I recently received this message in my inbox: “I appreciate you reaching out. But it would be unethical to work with an Israeli company until the genocide stops.”
It came from a man named Chris, a CPA in Austin, Texas; a professional who states on his LinkedIn profile that he is an army veteran. He was responding to an outreach note about a company I am proud to say is built in partnership with an Israeli startup out of Tel Aviv.
These details matter. A statement like that from that demographic is a warning about what middle-class America now considers ordinary. If you believed the blood libel was a thing of the past, here it is with a new vocabulary.
Here is what I wrote back:
Sir, thank you for your reply.
Do you use a computer? The processor inside your laptop was in all likelihood designed in Israel. Intel has developed its chips in Haifa since 1974, among them the 8088 that ran the first IBM personal computer. The firewall protecting your clients’ tax records, every account number and Social Security number you are entrusted to keep, traces back to Check Point, founded by the Israeli engineer Gil Shwed, who is widely credited with commercializing the modern firewall. Waze, the app you likely use to get around traffic, was built in Israel before Google bought it. Mobileye, the collision avoidance technology in millions of American cars, is Israeli as well. Should you ever need it, the PillCam was invented by an Israeli engineer named Gabriel Iddan, who took optics he had developed for guided missiles at Israel’s defense labs and turned them into a device that has spared millions of patients from invasive surgery. Even the water that grows the produce in your grocery store very likely reaches the field through drip irrigation, pioneered by the Israeli company Netafim.
Because you have made a point to state on your profile that you are a veteran, you of all people should know about Trophy. That system the United States Army and Marine Corps now mount on their Abrams tanks, the one that detects an incoming rocket-propelled grenade or anti-tank missile and destroys it in the air before it reaches the crew inside, was developed by Israel’s Rafael Advanced Defense Systems. American soldiers have come home to their families because of Israeli engineering.
Is Chris’s type of thinking endemic in the Western world?
Consider Austin Franco, a 19-year-old at Cornell University, who turned down an internship interview at the startup VryfID by messaging the founders, “Not interested in working for a Jew.”
When the exchange went public on X, Franco doubled down on Piers Morgan Uncensored, refused to apologize and cited what he called his aggregate personal experiences with Jewish people. His parents called his views morally repugnant and threw him out of their home. He then raised tens of thousands of dollars in online crowdfunding from far-right internet personalities. Cornell’s interim president, Michael Kotlikoff, denounced Franco’s remarks as detestable antisemitism and opened a bias investigation. The university said it would not expel him or bar him from campus, citing free-speech rights.
The legal argument is for legal experts. The moral verdict, however, should not be difficult to reach. What the Franco case shows is cultural: Open contempt for Jews is being laundered into acceptable public speech, no longer whispered but broadcast, defended and crowdfunded.
Look at who is funding it: Franco’s support did not come from the progressive left. It came from the far-right. Chris in my inbox reached for the language of the progressive left—genocide, ethics, solidarity. Left- and right-wing antisemites are people who agree on almost nothing else, yet they arrive at the same door from opposite ends of the hallway. A middle-aged accountant in Austin and a privileged 19-year-old at Cornell have both decided against the Jews.
I want to tell you who is on the other side of that decision.
My son Eitan is a husband, father and tech professional at an AI company in Tel Aviv. He has served well over 400 days of reserve duty since Oct. 7, 2023. He is on a remote base in northern Israel as I write this. He and the men with him are founders, salespeople, engineers and doctors. Between missions they keep up with their day jobs—booking meetings, answering emails and running demos. They put their lives on hold at a moment’s notice, and the attacks they stop do not only threaten Israelis. They threaten Americans sitting safely at home in Austin, Texas, including the ones who would like to boycott Israel.
Chris and Franco are giving Israelis and Americans the middle finger while enjoying the comfort of a world other people are holding up. They do not have to think about a jihadist attack, because miles away in Syria, Lebanon, Gaza and Yemen there are people like my son who do.
So here is my message to Chris from Texas: Damn right, I will talk proudly about my partnerships in Israel. Damn right, I will sell you technology made there. And, thank God, you are one small, misinformed member of a club that has no idea what it’s talking about.
