Getting Israel Right
Any open-minded person who has either visited Israel, kept apace of the documentary evidence, or honestly examined the tainted “bona fides” of Israel’s accusers would realize that Israel has been set up as the target for what is nothing less than an illegitimate campaign of delegitimation. Orwell’s Hate Week has escaped the boundaries of the novel, whose “Enemy of the People” is someone with the surname — what else? — Goldstein. (Oddly, the enemy of the Jewish people is someone with the surname Goldstone.) And as Orwell writes about the Two Minutes Hate period instituted by the Party, “Before the Hate had proceeded for thirty seconds, uncontrollable exclamations of rage were breaking out from half the people in the room.”
Watch the YouTube video of Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren addressing a group of students at UC Irvine for real-world confirmation.
A triple alliance comprising leftist ideology, Islamic anti-Semitism, and vast commercial interests has coalesced into an aggressive bloc of anti-Zionist calumniators and malevolent defamers of the one genuine democracy in the Middle East. The international left sees Israel as a colonial outpost of the detested United States and a resolute defender of the national patriotic spirit which the left believes is obsolete. Islam continues to prosecute its 1400-year war against the Jews. And powerful economic interests are concerned with opening export markets and preserving and expanding their ties with the oil-rich Muslim states — it truly is all about oil: “Arab oil is thicker than Jewish blood,” Robin Shepherd pointedly writes in his important new book, A State Beyond the Pale.
The favored strategy to reduce Israel to a pariah state and thrust it beyond the international pale operates via what Hitler and Goebbels called “the big lie,” manifest fictions and canards reiterated often enough to lodge in the public mind as indisputable verities. In Goebbels’ words, “If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it.” The promulgation of sophistries is quite extraordinary. As in the 1930s, the “big lie” has become a palpable and ubiquitous public institution. “Latter-day anti-Semitism,” as Shepherd puts it, is “a new organizing force in world politics.”
Thus Israel is repeatedly condemned as an apartheid state when the truth of the matter is that Israel is a diverse, multicultural country whose Arab citizens are equal before the law, have the vote and elect representatives to the Knesset, enjoy freedom of worship, and count disproportionately large numbers in Israeli universities. Even lefty columnist Larry Derfner, no friend to Zionism, acknowledges that “another brightly-lit sign that Israeli Arabs aren’t living under anything like apartheid is their wall-to-wall opposition to becoming citizens of a Palestinian state.” Check! The apartheid slander would be accurate, ironically, were it levied against Muslim nations where Jews and Christians are systematically persecuted.
The situation for Jews and Israel is plainly more precarious in Europe than it is here. One gets the distinct impression that significant elements in the European Union have already arrived at a covert decision to sacrifice Israel on the composite altar of political ideology and economic profit, having, as Bat Ye’or has meticulously recorded, established a de facto entente with the Islamic world. They are quite ready to let Israel go, frequently vote with the Organization of the Islamic Conference at the United Nations, fund adversarial NGOs, and impeach Israeli officials as war criminals. (Although, to give them their due, they might shed a few crocodile tears if Iran carried out its threat to obliterate Israel.)
One detects similar worrying signs in the behavior of the current American administration which came down hard on Israel, forcing a building freeze in long-standing Israeli communities and demanding Israeli concessions to a Palestinian negotiating team that was (and is) not prepared to reciprocate. And probably a healthy, or rather, unhealthy, majority of many Western populations — certainly the case in Europe — would have little objection to the disappearance of the Jewish state, oblivious of the extent to which they are Israel’s beneficiaries.
Israel will always be the whipping boy of the Middle East. It is such an easy target for the dictators in the region. As for the Europeons they don’t want anything to upset their Welfare state. To turn a phrase, ‘ oil talks and bull …. walks’.
The “Israel Test’ by George Gilder says it all. Serious people need to read this serious, non-political book, by a non-Jew who has no history of a dog in this fight.
The facts. Just the facts…..
As usual, David expresses the otherwise inexplicable in a pointed, wry, and VERY serious manner.Kudos.
By the bye, my son,a 2007 MIT grad, works in EE for one of the leading venture capitalists in the Israeli high tech sector. ‘Start Up Nation’ talks glowingly about his boss, Jon Medved, and gives incredible insight into how a nation less than the size of NJ, surrounded by genocidal foes on all borders, AND deligitimized, demonized and held to a double standard world over, managed its economic feat.
IF our haters spent more time learning from, and appreciating, all that Israel has done for the world, they would be hard pressed to champion its demise.
Memo to our haters – ENVY is a powerful force. IF not stopped it will destroy those consumed by it. Count on it.
Judaism does not regard cross as a holy sign or symbol from wood rather they regard Teflin set made of wood as mark of authority, scalper is like phylactery
#4- That was really profound,could you translate that into regular English?
US/EU demand no Jews in parts of Jerusalem! Now that is Apartheid!
US/EU demand terror state like Iran be established on the West Bank/Gaza; while the US/EU claim to be at war (Iraq/Afghan) with the same terrorist they demand set up a state on the West Bank/Gaza. One can only conclude that the US/EU soldiers are in fact human sacrifice to the Islime G-d and that this war is in fact a “nice Long lasting War and sell lots of weapons” exactly as I informed every member of congress between 1989-1991. c 1991 getty…
Nothing to really add to this terrific article except a question. Who would have ever thought, after all the slaughter that took place in WWII of the Jews, that the world would again witness such anti-Semitism? Its a truly shocking and dangerous thing and all right thinking people should stand solid against it. Remember, Hitler started out with a small group, but they were vocal and violent.
To Joe — #7
Re: your thought/question: “…Who would have ever thought, after all the slaughter that took place in WWII of the Jews, that the world would again witness such anti-Semitism?…,” we were raised to imagine that the world would wake up from its anti-Semitic delusions in the wake of the Holocaust. We were wrong.
As Passover approaches, some of us recognize the wisdom of the authors of the Haggadah where they wrote: “And God hardened Pharoah’s heart,” and “In every generation they will rise up against you.”
“Never Again,” I believe, is not merely a slogan. If the world keeps on insisting that Israel go down, I believe Israel will bring the world down with it.
Steven # 8 – In response to your last paragraph, the Samson Option IS alive and well in Israeli military doctrine. Indeed.
Mr. Solway, I love your writing style and insights, but you seem to have fallen in to a meme that Jews so readily access when speaking of Israel. Frankly, if Israel saved the world with its inventions, it would be a counterproductive feat for them. They are already hated for their perspicacity as they are hated for their victim-status and their relatively moderate lifestyles (with exceptions). It was related to me by an excellent historian that even as Jews tried to assimilate in Europe by conversion to Christianity during the early part of the previous century, Europeans avoided the churches in which there were a large number of “new” Christians. Since you are Jewish and hate no one, even your enemies, you lack background to fully fathom what others not so encumbered feel about you. Your article asks “Why” and there is no reason except that they can – hate you.
There is no way for Israel to ever get justice in the court of international court of opinion when there are 1.5 billion Muslims, 500 million Europeans, and 500 million other assorted leftists pulling for the extermination of Israel and every last Jew on the face of the earth.
Israel’s only negotiating card, when you get right down to it, is the price she will make the world pay for her destruction.
And most of the above groups are so obsessed with their hatred of Jews, so obsessed with finishing the work of Hitler, that they simply cannot grasp the apocalyptic nature of their hatred.
Oh well, it was a nice planet while it lasted.
There are a lot of similarities between America and Israel at this point in time. Revisionst history is being taught in the both school systems, patriotism is now considered passe and old fashioned, hedonism amongst the young has replaced the desire to serve the community and the country. I sincerely hope that this is just a test and cannot last. Both nations have struggled too much to get to where they are and both nations are unique in the history of the world. Both natons will not go down without a fight, either.
Israel has absolutely no business in trying to annex East Jerusalem. And its contempt for President Obama and everyone who is trying to move the peace process forward has seldom been more explicit than its decision to make the announcement while Biden was in the US.
And stop lying that Palestinians insist that no Jews be allowed on Palestinian lands. Palestinian negotiators in peace talks have always been willing to an agreement that allows peaceful Jewish settlers in the West Bank, as long as they are willing to live under Palestinian rule. It’s the Israelis who reject this option out of hand.
This country will pay a heavy if not severe price if we throw Israel under the bus. Israel needs to be supported. Those who bless Jacob will be blessed and those who curse Jacob will be cursed.
One thing, have we heard of bombings being blamed on Jewish Terrorists or kidnappings or beatings ? No. But there are islamic terrorists and they kidnap and beat people. Islam is not the religion of peace, it is the religion of death. If we are to survive as a civilized world, islam needs to be opposed at all levels.
Adina:
I so look forward to your insightful posts both here and on American Thinker. It is important that we feel the pulse of Israel on what is going down in America and the Middle East right now.
I am saddened by our American “secular” Jews who would use their gifts of intelligence that are uniquely Jewish to bring down this great country. The Rahm and Ezekiel Emmanuels, David Axelrod, the Waxmans, Schumers , Wieners and a whole host of others (not unlike Marx, Alinsky , Cloward and Piven). They could instead be building a nation that is strong and proud like Israel, and even under the most excruciatingly difficult circumstances still able to excel in every way. They are just not pro-life and I am not talking about abortion alone. I believe Ezekiel can’t wait to start rationing those humans who do not fit into his 15 to 40 productive stage of life.
Obama is a buffoon and without those genius minds behind him we could laugh him off the stage.
Still afeared of you people.
Is it not possible to support and defend a country – yet hold it accountable to acting just and humane? Or is asking people to act kindly somehow ‘leftist commie pro-terror state nazism’ or whatever drool-faced name calling you come up with next?
Moving the peace process forward .
Why invest in a process that will never result in peace for Israelis ? History makes this patently clear as well as the current record.
No one should ever consider living in a Muslim nation for any length of time unless they,too,are Muslim. Anyone else would be considered a second-class citizen or more worthless than that objectionable status. Everyone knows this and it is a sad commentary that there are people forced into situations where they have no choice but to work in one of those nations.
IOW, it’s rather a non-starter to suggest any free person would elect to live under Muslim ideology,law,economics,etc..As an American citizen and Christian, I would regard being made to live under Palestian rule as a curse worse than death.
I don’t even want to imagine what that life would be for Jewish people.
In addition, the Israeli government is responsible to its citizens first and foremost. Its job isn’t to make life easier for American presidents and their image in either the Middle East or in Europe.
If the US were able to control every aspect of Israeli policy, it would still be for naught because, as we see, there is never any real reciprocity or cooperation.The Palestinians have never given an inch.
Arafat is the perfect example-now that is contempt for sure.
I posted #17 and am not attempting to distance myself from my words. I have never posted in a place where my user name doesn’t automatically accompany my post.
#13 Markus
Has anyone bothered to check the title of the land in East Jerusalem. Much of it was Jewish owned before 1948. The king of Jordan invaded the Jewish sector of Jerusalem and kicked the Jews out. He burned three synagogues that were hundreds of years old and confiscated all property that was Jewish owned.
If the Palestinians would ever allow Jews to live in peace on the West Bank, it would only be as dhimmi status. Jews have had enough of that cr*p from both the Moslem world and the Christian world (check the ghettos of Europe).
It is interesting that the Obama administration is so mollified by the Jews wanting a place to live (especially when it was historically theirs); yet, it says nothing about the murder of 500 Christians in Joss Nigeria by Moslems. I guess wanting a place to live is much crueler than murdering 500 people.
israel is not concerned with the world’s hate or love or anything else. they go about their business as a nation state and are only concerned that the others go about theirs.
the fact is that if there is any disturbance from the dwarf or any of the other odious and foul nazis, jews will blow up the middle east to kingdom come.
the psycho left is just exploding with rage, their hairs are on fire, their tiny brains are swelling with hydrocephalus. it is so amusing to read their comments about joe biden and his foiled “visit”.
“Palestinian negotiators in peace talks have always been willing to an agreement that allows peaceful Jewish settlers in the West Bank, as long as they are willing to live under Palestinian rule…”
The West Bank doesn’t belong to Arabic-speaking Muslim colonialists and imperialists. They have as much of a legitimate claim to the West Bank as the Brits had to India, which is none whatsoever.
Unfortunately for them, the “Palestinians” (aka Muslim invaders) long ago committed to using terror and murder to try and control lands they have to right to be on…and now, since they absolutely refuse to behave themselves, they gotta go.
And, eventually they will. Maybe not this century, maybe not next…but, they’re going to go eventually, one way or the other.
csd # 15 – Sadly I agree with everything that you said. In a deluded, appeasement oriented, self hating manner, many otherwise inelligent secular Jews have simply gone off their rockers – over to the dark side.
The only way to understand this tragic turn of events is to read, ‘The Oslo Syndrome:Delusions of a People Under Siege’ by Dr Kenneth Levin. It will open your eyes to the real affliction of my people.
The ONLY antidote I see to their illness is for Israel to be as fearsome as it can be, letting ALL its haters know – that if we go down, so will they. Does anyone in their sane moment believe, that if our leaders realize that our end has come, that we will go down alone?
The lessons of Golda Meir’s (almost)fateful moment should teach otherwise.
Adina Kutnicki:
“The ONLY antidote I see to their illness is for Israel to be as fearsome as it can be, letting ALL its haters know – that if we go down, so will they.”
Unfortunately, not even this will stop the modern day Nazis. In 2001, Ayatollah Rafsanjani explicitly said so, stating that at best Israel could only “wound” Islam, while Jews would be completely exterminated.
The Islamofascists are happy to have 200 million of their own killed off to wipe out 13 million Jews. They live only for their hate and their love of genocide. Life, including their own, means nothing to them.
As for Europeans, one only needs to see what frothing hate-filled animals a typical European becomes at the mere mention of the word “Israel” to see how they simply cannot act rationally when it comes to Jews. They simply can’t. Their hatred overpowers even their own survival mechanisms.
Europe exterminated its law-abiding, creative, scientific, entrepeneurial minority in the Shoah. Europe has been a shell since then — it has made few if any scientific discoveries or inventions, its culture has degenerated into little more than Marxist propaganda. (And sadly, our culture is following them there.) But despite all the phony contrition at Holocaust ceremonies, you can bet the vast majority of Europeans – both Eastern and Western are not only not sorry for the Shoah, they are upset that Hitler did not finish the job. They are counting on their new hero – Ahmedinejad – to finish it.
If Israel obliterates their oil supplies (and who knows, maybe even their cities) in the course of accomplishing this, the Europeans are too blinded by their fanatic anti-Semitic hatred to care. To them, it is a price they are willing to pay for a Judenrein world.
DAVID SOLWAY – And considering everything you say about Israel, it is easy to imagine that had not 6 million been murdered, that out of those 6 million there would have been brilliant Jewish scientists who would have wiped out everything from the common cold to heart disease to every form of cancer and all diseases in between. And would have been the principal designers and engineers of the rocket ship that had gone to Mars and returned. The europeans Jew Haters are less than animals. They have never arrived at that stage.
manny222
Explain how the Jews of the world achieved 120 Nobel Prizes more than any other group. If you doubled the source or added the 6 million murdered, what would the level of achievement have been? Maybe 240 Nobel Prizes and yes all the things you so sarcastically mentioned. Put that in your horn and toot.
The West Bank doesn’t belong to Arabic-speaking Muslim colonialists and imperialists. They have as much of a legitimate claim to the West Bank as the Brits had to India, which is none whatsoever.
While it is heartening to see such support for my home on this site, the terrible and bitter truth is that our leaders are not doing the job they need to do to defend it. And the price we are being forced to pay is getting steeper and steeper daily.
Eventually we will have to rise and “scour the shire” to get rid of the cowardly traitors at the top – and put the lions of Judah in charge.
How can Israel be in trouble? Half of Congress just swore undying loyalty to them at the AIPAC gathering in DC. Kinda makes one wonder whom Congress represents….