelis. Whatever I did to get the US government to help us or to punish those who harmed us fell on deaf ears. And it was not just in 2002. Just last year, someone implicated in our attack and is today the heir apparent for Mahmud Abbas flew to Washington to meet Tony Blinken. I begged the FBI to arrest him upon arrival. I asked the DoJ to get an orange jumpsuit and Supermax cell ready for him. Nothing happened other than an all-smiles meeting between the guy who tried to kill us and the guy who scuttled our court case to help his friends in the Palestinian Authority save some dough by not settling with us. That case is still ongoing and is awaiting acceptance to be heard by the Supreme Court.

The “dual descriptor” syndrome was on full display when the UN and Western women’s organizations could show no empathy or sorrow for the numerous Israeli women who were brutally raped and tortured. Somehow being Israeli simply wiped away whatever rights a woman would normally be afforded. If such an attack occurred on a college campus, we would be lectured for endless weeks about toxic masculinity women’s rights, etc. But that it happened to Israelis meant that the female side of the picture simply fell by the wayside, like any mention of Obama’s white mother. When there are two ways to describe someone, we choose the one that advances our interests, not necessarily those of the person in question.

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I feel sorry for Hersh’s friends and families. Both Americans and Israelis hope for the best and live for a happy ending. We all anticipated him walking out of Gaza with that infectious smile still somehow on his face. That he was executed says everything one needs to know about Hamas. That the US is making no effort to avenge his or other Americans’ blood tells you everything you need to know about how the government looks at dual citizens. You are Israeli for everything except for those taxes you had better pay every year.

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