Cameron Kasky's one-sided anti-Israel activism is not moral courage - opinion

As a former South Floridian, the mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School hit very close to home. On February 14, 2018, nineteen-year-old Nikolas Cruz opened fire at teachers and students in Parkland, Florida. Cruz killed 17 people, injured 19, and traumatized a community forever.

“We need leaders who aren’t going to coddle their billionaire donors, who won’t support a genocide, and who aren’t going to settle for flaccid incrementalism,” he said in the launch video posted Tuesday for his campaign. That same video publicized its three main points, one of which was to “Stop funding genocide.”

Kasky was surprised at the backlash he faced for his anti-Israel position. “I am always surprised when people ask me why I focus so much on Palestine,” he wrote. “Beyond my Jewish identity making me strongly opposed to genocide,

I’m a school shooting survivor turned activist. I started my adult life demanding an end to American-made weapons slaughtering children.”

Jewish Insider reported that “Kasky’s anti-Israel views were likely alienating to many voters in one of the most heavily Jewish districts in the country – even as several far-left challengers across New York are taking on pro-Israel incumbents. One Democratic operative familiar with the district, which covers the Upper East and West Sides, called the candidate’s hostile positions on Israel a form of political ‘kryptonite.’”

When confronted by a constituent who recognized him about his presence in the region, Kasky admitted he deliberately lied about his identity, explaining that he assumed the questioner was a “narc” (narcotics officer) and confirming that he was “absolutely hiding” until he got home. The undisclosed journey, which focused on Palestinian experiences, drew criticism amid his campaign’s strong anti-Israel platform accusing the country of genocide.

Kasky’s low popularity in the campaign – some reports show he was polling at just 6% – is the most probable reason he recently announced that he was quitting his run for Congress. He claimed, however, that it wasn’t the low poll numbers that convinced him to drop his campaign and abandon his supporters: Rather, he said his trip to Judea and Samaria last month compelled his pivot from politics to activism.

“I returned from Palestine with one concern,” he said. “What can we do to stop the settler violence in the West Bank?” Kasky said he is quitting the race to “focus on human rights in the West Bank.”

The former candidate’s slander of Israel continued when he made a video – later posted by Iranian state TV – where he falsely claimed that, “The settlers who move into the West Bank, they don’t just kill Palestinians with impunity… they taunt and humiliate and terrorize these people. They shoot holes in their water tanks. They cut the power, the little power that they do have in their villages. They are committing acts of violence that are so horrifying. The feeling of impending doom at the barrel of some assault weapon – that is the entire lives of people who I met, human beings.”

It is unclear who paid for Kasky’s trip to Israel and who will be funding his future activism against Israelis in Judea and Samaria, but he is just one more good-hearted, naïve activist tricked into thinking that spreading Palestinian talking points “as a Jew” to demonize Israel is a moral position.

Kasky is just another young Jewish American with little knowledge of the region, brought on a short “fact-finding” trip to the West Bank and given a one-sided, tear-jerking tour of Palestinian villages. These trips present a biased view with no context and a victimhood-laden tale of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. These activists are rarely curious or intellectually honest enough to research the Israeli story. Activists like Kasky, who have little experience with foreign affairs and other cultures, are gullible and believe the narrative fed to them.

If he were honest, or simply intellectually curious, he’d return to the region on his own dime, visit Israeli towns and cities in Judea and Samaria, and listen with an open mind. He would hear the Jewish claim to the heartland of their historic homeland, hear about violent Palestinian terrorism in the region, and learn the truth about “settler violence.” He could then make an accurate assessment about who has rights to land, whether Palestinians are victims or perpetrators of violence and terrorism in the region, and whether settler violence is being correctly reported or exaggerated by biased agitators with an agenda to spread a false narrative about Jewish settlers.