I was the co-president of TorchPAC, a pro-Israel group at NYU, from 1999 to 2002.

While we held rallies, protests, marches, writing letter campaigns, petitions, and articles, I could also see the major efforts and inroads that the pro-Palestinian proponents were making in the common culture. This worried me at that time, but there didn’t seem to be anything I could do about it.

For the last 20 years I’ve been living a private life and working for my family business. But our old adversaries and enemies at NYU from Arab Students United, Students for Justice in Palestine and similar anti-Israel groups never stopped being activists. They never stopped organizing; they never stopped building alliances, connections, friendships and working toward their common cause. Linda Sarsour, who has appeared at hateful NYU events, and I are the same age, but we followed different pathways.

The same is true of many old pro-Israel and anti-Israel college activists.

“How did so much antisemitism appear here in the United States,“ people wonder.  “How are the pro-Hamas voices able to organize such massive rallies?” The answer is that they have been organizing for the last 20 to 30 years. They planted the seeds, watched them grow into trees, and now we are seeing their poisoned fruit. They have done a fantastic job. This is what explains the ability to hold a rally in New York, Brussels, and London at the same time. They are a worldwide organized community.

There aren’t nearly as many anti-Semitic people as you might think. What we are seeing is the “network effect” of social media manufacturing the illusion that everyone thinks the same way. And the effect that this has on the consciousness of ordinary people is supremely powerful. People take their cue from what they think “everybody” thinks – even from small highly organized groups that can control the conversation and then control hearts and minds. Our adversaries have been incredibly successful in this regard.

The intensity of the pro-Hamas forces in the United States has awakened many people to the fact that we can no longer afford to be on the sidelines of the conversation. Hundreds of people I have spoken to feel activated and motivated – like I do – to make a difference and change the conversation in this civilizational struggle.

Although we cannot stop our adversaries from doing what they are doing, they too cannot stop us from doing what we can do. We too can organize, we too can build alliances, and we too can change perceptions. We too can take part in the fight.

What is required is simple. We must decide that it is time to become active and do it in an organized fashion. We must community organize. If we do this, when we do this, we will find tremendous strength. Each single voice will be amplified by 1000, just as our enemies are. One person alone may feel weak, scared and ineffective, but many voices coming together in unity can be extremely powerful. The pro-Hamas rallies are waking many of us up and helping us organize.

The silent majority will be silent no more.

Daniel Rosen is the former leader of the TorchPAC pro-Israel group at New York University whose activism against campus antisemitism was reported on in the New York Post, the New York Sun, and multiple Jewish newspapers as well as the Village Voice. He worked for the Jewish Agency and now serves as co-CEO of a local family business.