On Tuesday night, May Shechter, a participant in the previous season of the matchmaking reality show "Wedding at First Sight," opened a camera and decided to share with her tens of thousands of Instagram followers her disappointment with the silence of her Arab friends and the internal conflict she is having with herself regarding the situation.
"It's time for me to vent too," Schechter began the story she shared with her 36,<> Instagram followers. "Until now I considered myself a very non-radical leftist. Although an 'anarchist' who goes to demonstrations, I have never walked around with Palestinian flags. But yes, I have always been in favor of coexistence and peace, and my Arab friends can attest to that.
"I still consider them my friends, but this post, if I had read it until Shabbat when Smotrich said that Huwara should be deleted (referring to Finance Minister Bezalel Smotritz's liking in March to a tweet calling for the erasure of Huwara after the attack in which Hillel Menachem Weigel Yaakov Yaniv was murdered), I felt that I was in the Holocaust only towards them. I said there was no way that in 2023 someone would say 'erase', 'destroy the', after we passed 39 to 45, I said there was no way I would repeat it.
"I feel like something has changed since Saturday. Beyond the pure souls who were murdered in the south, I think that the rats living in Gaza succeeded in murdering the souls of the entire nation of Israel, because to see the atrocities they are committing there is something that the soul cannot handle. I don't know if mental health treatments can help. I feel that they murdered my innocence, my faith in people. They killed my hope. You murdered yourselves the last chance you had for peace. You murdered every bit of dialogue you could get. You have murdered every shred of love and hope.
"I've never been politically correct, but I feel like you murdered that too, and that's good. When I read a sentence like 'Gaza will disappear,' I stop for a moment and say, 'Wait, what about all the babies and children there, the Gazans there?' I still think about them. I still think about them and still say that I don't want to murder innocents and I don't want to kill. I don't want to be them. I don't want to blacken my soul, but you have blackened it. You blackened every bit of soul I had.
"First and foremost, I want to wipe out all the terrorist organizations in the world, I want to make Hamas disappear from the map, but I don't know what to tell you about the rest. I can't tell you what the phrase 'Gaza will disappear' is. I'm ambivalent about that," she concluded.
May Shechter, Photo: Liron Saar
Alongside the video, Schechter also elaborated on her disappointment at the silence of her Arab friends. "I think the saddest thing for me is for Israeli Arabs, my friends and colleagues, who may also have families in Gaza. Where are you? Why do few of you dare to take a stand? Where does this peak cowardice come from?! You have lived together with us for years. We grow together. In school (at least me), growing up and working together, studying for a degree together, laughing and learning two languages. We both want to raise children here and when you get married or become parents, I'm happy with you.
"You know what would happen to these rats if they saw our strength together? If only you showed that there is no place for murder, rape, violence?! They would have been much weaker! But what is the fear? Maybe you don't want them to weaken? Maybe I'm the naïve and stupid person I hoped for and was so defensive. You're cowards and you're disappointing and you're trampling my heart, but it's not too late. Rise up against these murderers who also murdered a lot of Muslims along the way and don't see anyone from a meter! Say something! Show us that you are part of us! Please."
In response to the story, Schechter sought to clarify: "I meant only Muslim Arabs and not Christian Arabs."
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