When Did Self Defense Become a Crime?

If you can, imagine the following: you live in a neighborhood where you are hated. At best, you experience verbal slurs and are accused of egregious lies on a daily basis. At worst, your home is attacked and you are afraid of leaving your home as you may not return home in one piece or at all.

This is life in Israel. Over the weekend, approximately 700 rockets were fired at Israeli citizens. Four Israeli citizens were killed in the process.

Of course, Representative Ilhan Omar (D-Minnesota) defended the senseless slaughter of four innocents people and the destruction of property.

Protesting injustice is one thing. We all have the right to protest injustice when we see it. In fact, we should be protesting injustice when it happens.

It’s another thing to teach hate to your children and teach them that killing your neighbor because they are different than you.

I have had the pleasure of visiting Israel twice in my lifetime. I hope to go again at some point in the future. I just hope that I can visit without worrying about if I will return home alive or in a body box.

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Persistence Pays Off

The hardest part of the writing process is waiting. You, as the writer, put everything into the article and you send it into the void of the internet. You hope that the article is accepted and then published.

A few years ago, I wrote an article for a website that regularly publishes my work. After a few weeks, when I had not heard from that publication, it became clear that they were not interested in publishing this particular. As the years have passed, I just gave up and moved on to other work.

I am not going to name that particular publication, but this is not and will not be the first time that I or any writer has been ghosted after submitting work for publication.

Cut to a few weeks ago. I was following up on new articles that I had submitted to this same website. On a whim, I included the old article that I had previously given up on. Last week, they published that article.

It was the highlight of my day.

Whatever you are going through, stay hungry and no matter what, don’t give up. You will make it, I promise you. Just keep at it. I know that it’s not easy, but persistence always pays off.