David Solway’s Hear, O Israel!: A Feast for the Conservative Mind
Hear, O Israel!
By David Solway
Canadian Values Press (Mantua Books)
181 pages; $25
On September 10, 2001, Canadian David Solway was merely an acclaimed poet, educator, and literary critic, warming himself (and his unexamined 1960s-era left-wing views) on a tranquil Greek island.
On September 11, 2001, he became a prophet. Watching the collapse of the twin towers on a television in his local café, Solway experienced a worldview-shattering epiphany that drew him into a singular fellowship of Western liberal intellectuals — Christopher Hitchens, Alain Finkielkraut, Michael Novak, and Nick Cohen, among them — who had been shocked by 9/11 into a fearful awareness of Islamist triumphalism’s threat to the West. As if making up for lost time, these ideological converts have brought a special urgency to their newly embraced roles as political Cassandras, perhaps none more apocalyptically than Solway.
Since then, Solway has put his formidable intellect to the service of myth-busting. In 2007, he published The Big Lie: On Terror, Anti-Semitism, and Identity, an indictment of the left’s collusion with Islamo-fascism in demonizing America and delegitimizing Israel.
In a way, Hear, O Israel!, partially adapted from published articles, is a recapitulation and updating of perils that have proliferated since the publication of The Big Lie. But this time Solway dwells at greater length and depth on what the Talmud calls sin’at achim, or brotherly hatred, a dynamic throughout Jewish civilization, currently embodied in the intensifying standoff between fellow-traveling anti-Zionists and Israel’s defenders.
Hear, O Israel!’s chapter titles give a good sense of what preoccupies him: “We Are All Israeli,” “The Darkness of Anti-Semitism,” “A House Divided,” and “The Question” (in a nutshell: why are Jews — not all, but a disconcerting number — so prone to turn on themselves and make common cause with those who would delight in their extermination?).
Jews are internationalists. They will get close to the authorities in nations and yet operate from a world view. This annoys national authority to no end.
With the advent of the Internet everyone can become a virtual Jew. Nations are quickly losing their relevance. This is truly the millennium of the Jew.
Israel, America, and the entire West have behaved so inconsistently and in such contradictory ways, so often, it is hard not to understand why the intellectuals of those regions can posit thesis which not only run counter to common sense but which are totally illogical non sequiturs. Israel particularly has made such tragic security and diplomatic blunders and yet called them progressive policies, that a supporter of Israel often feels he should have his head examined.
Let me give just few examples of how Israel herself has alienated her supporters and certainly many of her citizens.
We elected a drunken sot named Rabin and he gave us his lethal Oslo Accords bringing Arafat and his PLO terrorist army into the heart of Israel to ravage, plunder, and murder us. We elected the weak and vacillating Ehud Barak who surrendered all of Israel to Arafat and got hundreds of us killed by PLO and Hamas terrorists. And of course, last but not least, the very nearly indicted Ariel Sharon who ethnically cleansed the Gaza Strip and the Northern Shomron of Israeli Jews, abandoned them to their fate, and left the Gaza area in the hands of Palestinian terrorist gunmen, rockets, and missiles in his effort to avoid arrest, trial, and imprisonment.
What is even worse, all three of these misguided or
criminally motivated Israeli Jewish “leaders”, all of whom were IDF generals, Chiefs of Staff of the IDF, and Israeli Defence Ministers, demanded that the American Jewish Community support their depraved programs, even though most Americans and especially American Jews realized how dangerous these plans were. I won’t even mention the damage to Israel’s Jewish reputation that was done by our very own Supreme Court, a court which most Israelis bitterly refer to as the High Court of Palestine. I won’t even mention how the Israeli Army, the so called People’s Army, forbids our soldiers to fraternize with Jewish settlers in the territories. Because of these sorts of behaviors a lot of American Jews have lost faith in Israel, our leaders, our lawmakers, our judges, and our IDF and who can really
blame them?
And the Americans, how have they reacted to the Islamic terror threat to them, after an Islamic terror attack which took almost 3000 innocent lives, why they elected Barack Hussein Obama and his coterie of flunkies who truly believe that there is no terrorism, just an evil oppressive American empire which must be fundamentally changed because as a nation America is fundamentally flawed.
It is no wonder to me that the inmates are now in charge of the asylum, the only real wonder to me is why did it take so long?
#2 Ken: you have just saved me thousands in therapy. A++++ post.
Thank you. Now, when are you running for office?
Out of curiosity, who if any Israeli politicians do you currently favor.
I don’t know: in his last article for PJM, David Solway referred us to an article in the John Birch Society magazine, The New American. The head of the John Birch Society, John McManus, has notoriously referred to Judaism as a “dead and deadly religion.”
It looks to me like Solway is willing to make some strange alliances himself. Pot, meet kettle, I guess. But frankly, even the sympathetic review here makes his Googling research methodology and “fulminatory prose” sound kin to None Dare Call It Treason and other fringe conspiracy classics.
This is surely a timely book and a VERY tragic part of our history.
As I post this the leftist ruling clique in Israel is inciting to civil war.(don’t be fooled, regardless of who is voted into power in Israel it is the LEFT which rules)
I kid you not. While Iran and its satellite proxies are planning our demise, our erstwhile DM/PM duo are planning a putsch against the nationalist religious sector and their Zionist supporters.
As an opening shot Barak started his war on the Hesder program, a unique program which combines Torah study with military service. In an Orwellian twist the most valiant and devoted soldiers/officers come from their ranks. No matter. The priority of our disgraceful leaders are twofold-to consolidate their leftist power base(as it demographically shrinks compared to the nationalist sector)as well as to do the bidding of their masters in Washington and EU capitals.
In combination with said putsch against the Hesder program Bibi/Barak are now setting their sights on expelling Jews from the heartland of Judea and Samaria. Under the guise of a ’10 month moratorium’ of building (whatever the hell that means)Barak has prepared a War Plan, not against our surrounding enemies, but against Jews who refuse to be expelled.Shades of the 2005 Jewish expulsion from Gush Katif…..
One can read the horror of it all at JPost.com and at IsraelNationalNews.com.
IF there ever were a case of ‘sinat chinam’ this is it.Leftists are incapable of protecting their own, they always side with the enemy. (United In Hate explains this very well, as the left and the Islamists team up against all those who value freedom.)
At the end of the day the anti Zionists ruling Israel will be tried for crimes against their own people. In our inverted upside down world our haters are attempting to place Israel’s leaders on trial for defending ourselves against our genocidal foes.
It will be up to true Jewish patriots to mete out absolute Jewish justice to our internal foes. We cannot seem to escape our tormentors, from the inside and the outside.
Mr. Solway’s latest book is a masterpiece — and a must-read for all those who care about the future of the West. Nobody, to my mind, has better explained the fact that what happens to Israel will surely happen to the rest of the West — and quickly. The civilization that began in Jerusalem and Athens is in mortal peril, and Mr. Solway explains why. The bookstores these days are filled with tripe and trifles; David Solway has written more than a book — he has written, as Ms. Kay makes plain, prophecy. I urge all PJ readers to read it, and then give it to others to read. Our future — and that of our grandkids — depends upon how quickly we all get the message.
Dear Steveoh,
Thanks for the positive feedback but the problem of Israel, and indeed the entire Middle East, can be summarized in one word, treachery.
Not one single country in the entire region has any trust whatsoever in any other country, this includes the Arabs among themselves and of course, the Arabs towards Israel, and by the same token, Israel mistrusts every other country in the region.
Native Israelis, and especially our politicians, have been steeped in this culture for so long that by now treachery is second nature to most of them whether Left or Right, so much so that most political party platforms in Israel have no shelf life whatsoever. Many Israeli political experts try to explain this by claiming that the coalition style of Israel’s government often forces conflicting political parties to moderate or even abandon their policies in order to form a stable coalition with their bitterest enemies and this makes it appear that they are unprincipled or simply treacherous.
This is true up to a point, but just last week our Prime Minister, Netanyahu, who I by the way still support, declared a 10 month housing freeze at the behest of the American government as an attempt to induce the Palestinians to renew peace negotiations. To put it bluntly, Netanyahu violated the single most important principle upon which his Likud party and he himself ran for office, his government would have supported him had he refused to impose the settlement, and yet Netanyahu decreed the freeze anyway, and has yet to acknowledge this obvious fact, much less apologize for it.
On the other hand, Netanyahu has been largely faithful to most of the policies he promised during the campaign, and there are a few trustworthy individuals in the present government, so even though I live in the Territories and this freeze directly affects me and my friends, I am willing to give him the benefit of the doubt and continue supporting him.
It’s kind of like supporting the lesser of many worse evils, like Tzipi Livni or Ehud Barak. For me nothing Netanyahu could do would ever come close to the truly frightening policies that these two have come up with and are still trying to sell.
#5 no one wants to see the destruction of state of Israel. but 42 years of occupation is enough. as an american, i say we should send our mighty air force to Israel and bomb the hell out of the settlement and send you guys back to 1967 borders. That would be the end of all the problems…
Actually #8 there is a long line of states and organizations, as well as anti Semites like yourself who hope and pray daily for the destruction of Israel and the extermination of all the Jews in the world. If America were to follow your advice and carry out the murder of thousands of innocent Jewish civilians in the settlements by using your “mighty air force” you and your Iranian, Saudi, el Queda, and Taliban friends would be no different from the Nazis who tried the same thing in the past.
Thankfully most Americans aren’t diseased reptiles like you who yearn to murder innocent people because of a twisted hatred and a perverted sense of justice.
I’d like to comment on the review, not the regional politics. The review didn’t touch on the tagline, why Jews are prone to turn on themselves.
I haven’t read the book, but it seems that answer lies no farther than a look a how small we are compared to other nations. We aren’t just a minority–even in the Middle East, but an extraordinarily tiny minority.
This fact really eliminates so many strategies one can employ in the face of danger. And it even means that the remaining strategies are going to be ineffective.
That is the dilemma that has always faced the Jewish people–and has been the primary force shaping our assimilated world views, and views of ourselves.
Sometimes it helps just to face a problem honestly even though there is no obvious solution. The simple act of being able to stand straight up in front of it can lead to solutions.
Just a note to altalena — Happy Hanukah! I have not seen your name in many weeks. I am glad that you are alive and well and still posting…
Thanks for your continued insight — a ray of light and learning in the darkness.
Your friend in cyberspace… Loretta
See Pierre van Paassen’s book THE FORGOTTEN ALLY, about Jews in World War II in the Yeshuv of the Palestine Mandate helped by fighting with the British. (Britain reciprocated by fighting against the Jews in the Palestine Mandate and supporting the Arabs.)
Loretta in Indiana — many thanks for the kind post — and a belated Happy Hanukah to you! I haven’t been doing much posting lately; instead, I’ve been concentrating on catching up on books I’ve bought but hadn’t gotten around to reading. One of them is Solway’s new book, which is nothing less than a work of genius. It’s hard reading — not because of the writing (Solway’s writing is a model of clarity) but because of the subject. He pulls no punches about the Jewish future — and he drives home some truths a great many Jews, I fear, would prefer to ignore. If we do so, we do so at our peril. Solway’s book is a work of “modern Torah,” and we Jews had better read it and heed it.
It’s great hearing from you. Many, many thanks!
Re #1 Kochevnik: I have no idea what you are talking about! You need to be deconstructed!
“Jews are internationalists” Jews are not internationalists. People of Jewish origin may take those positions, but they are gone in less than 40 years and their children are no longer Jews – Madeline Albright, Henry Kissinger, Sarkozy senior, Marx, Alinsky, Tony Judt, Norman Finklestein. Please these people are not Jews. Jews raise Jewish children. That’s how they got to be Jews. Everyone else is on their way out.
“[Jews] operate from a world view” Jews operate from a point of view that is broader than a nationalist perspective and narrower than an internationalist one. Stalin killed the Communist Jews because they were too narrow, while Hitler killed Jews because they undermined the German national spirit.
Jews operate from their history which includes being freed by God from slavery in Egypt, but without a war on the Egyptian people. The Jews simply walked out of Egypt. That is pretty unique, and makes both war and pacifism radical solutions – neither inappropriate, but neither principles that brook no exception.
The Jewish perspective: The only real freedom in the world is “freedom from persecution” not freedom that amounts to license. There are no rights, only responsibilities – to family, community, country and the world. There is law, ritual, and custom that Jews impose upon themselves – and not upon others. Everyone else is on their way out!
#9 AS i mentioned no one wants to see the destruction if Israeli govenment but enough is enouhg
#14 Jerry
Would you care to define ‘on their way out’? And maybe a little more elaboration on ‘simply walked out’. My understanding is that there was nothing simple about it. Thanks.
My first experience with the Israeli left occurred this past summer during my Taglit trip. On the third or fourth day of the trip, our group went and visited an Arab-Israeli highschool called Bamyan College somewhere in the Galilee. After a half-hour long lecture about how Arab-Israelis were all patriotic Judeophiles, I raised my hand and asked my lecturer that if this were the case, why were Ta’al and Balad suspended during the last election for vocally supporting terrorism? He then asked me where I had heard “such a thing”, to which I responded that it had appeared in all the Israeli newspapers including the Jerusalem Post.
Our lecturer then informed me that the Jerusalem Post “wasn’t a serious newspaper”, making it quite clear he disapproved of my question, which he never actually answered.
#1 Jews are interested in social justice so perhaps that is why you refer to us as “internationalists.”
What has our assistance to those in need gotten us over the past 100 years? We marched with and funded the black civil rights movement and what did that get us? Blacks in America are the most rabid Jew-haters in the country today. We created and nurtured the unions in America and what did that get us? Most of the unions today rally against Israel with boycotts here, there and everywhere at the drop of a hat. Jewish lawyers, politicians, activists were always on the forefront of fighting for the underdog, regardless or race or religion. What thanks did they get? Blame the Jew, blame the Jew…that’s all we hear today. I am just waiting for the memo to come from Copenhagen that Global Warming is caused by the Zionsts.
#18 Toronto Girl
Not every country in the world sees the issue of Global Warming representing their best interests. OPEC countries do not like it at all. So in those countries, Copenhagen itself was the work of Zionists. The moment they see the issue as something that needs to be addressed—THEN they will say Zionists are behind the warming of the planet.
We’re kind of like a sociological one tool fits all. It’s as if Ron Popiel were GD, the amazing Jew-O-Matic.
I hope you all understand my last comment was intended to be humorous, not anti-seMATIC. (Sorry, couldn’t resist.)
why bother commenting. Israel 100% righteous in all they do……if not you are a jew-hating anti-semite. Thats why I think we should wash our hands of the middle east and just take care of our own.. then again that also makes me an antisemitie to the middle east first sociopaths called Israelis and Arabs.
I read the Old Testament this year, and I was struck at how many times this scenario occurred: God gives laws, Jews disobey laws, God sends neighboring cultures to whip their asses, Jews repent, get right with God, everything is lovely, throw God away, go into sin and worshipping anything but God, destruction. Repeat. Hello. I doesn’t seem like Jews are even trying this strategy anymore. Do you guys read the Bible? What’s funny is that the Conservatives always support you guys and you vote for the Liberals. What’s up?
Thank you for this piece. I plan to buy this book tomorrow and read it immediately. We must advance the message quickly and strongly. If this book helps me do so, all the better.