It was 2019. The Trump administration was in full swing, taking care of political business, while leaving some results much to be desired.
I was dealing with legal and health troubles, and the health problems came upon me fast and furious. On June 6th, 2019, I suffered a stroke due to excessive caffeine consumption.
Three days later, after I had left the hospital following an overnight stay, I felt another set of numb feelings along my left arm, and I worried that I was having another episode.
I rushed to the local emergency room, found myself waiting much longer than expected, and then finally received a bed.
I did not sleep the entire night, and I feared the worst, since those legal and financial troubles were still weighing on me at the time. Apparently, I had not suffered another stroke, but hypertension issues had not resolved themselves, and the doctors were not talking to each other to streamline the best prognosis for me.
In the midst of this trying time, three friends visited me, and they took a photo with me that afternoon, one which I still keep on my center table at home. One of them, let’s call her Margaret, was studying to be a nurse, and she understood all the healthcare ins and outs that come with suffering a stroke. We shared many convictions when it came to politics. She was a huge Trump supporter, an outspoken patriot. She had all kinds of patriotic gear that she would wear to the many rallies we attended together.
A few years later, shortly after the October 7 th terrorist attack, she started sharing her outrage with me about the whole situation. Then she blurted out: “I am not a Zionist!”
I was surprised and didn’t understand why. From that point on, she would send me articles and memes calling out Israel, labeling the founders of the Jewish state terrorists. I was stunned by the amount of conspiratorial propaganda she had fallen for. It was devastating for me. When I stood my ground, refuting many of the tired talking points that demonize Israel while sanctifying the Palestinian cult and Islamic terror, she would retort with insults and more conspiracies.
Finally, we stopped talking. It was devastating for me. This woman, a long-time friend who visited me in the hospital during one of my darkest hours, whom I commiserated with when the FBI knocked on my door five months after the January 6 th incident, had turned on me and cut me off.
July 4th, 2020: A good friend of mine (let’s call him George), living in Northern Los Angeles County, invited me to come celebrate Independence Day with the rest of his family. He was an accomplished artist who worked in Hollywood, but he maintained his hardcore conservative principles. He was of Armenian descent, born in the Midwest, but moved to the West Coast looking for work. His signature issue was immigration, and he protested weak Republicans as hard as he pursued open-border Democrats.
While sitting around talking about previous activist exploits, I started asking about George’s background. Where was he born? How did he get into art? Why did he focus on fighting illegal immigration?
Then I asked him about his father, where he was born:
“In Jerusalem. 1934.”
I was really intrigued. What an interesting time to be born, and in the Holy Land! Right in the midst of the Middle East, between the World Wars. And he was an Armenian in the Post-Ottoman land of British Mandatory Palestine!
I asked the next question: “What was your father’s passport, if you don’t mind my asking? When he came to America, what was his nationality?” I thought it was a straightforward question, one which more people should have asked, since nations and borders changed so drastically in that short period of time, and I had never asked about it.
At that point, our jovial camaraderie drifted away, and George got really quiet for a minute.
Then he quietly stated, “I’d rather not talk about it.”
I didn’t understand why he sounded uncomfortable. “You don’t have to worry with me. I won’t be offended. Go ahead, and tell me about it!” Frankly, I thought it was silly that he thought I would get upset. What could possibly offend me about his answer?
Then he intimidated me in so many words that he did not support Israel. He was pro- Palestinian. I was a little surprised, but not shocked or scared. It just never occurred to me thata conservative would not support Israel. But here was George, laying it out for me. Instead of getting angry or defensive or argumentative, I simply asked: “Why is that?”
“It’s what my father told me.”
I started crying a little, not because of sorrow, but joy and relief, that George trusted me enough to share his views with me. I kept my word, didn’t argue with him.
That was 2020. We rarely brought up the issue again.
Then came October 7th, 2023, and the repercussions of the Arab-Israeli conflict spilled out all over again. George became more vocal, frequently criticizing Israel and decrying the plight of the Palestinians.
Shortly after the attack, we talked on the phone. I wanted to get more of George’s perspective, trying to understand his hostility to Israel, when it should have been directed at the Islamic militants and Arab rebels in the region. After all, it was an Islamic nationalist cult that slaughtered the Armenians!
We spoke for hours, and he explained to me in detail all the things that his father had told him, especially the traumatic experiences during the 1948 Arab-Israeli war, when five Arab countries tried to wipe out the fledgling Jewish state. My friend George repeated: “When bombs are dropping, you either run or you hide,” explaining what his father and his family contended with during the conflict.
Later on, George shared with me stories about Jewish settlers spitting at Christians: “My Orthodox priest recently came back from another trip to Jerusalem, and this was the first time he didn’t get spit at!”
He also claimed that the Zionists (he never said “The Jews) were engaging in ethnic cleansing.
When President Trump announced the framework of a peace deal, which included turning Gaza into an international free port run by the United States—Gaz-a-Lago—I texted George the news.
He responded:
“Please don’t text me anymore.”
The October 7th, 2023, Hamas terrorist attacks brought out the worst elements among the United States political Left. They found a new cause to justify their violent hatred of America, from college campuses to the public square. However, I never anticipated how much the conflict would divide deep friendships among conservatives, too.
The MAGA patriots and the larger populist movement can shout “America First!”, but the notion that foreign conflicts have no bearing on our domestic concerns is naïve at best. Right and wrong have moral bearing anywhere and everywhere, and we Americans cannot turn a blind eye to terrorism in part of the world, thinking that it will not affect us here.
I never anticipated that the Arab-Israeli conflict would not only have broad political implications, but painful, personal ones, as well.
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