I’m sure most people saw the news coming out of the West Bank/Judea and Samaria on Saturday. Representative Ro Khanna, an outright critic of Israel, went on an unannounced visit to the West Bank to see what it is like. Shockingly, he ran into an issue with settlers, the IDF, and the police, which turned into an incredible photo op for himself, the anti-Israel movement, and a way to change the focus away from his support from Graham Platner and all he represents (hate, sexual violence, bigotry, etc.). Unfortunately, as you may have noticed, I didn’t say it was incredible for the Palestinians. I didn’t say it was helpful for the world in eliminating terror. And it certainly isn’t helpful for working towards a shared society between Israelis and Palestinians. This was all a show for Ro Khanna.

How can I be so confident in saying that? Because I was just there. I was in the West Bank, meeting with Palestinian leaders, Bedouin town leaders and members, and experienced the impact of the violent settlers and their terrorism (I will call it what it is), along with Palestinians and Israelis who are not just hoping for a better future but working together to create it. He walked away with hate. I walked away with hope. He will likely never go back. I will go back to visit my friends in the West Bank as soon as possible—planning for a few days in October right now.

So what is the difference? How did we both go to the same place, have similar experiences, and walk away so differently? Part of it, I believe, is that mine was real and his is staged. He knew the outcome before he arrived, and those planning his trip made sure it would happen. I hoped for my outcome but didn’t know what to expect and walked in honestly, with open eyes and an open heart to the experience.

Israel and the Palestinians are a complex and complicated topic. Too many people, like Ro Khanna, want to turn it into talking points. They seek simplicity in a deeply complex issue. I am far from an expert, but having spent time with leaders of Palestinian civil society and those in Israel who are working to build a true shared society in which Israelis and Palestinians can live together in peace, I do have on-the-ground personal experience.

To start with, we have to look at the governments of both Israel and the Palestinian Authority. For a very long time, it has been in both of their best interests to not only keep the status quo but ensure that no progress is made. Neither side has a true partner for peace and to build a better future. October 7th only made things more challenging and helped each government strengthen their own base and ensure nothing will change. It is okay to criticize the governments and their policies. Israelis and Palestinians do it all the time. I have heard and seen Israelis do it since I first went to Israel in 1989. My interactions with Palestinians have taught me that they are just as critical of their government. The media chooses not to cover this because it’s not in their best interests. Criticize the ‘pay for slay’ policy of the PA. Criticize how the PA doesn’t help the average Palestinian citizen. Criticize the Israeli government’s refusal to stop the terrorism from the settlers in the West Bank and the actual encouragement of it by Smotrich and Ben Gvir. You can criticize how Hamas uses human shields and how Israel handled the war in Gaza. The people of Gaza do. The people in Israel do. That’s not what Ro Khanna did. That’s not what Bernie Sanders, AOC, Summer Lee, Rashida Tlaib, Ilhan Omar, Candace Owens, Joe Rogan, Dave Smith (the failed comedian who made his name by criticizing Israel), or Tucker Carlson do.

We can also look at those who are working diligently to build a better future. When Rahm Emanuel was just in Israel, he visited with Rozana, an amazing organization that is doing work in the West Bank, within Israel, and in Gaza based on Health Diplomacy. His comments on social media show the impact and opportunity that exist. The Washington DC Jewish Community Relations Council (JCRC) is invested in the work of Rozana, and this article in the Washington Jewish News highlights their involvement. When I was in the West Bank and Israel, I had the opportunity to meet with the professional and volunteer leaders of Palestinian hospitals that work with Rozana and partner with Israel. It was amazing to spend time with the professional leadership and boards of directors of Al Ahli Hospital and Al Rahkma rehabilitation hospital. Ro Khanna could have chosen to meet with them and hear what could be possible. He intentionally chose not to look for hope but to look for hate. While in the West Bank, I got to experience the Women4Women program of Rozana, which provides a mobile clinic dedicated to women’s health in areas where they don’t have access to quality healthcare. The entire multidisciplinary team is composed of Palestinian women. It was incredible to see. Had he been interested in truly exploring things that are changing the reality on the ground, Ro Khanna could have done so.

The terrorist settlers are a real problem. I got to experience that as well during my visit. There are real issues with what they are doing and the impact they are having on Bedouin villages and Palestinian villages in Area C. They have been emboldened by Smotrich, who has been public about what he wants to happen, and he is ensuring the settlers have the ability to terrorize the Bedouins and Palestinian villages in Area C. This isn’t something that is debatable. I saw and heard from those impacted. The terrorist settlers came out right after we left. We had an issue with the police and IDF because we, unknowingly, were in a similarly restricted zone to Khanna. The difference is that we didn’t know where we went was restricted – they had just made it restricted and didn’t inform anybody. Khanna and his people knew this. They had been told previously not to be there. They knowingly created a PR stunt, a stunt that only helps Khanna, not the Palestinian people. Per the IDF, after reviewing body camera footage,

“A review of body-worn camera footage confirms that the group leader was explicitly warned by officers, as this was not his first time violating the Closed Military Zone order,” police said. “He was issued a final warning that any future violations would result in immediate arrest.”

This was a planned incitement by people who knew that what they were doing would result in them being stopped and questioned. Khana is complicit. He could have highlighted, as I did, the challenges of what he saw and heard in the villages. Instead, he made it about himself. This was his goal all along – to change the narrative from his Platner support to Israel, already something his supporters hate.

Khanna’s self-promoting PR stunt doesn’t help the Palestinian people. They are not the focus; he is. The challenges they face were not the focus; he was. His story continues to change, and as the facts come out, the spin will be interesting. First, he said it was 90 minutes. Then it was an hour. Today, it was 20 minutes. Notice how everything is about Khanna. It’s not about the successes and the challenges occurring in the West Bank. By making it about him, those who dislike Khanna blame the Palestinians in the West Bank. Those who support Khanna focus on how Israel treated him instead of the challenges being faced in the West Bank in terms of the terrorist settlers and the new gates that have been established, making travel difficult for them.

His self-promoting trip will only cause more problems for the Palestinians, Israelis, and Jews in the diaspora. It will help increase antisemitism and encourage divisiveness instead of unity. His inflammatory language—detained, fear for his life—only encourages more hate. Saying the settlers had “machine guns” when they did not is more propaganda designed to spread hatred and promote himself. As Americans, we need to stop enabling all the politicians, Republicans and Democrats, who consistently put themselves first. We need to demand better. We need to reject those who use their positions to increase divisiveness in our country through lies and made-up situations.

The Middle East is a challenging environment. Too many Americans think that it’s just like the West, just like America. It’s not. It is far more complex, with thousands of years of history. The Jews, Babylonians, Persians, Greeks, Romans, Crusaders, Turks, and British have all been in control of the region. People like Ro Khanna choose their own self-interests over helping the Palestinians, Israelis, Druze, and Bedouins. He had the opportunity to meet with the Druze and learn about their challenges but declined. He had the opportunity to meet with hostages and survivors of the Nova festival; he declined. Khanna has no interest in solving problems or even addressing them. He has no interest in helping Palestinians. His interests are entirely about himself. His staged visit and intentionally created ‘detention’ help nobody but Khanna himself.

I’m tired of our ‘leaders’ choosing themselves over the country. I’m tired of the lies our ‘leaders’ tell and believe. Ro Khanna’s trip was just the most recent setup. We need to reject all of our ‘leaders’ when they do this. It’s not a partisan issue, which is why I used the term ‘leaders’. If we want to have a better world, if we want to have peace, if we want to have a country that works together to solve our problems instead of being divided against each other, it’s up to each of us to stand up to those like Khanna, who focus on divisiveness and hate. It’s up to us to focus on the work that is being done to change the world. Ro Khanna could have met people like I did a few weeks ago in the West Bank, people committed to a shared society and changing the world. Instead, he chose self-promotion.

It is time for us all to step up and reject those who stew up bigotry and hate for their own self-interests. Khanna gives us an opportunity to publicly reject him and those like him on both sides of the aisle. We can send a message that we care more about fixing the world than dividing our country. The reality is that there is hope for a better future. There are Palestinians and Israelis who work together to build peace and a shared society. Don’t believe the lies we are being told. While the governments make it difficult, the people on the ground are finding ways to work together for a better future where Palestinians and Israelis can live together in peace. I’m committed to doing that. I hope you will join me.

I love Israel. Those who know me well understand just how deep that love goes. I visit as often as I can, and I often get asked, “When are you making Aliyah?” (moving to Israel.) I’m not planning to do that, but I would like to get to a point where my wife and I can spend a month or so each year living in different parts of Israel, renting Airbnbs or doing house swaps with Israelis who want to visit Orlando.

I was raised in a family that was extremely Zionistic. All four of my grandparents went to Israel. They shared the story of listening to the UN vote on the partition plan on their transistor radio and how when they knew it would pass, they yelled, screamed, and celebrated. My parents and in-laws have been to Israel. My brother, sister-in-law, sister, and brother-in-law have been to Israel. My wife and I have been together, and I have now been 26 times, with additional trips planned for this year.

I was also raised in a family that had deep and challenging conversations at the dinner table. Nothing was off-limits, and we were encouraged to challenge each other not just about facts, but also about values, morals, and ethics. It wasn’t uncommon to hear somebody at the dinner table say, “Yes, you CAN do it, but the real question is: SHOULD you do it?” Right and wrong were taught not just in legal terms, but in terms of morals and ethics.

My cousins and I spent a lot of time talking about this as we grew up together. Some are more liberal, some are more conservative, yet we would talk about right and wrong, moral and ethical issues, challenges in the choices we might make, and what those choices said about ourselves, our country, and our world. Nothing was simple, and the conversations would often continue well beyond the dinner table and sometimes last for days.

Raised that way, I still take a critical look at things. Too many people today think things are simple. A simple answer to solving the issues the United States faces is that ending the war with Iran is simple. The conflict between Israel and Palestine has a simple solution: if Israel just replaced Netanyahu, everything would be fixed. If the U.S. would go to a net-zero carbon output, we’d solve environmental issues. None of these are true. None are simple. They can begin a conversation, but each, like so many other things, is very complex.

As a result of the complexities and my desire to really understand what is going on, what is behind it, and the potential outcomes of various situations, I make sure to get a lot of updates and information about what is happening in Israel, Gaza, the West Bank/Judea and Samaria, Lebanon, and Iran. Sometimes the information is too much and can be overwhelming. I know I can’t depend on the mainstream media to give me real facts. They are in the entertainment division, and they focus on getting eyeballs, clicks, likes, forwards, and lots of engagement rather than reporting the facts. This is why I have spent time in the West Bank, talked with many Palestinians and Israelis, and made Palestinian, Israeli, and Israeli Arab friends. I can get real information about the complexities, not just the simple solutions that simply aren’t real and won’t work.

In most instances, the information I receive through multiple sources, often directly on the ground, is helpful and broadens my understanding of what is really happening in these areas. Earlier this week, I got an alert that surprised me in many ways. The alert stated, “Earlier this morning, Israeli security forces were dispatched to the area of Mukhmas and began extensive searches following a report regarding several Israeli civilians who had been in the area and lost contact. The forces are conducting searches in the area to rule out the concern of a security incident. The IDF will continue to provide updates as developments occur.” The next update stated, “Following searches and a joint multi-agency intelligence effort by the Israeli security forces in the area of Mukhmas, all of the civilians were located, and the concern of a security incident was ruled out.”

Why did this surprise me? Mukhmas is about 10–15 km from Ramallah, and I was just there a few weeks ago. The main village is spectacular. There are big, modern homes, beautiful infrastructure, a mosque, and it looks like the type of place any of us would love to live. The homes there are mainly owned by Palestinian expats who use them as their summer homes. It is truly an amazing village, as nice as any you’d find anywhere in the world. This part of Mukhmas is in Area B, where the Palestinian Authority handles civil administration while security control is shared with Israel.

When you leave the village, as we did, you move into Area C, which is under full Israeli civil and military administration. We spent our time in the portion that was in Area C. While there, we got to meet the Bedouins who live in that area. We heard their stories and how they lived there peacefully until the illegal settlers showed up and started terrorizing them. They told us how they chose not to respond to violence against them with more violence. One village disbanded due to the harassment and terrorism, while the other chose to stay despite being attacked multiple times each day.

Mukhmas is not a place where Israeli civilians would just happen to be. You don’t make a wrong turn in East Jerusalem and end up in Mukhmas. When I read the alert, I realized the Israeli citizens who lost contact were the terrorist settlers, and if we can’t call our own what they are, why should we expect anybody else to call theirs what they are? The fear from the IDF was that the villagers finally got fed up and responded with violence to the settler terrorism. It didn’t fit the people I met, so when I read the second alert, stating they were found and that it was not a security incident, I wasn’t surprised.

At some point, however, this may not be true. How long can you terrorize people in their homes before they respond with violence? Living in Florida, we have laws like the Castle Doctrine (Fla. Stat. § 776.013) which grants you the right to use deadly force against an intruder in your home or occupied vehicle without a duty to retreat. The law presumes you have a reasonable fear of death or great bodily harm if the intruder is actively and forcefully entering. This has more than been met for these villages who don’t have this legal protection.

I love Israel. It’s a deep part of my soul and my identity. My trip in May was my 26th visit. I have at least two more planned for this year. It is impossible to describe the feeling of being in Israel and walking the streets to somebody who has never been. For those who have been to Israel, you don’t have to describe it. I will defend the right of the State of Israel to exist to my dying breath. But I won’t defend this type of behavior. These people attacking the villages are terrorists. The people who lost communication were likely settlers off to do no good when their communication was lost. Unlike the Bedouins like Muhammad and Yusef, who aren’t getting protection from law enforcement, these terrorist settlers just lose communication, and it’s a nationwide alert. I bring this up because so many people don’t understand any of the dynamics of Israel, the Palestinians, the West Bank, or what the geography even looks like. I write and talk a great deal about how we do not teach the modern state of Israel to our children because they don’t know what it is like. Had I not just been in Mukhmas and seen it personally, met the people there personally, and had an experience with these terrorist settlers, I wouldn’t have known there was anything going on with this alert. It would have seemed like a situation where regular Israeli citizens were in danger. These were not regular Israeli citizens, and they were not in danger. They are creating danger for those who live there, quietly and peacefully. They count on the diaspora’s ignorance of the region to misunderstand what is going on. It’s beyond time to take on that ignorance and no longer permit it.

Our world today is dominated by social media. TikTok has become the way many people get their information. It’s not coming from reputable journalists with integrity; it is coming from people who want to monetize their accounts and who will do or say anything to get enough followers, clicks, and eventually revenue. It is coming from bots that generate fake content, images, and lies to sell their narrative. We continue to sink into our abyss because people don’t speak out and people don’t take risks to call out bad behavior. People don’t have the knowledge to have those deep and complex conversations. We live in a world where too many people want simple answers to complex questions. They may want that, but it isn’t reality. Things are no longer about “the truth,” “ethics,” or “morals.” It’s about “my truth,” “my ethics,” or “my morals.” We have lost that communal responsibility and communal discourse.

For the past three years, I have been blessed to work with clients who inspire me. Clients who are involved with deep issues and understand the complexities. They are answering questions like,

• How do we build a just society?
• How do we provide a quality education to those who face societal challenges?
• How do we teach leadership to teens?
• How do we make technology available to children who have no access but have the minds to excel?
• Can we use healthcare to build relationships and create opportunities for peace?
• Are there new and different ways to show Israel and Judaism in a positive light on college campuses through athletics and athletes?
• What is the best way to address the challenge of Jewish identity for people in their 30s and 40s?
• Can sports be a way to social justice?
• What does it mean to be Israeli, Arab, and a Zionist?

I enjoy working with my clients on these challenges because they remind me of those childhood dinner table conversations. Important topics. Important situations. Complex issues. People with passion who aren’t afraid to get their hands dirty to solve problems. If any of these questions, or others like them, interest you, reach out. Get involved. Learn facts and challenge yourself with the moral and ethical parts, not just the legal parts. There is a role for everybody to play. It is the only way we are going to get ourselves out of the current world situation we are all experiencing.