Note: Yesterday I received a letter from my hometown temple, notifying me that as part of the “Sisterhood” College Connection program that I’m signed up for, a donation was made in my name to a village helping to relocate Israeli youth “away from the stress of the situation.” Receiving notification that my name was so perfunctorily assigned — that my beliefs were assumed based on my affiliation with a congregation — to a unilateral cause which I never would have personally supported, re-ignited a fire of anger that persisted throughout all of winter break. Interspersed in this column are actual quotes that I received in my present yesterday from Mr. Isaac Herzog, Israel’s minister of welfare and social services (believe me, I could not have dreamed this title up.)

The operation in Gaza is progressing exactly as planned.

What I want to know — what burns me up at night — is how are so many other American Jews not red-in-the-face, infuriated, embarrassed and righteously indignant now with Israel’s response to Gaza’s rocket-fire? Even if one believes Israel was justified in a response to Hamas' rocket launches (a completely separate column indeed), it’s incredible how many people sighed and said, “it’s an unfortunate situation,” instead of saying, “wait a minute… this seems a bit disproportionate.”

As to the issue of proportionality, Hamas rockets have for years put Israel’s citizens under huge danger. The fact that Israel has been successful at limiting the casualties from these rocket attacks is not something for which Israel needs to apologize.

Many American Jews suffer from a Jewish mother-esque sense of guilt and inferiority, that they are lesser Jews for living in America and not in Israel. Many feel that Israeli soldiers fight on the frontlines to allow us to continue our lives of freedom of religion, and we owe it to them to support Israel unconditionally. That if we don’t, we forfeit our safety. This is how being pro-Israel has become conflated with being pro-Jewish. Saying anything critical of Israeli policy can land somebody one of the most heinous titles in the world: anti-Semitic (which is, for example, exactly what a reader commented about Jimmy Carter when I wrote about him last year).

This is a very difficult and delicate operation for the IDF. Hamas has clearly been preparing for this. We hope and pray that Israeli soldiers do not pay too heavy a toll, already 30 soldiers have been wounded and one killed, an only son from Givat Zeev.

Instead, as always, the media was blamed in the recent massacre; numbers have been altered! “Only” 100 people who died were civilians, I was told by unconditionally pro-Israel friends and groups. Even many Jewish Israelis understood the severity of their country’s actions and began protesting — but American Jews were largely silent, dedicating Facebook messages in support of the IDF.

Israel is aware that there are demonstrations against its Gaza operation all over the world. But the world needs to see the larger picture.

Even more impressive, perhaps, than many American Jews’ fear of criticizing Israel is the power of the constituency. Israel receives the highest amount of foreign American aid unconditionally, even when it is directly oppositional to American interests. For example, America has “demanded” an end to settlement-building (read: leaned over to Israel one night in bed, tickled her toes, and said ‘honey, can you chill out with the stealing land thing — wait-you’re tickling me! giggle.’) Settlement-building has never stopped, but America has continually built up Israel economically and militarily. Now, Israel has followed in SugarDaddy America’s footsteps and “showed the world how to stop terror.”

We need to reach out to members of Congress to ensure that their support for Israel remains high; Israel cannot be pressured to end this operation prematurely.

Right?

Just one flaw in that plan: The world is growing increasingly tired of giving Israel a free pass to behave like an irresponsible child when the stakes are literally life and death. In this day and age, does anybody sincerely believe that Israel is actually made safer by building a wall and cutting off families, for one, and killing thousands of people in the course of a week, for another? Israel has time and time again missed the point,that its physical responses have been to psychological situations. That it has made itself look more and more tyrannical, and that human beings — no matter how much you try to enslave them behind walls, without food, without access to leave — do not react well to submission.

On the whole, Israel is feeling a lot of support around the world for this operation.

American Jews: this is to you, to those who concern themselves more with laws of kashrut — with proper ways of killing animals, partially so that they feel the least amount of pain — than with laws that deal with our own humankind. It’s time to get angry, because if we’re not angry right now, if Israel and America don’t change their provincial “foreign policy” plans immediately, then I truly do not know how much longer Israel will be around for.

And Mr. Herzog: if operations in Gaza are really proceeding “exactly as planned,” then you just justified murdering innocent people. Whether one innocent person or millions, I am astounded by the absolute chutzpah that could compel you to make such a statement — especially as a Jew.

Your “social services and welfare” policies might seem like they are making Israel safer in the short run, but in the long run they are making the region even more volatile, even less inclined to a true peace, and with reason. So when you go to bed at night in your fancy house with your family all around, Mr. Herzog, I hope you picture Gaza’s rubble just a few miles west of you. I hope faces of Gaza’s children haunt your sleep. Secretly, you and I both know that there is only a certain amount that a people — and the world — can stand.