I believe strongly that we in the West should stand with Israel in its hour of danger. However, regardless of where you stand on the Israel-Palestinian conflict, decent people everywhere must recognize that the Jewish people are in danger-not just in Israel, but almost everywhere.
What we witnessed this past weekend in Paris was nothing short of a pogrom carried out mostly by France's Muslim inhabitants. Outraged over Gaza? It was merely a pretext to act out their ingrained Jew hatred.
Even in ever-progressive Los Angeles, a Palestinian woman was quoted Sunday as saying that Hitler had a reason to kill 6 million Jews. Why are we importing sentiments like that into our country?
But even if you argue that Israel is to blame for the conflict (which I profoundly disagree with), how does that condone attacking innocent Jews on the streets of European cities and attacking synagogues with Molotov cocktails?
In Malmo, Sweden, a city I have written about often, the ex-mayor essentially told the city's Jews that they were welcome to leave if they didn't like the way they were being treated on the streets by Malmo's ever-restive Muslim minority (about 25% of the population). Mayor Ilmar Reepalu was upset with the Jews in Malmo because they didn't condemn Israel-a nation Reepalu hates with a passion.
World events should never be an excuse to single out minorities identified with a certain nation. We have learned that from our mistaken relocation of Japanese-Americans from the West Coast during World War 2. To our credit, even after 9-11, mosques are not being attacked, and Muslims are not being assaulted on the streets as Jews are in Europe. Sure, there have been isolated incidents, but our legal system deals with them.
But one really wonders how strenuously European police pursue those who attack Jews. In France, it is open season on them, reminiscent of Nazi Germany in the years running up to WW2. As a result, they are leaving countries like France and Sweden in droves, mostly to Israel. In an era when we are supposed to be sensitive to minorities, how can this disgraceful situation exist? In effect, anti-Semitism is once again fashionable-not just on the part of rednecks, white supremacists, and uneducated people, but among those who should know better. And rather than combating it, our universities have become a focal point for it.
No matter how strong Israel may be militarily and economically, I am not so optimistic that they will survive another ten years. The so-called international community is hostile to them even though they are the only democracy in the Middle East. Why?
Because they are intimidated by the screaming mobs and their political and diplomatic leaders, rich with oil and always willing to spill blood-our blood.
If Israel is ever overrun, watch the bloodbath ensue. Those who survive by getting out will become persecuted minorities once again. They are the inconvenient people because many think that if they go away we will all live in peace with Islamic world. Wrong. The Jews are the proverbial canary in the coal mine, and if they go, the rest of us are next on the list of the jihadists.
Look around the world. Muslims are in conflict with everyone including themselves. The people who were running amok and attacking Jews in Paris Sunday are the same people who are attacking Christians in the Middle East. What difference does it make if the alligator eats the Jews or the Christians first?
We should stand with the Jewish people because their enemy is our enemy and because it is simply the moral thing to do.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
6 comments:
Thanks, Gary. No question that the fanatical hatred of Israel is but a fig leaf for fanatical hatred of Jews.
It may be simply envy as Israel has a much more productive society. Israeli laws are carried out uniformly. They have taken the dessert and made a prosperous nation while the Arabs are squatting on the same dessert inciting violence and following tribal culture for the last 1,600 years without any development.
Our foremost scholar in this area is Bernard Lewis. He wrote a book called "What Went Wrong?"about the Muslim culture.
I just got another book, Making David into Goliath, How the World Turned Against Israel, by Joshua Muravchik. Hopefully I'll learn more about the mechanics and details of the change in world opinion from 1967 to today.
In the meantime, my friend in Israel, who claims his view represents the vast majority of people there, says that Israel should attack Gaza and wipe out Hamas there. They are outraged to be expected to endure rocket attacks that no other country in the world would would allow against their own country.
Unfortunately for your premise, "the Jewish people" are not a monolith to be stood with, any more than "the Catholic people" or "the Buddhist people" or "the Lutheran people."
Even in ever-progressive Los Angeles, a Palestinian woman was quoted Sunday as saying that Hitler had a reason to kill 6 million Jews. Why are we importing sentiments like that into our country?
Nothing new about those sentiments. Minus the specific reference to Hitler, they have been with us since colonial times. The interesting difference today is that it used to be conservatives who held such views.
I agree Miggie. At a certain point, one must go house to house as the Soviets did when they took Berlin. Hamas must be rooted out.
But you are wrong in one point.....
It is desert-not dessert. Dessert is ice cream after dinner.
Damn spell checker!
Outraged over Gaza? It was merely a pretext to act out their ingrained Jew hatred.
That's backwards. Muslims in general have not historically been hostile toward Jews in general. Exceptions include the Fatamid Caliphate in Egypt, and the Almohades.
Hostility toward Jews began with Jewish immigration to the Ottoman territories at the eastern end of the Mediterranean, when real things to fight over, like, land, immigrants disrespecting local culture (however unworthy of respect local culture might be) etc. began to be at issue.
Even then, it was an local, or at most an Arab cause, not a Muslim cause. The secular PLO organizations, whatever their tactics, tried to maintain a distinction between Jews and The Zionist Entity.
But, when explicitly Muslim organizations like Hamas and al Qaeda started taking over (with encouragement from the CIA, who saw them as allies against communism), THEN it became a matter of hatred toward Jews, dredging up Koranic references and less reputable haddith that had been ignored for centuries.
One caveat -- real life is never simple -- there was some earlier hostility toward Jews, generally, because there was an accurate perception that Israel as originally constituted was economically unsustainable, except Jewish communities who prospered elsewhere provided substantial funds to keep it going.
Many things went wrong, including many policy decisions by Israel which made it more of a Goliath than a David, allying with South Africa, but simplistic summaries will not get us to a sustainable resolution.
(There was an old National Lampoon parody of the United Jewish Appeal ads. It featured Moshe Dayan asking "Did you ever try to win three wars in a row and still come out the underdog?"
Gary, the references were always lying on a piece of paper somewhere, but they were not in regular use. Sort of like, not mixing wool and cotton has always been in the Torah, but until someone noticed it and made a business testing clothing for the abomination, Jews hadn't been paying much attention to it for centuries. And when is the last time Jews or Christians stoned a disobedient teen-ager?
You question my knowledge of history, but you take every rabble-rousing self-styled Imam who rants about non-Muslims taking off their clothes if caught too well dressed in public, and accept them as experts?
Jews flourished during that Abassid caliphate, and the later Ottoman empire. They were persecuted by the Almohades and Fatamids. History does not reduce itself to a cheap slogan, no matter how many times you repeat it. (What did Goebbels say about repetition...?)
Post a Comment