Roy K. Altman

It’s incumbent on every person of good faith to speak up and speak out.

People tell me all the time, “All these people with the keffiyehs and the shouts and the chants, they're not going to be convinced.”

First of all, I don't know that that's always true. But put that aside. They’re the minority.

The job of everyone of good faith in the Western world is not necessarily to convince the people who are deranged, who are pro-terror. The job is to make sure that mind virus doesn’t spread to the majority of people who either support Israel and the Jewish people, or who frankly don’t know that much about it.

What Yad Vashem, the World Holocaust Remembrance Center, teaches us is that what starts with dehumanization doesn’t end with dehumanization.

What starts with dehumanization ends with genocide.

If we don’t speak up at that dinner table, at that barbecue, at that kid’s birthday party, then in 10 or 20 years, it won’t be 10% or 20% of the population that thinks we're genocidal monsters. It'll be 80%, 90% of the people who think you’re a dog who must be killed because you support genocide far away.

And let me tell you, it’ll be much more awkward then.

The people of Netiv HaAsara are back living on the Gaza border, marrying, having children, and celebrating life.

The terrorists will never prevail.

During a recent trip to Israel, I went straight into the heart of the Muslim neighborhoods of Hebron, where I had the honor of meeting with the six sheikhs who control the ancient city today.

These sheikhs are tired of jihadism.

They are prepared to sign a document tomorrow forswearing any connection to a Palestinian state and agreeing to the Abraham Accords with Israel.

They want to establish their own emirate as an independent city state with full trade and security cooperation with Israel.

Everywhere I go, people line up after the speech and they tell me their stories.

They say, "Judge, I support Israel because a Jewish doctor once saved my mother," or, "A Jewish landlord once knew that I couldn't pay the rent and gave me six months for free," or, "A Jewish lawyer once took my case pro bono."

I've heard hundreds of stories like that.

I say to you, be a light in the community.

Carry the torch and the flame that has been passed down to you for thousands of years.

You do not have the right to relinquish it.

Our parents and grandparents and great-grandparents, l'dor l'dor, from generation to generation, have given us the light of tikkun olam, the light of leaving the world a better place than we found it.

The world is watching us.

The way you carry yourself in your home with your children and grandchildren, the way you carry yourself at work with your colleagues and opposing counsel, people are always watching.

Special thanks to the University of Texas School of Civic Leadership for hosting two great events in Austin centered on “Israel on Trial.”