Last month, I gave a speech at Temple Judea in Doylestown, Pennsylvania. I described my interaction with the audience HERE. The Jewish Press has just published a part of the actual speech which I would now like to share with my PJM readers.
Who would ever have believed that Jews would be in such danger again? That Israel and Zionism would become such dirty words in the world, despised by western intellectuals and Islamist mobs alike?
Who would ever have predicted that the United Nations would remain ineffective in all things except one: the legitimization of Jew-hatred? And that so many members of international human rights organizations and the mainstream western media would join Muslim leaders to accuse Israel of running an apartheid Nazi state bent on genocide?
Who would ever have thought that the Islamic jihad against Jews, which long preceded the establishment of the state of Israel, would still be going strong – a jihad that began during Muhammad’s reign when he slaughtered the Jewish tribes of Arabia?
Who would ever have suggested that the largest refugee story in the Middle East – 750,000-800,000 Jews expelled from Arab countries – would be forgotten and replaced with a Palestinian-only persecution narrative that would seize the imagination of the world? That Israel, which absorbed its refugees at its own expense, would be demonized and that Palestinian leaders, including terrorists who devote themselves to the destruction of Israel, would be glamorized as righteous and noble victims?
Who would ever have dreamed that Israel would be condemned for trying to defend its civilians? Or that Israel would reap hatred for exercising restraint in its treatment of Palestinian civilians? Or that Israel’s terrorist enemies would be praised for hiding behind their own women and children or would themselves be counted as civilians (even as they fire rockets at Israel) because they craftily choose to dress as such?
Who would ever have imagined that such Big Lies would be championed by western intellectuals, academics, journalists, students – not a few of them Jews and even Israelis?
Orwell would laugh. Or cry.
When the intifada of 2000 broke over Israel’s head, I could no longer keep silent. After 2001, I knew we were now all Israelis. By 2002, I had embarked upon a book about the new anti-Semitism.
What is new about this anti-Semitism? The old, mad virus never entirely disappeared, but now anti-Zionism is the new anti-Semitism. Now, the very existence of the Jewish state is being used as the justification to attack Jews everywhere.
The Arab world continues to accuse Jews and Israelis of spreading cancer and AIDS, of poisoning Palestinians, of perpetrating apartheid and genocide against the Palestinians. The reality, of course, is that Islam is the largest practitioner of apartheid in the world.
Demonizing Israelis as “worse than the Nazis” allows Europeans to resume wallowing in the Jew-hatred that has defined their history while it provides them the illusion that by doing so they render themselves safe from fundamentalist Muslim hostility. It is also a way of scapegoating Jews and Israel for the crimes of European racism and colonialism.
Neat trick.
Sixty years ago, would anyone have been pessimistic enough to fear that Jews would once again be physically menaced and verbally attacked, or that synagogues, community centers, cemeteries and schools would become targets in countries all over the world? That Jewish students would be attacked on campuses and at pro-Palestinian demonstrations in the West?
I know I never foresaw that pro-Israel sentiment and general truth-telling about the Middle East would be marginalized, censored and mocked – and that those who held such views would not only be discouraged or even disallowed to share them, but that in many cases those who wish to speak positively about Israel on campus would require armed protection.
When I started research for my book about anti-Semitism in 2001-2002, I had to dig for examples. That has changed. Now, the surreal level of both Jew- and Israel-hatred, its global reach, its sickening synchronicity, is being well documented by many organizations, each with a variety of interpretations. Every day I receive dozens of articles on this subject.
What’s different about the new anti-Semitism is that Israel, Jews, and Judaism are being condemned by those who view themselves as politically correct anti-racists and multicultural relativists. They condemn Israel for being too nationalistic while they praise the so-called national liberation movements of tyrants. They condemn Judaism (and Christianity) as misogynistic but give a free pass to Islam. They refuse to criticize an imperialistic, intolerant, slave-holding religion in whose name terrorists are blowing up civilians around the world, especially if the perpetrators live in areas formerly colonized by the West and their skin color ranges from olive to black.
Jewish skin color ranges from white to olive to black, but his does not seem to matter.
From early 2004 I have been saying in the pages of The Jewish Press that we are potentially looking at another Holocaust. This level of hatred and demonization never ends without the mass murder of Jews. Anything is possible. The surreal can become real in an instant.
In many ways Jews today face a graver threat than they did in the 1930s because much of the world, rather than just one or two nations, is now involved in the demonization of Israel.
So what must be done?
We must understand that anti-Semitism is an illness – a madness – something evil that is not caused by Jews. We may not be able to appease those who are afflicted with it any more than we can please Hamas or al Qaeda, but we must defend ourselves against it – in every way possible.
But we also must shed our illusions – permanently. We cannot expect that conditions will always improve, or that one country or another will always be a safe haven for Jews.
Our ancestors suffered in exile for nearly two thousand years, and while we are privileged to live in a time when our homeland has been restored to us, it was foolish to have thought that Jew-hatred would suddenly become extinct or that Israel would not remain under permanent siege.
As Jews, as Israelis, as members of a nation holy unto God, we must understand, and never forget, that ours is an eternal struggle.
Phyllis, congratulation, great piece.
I wanted to hurry and be the first to write a comment, let me see if I can.
I am a great admirer of Israel, and once trained in Krav Maga with a Jewish master in Miami Beach, that deadly martial art invented by Slovak Jew and later Israeli Imi Lichtenfeld. It was perfected in Netanya. Good to have this training nowadays.
I am also an expert in the Shoa, specializing in Aktion Rinehard (General Gouvernement death camps under Odilo Globocnik), so I claim to be part Jew in the soul.
And I agree about the nature of anti-Semitism, being as you wrote:
“We must understand that anti-Semitism is an illness – a madness – something evil that is not caused by Jews. We may not be able to appease those who are afflicted with it any more than we can please Hamas or al Qaeda, but we must defend ourselves against it – in every way possible.”
The boogieman of the frustrated and the archetype of the enemy needed by evil mass movements.
But where I agree 100% with you is that:
“In many ways Jews today face a graver threat than they did in the 1930s because much of the world, rather than just one or two nations, is now involved in the demonization of Israel.”
This is the scary part, which includes prominent Jews from our country, the prime example being Noam Chomsky.
May God bless Israel!
Nothing to lose with asking what is some times wrong in some Israeli or Jewish activities?
It would be constructive to listen to the replies.
Further, all fundamentalists into one corner, and all enlightened ones into the other corner.
Where would you stand? In what company?
Jews today often are threatened by their well meaning friends like Bill Clinton. Many of them advocate appeasement policies. They also subconsciously, if not even consciously, believe that “neo-con” Jews are victimizing the dark skinned Palestinians. This is the question that might subtly be asked: What do you think of the Likud party? Those who blast it as a “bunch of right-wing fanatics” are not to be trusted. Although they may be wonderfully sincere individuals—they are usually naive and unwittingly dangerous.
2. S4200
Are you trying the seed of discord?
Your statement is too open, too vague, what do you mean by: “Nothing to lose with asking what is some times wrong in some Israeli or Jewish activities?”
Of course Israel and Jews do thing wrong sometimes, we all do. Only God is perfect.
Could it be that you are vying for “destructive” replies instead? Just a thought.
You second captious question:
“Further, all fundamentalists into one corner, and all enlightened ones into the other corner.
Where would you stand? In what company?”
Many understand what fundamentalists are, but enlightened? What do you mean by enlightened? Like Mohammed when Gabriel gave him the trip in the heavenly horse Harak? Or enlightenment like Rama Maharishi, a Gnani?
you let people know you are jewish and you are firmly on the side of israel, that you are not even handed and it is not an intellectual discourse.
because other than that one would have to cut out their tongues. and while that is perfectly okay with me, it probably isn’t necessary.
the time will pass, and this will pass, too. the islamics will become far less entertaining than they are now, especially after they put a bomb in macy’s or cut off the head of someone rather well liked. the college students will grow up quicker than they imagine now, and the drawing power of the revolutionary will fade, as will obamania.
then it will be time to talk openly and freely about the scum that have invaded our lives, just as we did when joe mccarthy, his media sycophants, and the nutjobs and the fascism became an embarrassment, which is exactly what happened when good folks stood up, and eventually ol’ joe finally dropped dead.
Dear Phyllis
Thansk so much for your brave writing. Your latest talk says those rthings that must be saidf–and in public as you are so able to do. The topic is anything hut pleasant. It is downright frighteneing. But it must be said.
I work in a university where the politically correct are so morally numbed to the realities of the world that they take the side in public of a Satanist and a Nero-Nazi whose feelings are hurt by a thesis that calls a spade a spadee, supervisers of the thesis and the external examiners because they were not “objective” , that is, did not treat hatefilled racial speech in a neutral way, are biased because they have had a “background” as Jews and concentration camp survivors, and do not “respect the persons and tjhe views” of the people they study.
I would think that no civilized person could not BUT BE APPALLED by the marriage of Satanism and Neo-Nazi ideologies and could not BE BUT filled with disgust at the persons and organizations involved.
So, yes, reluctantly and in trepidation, I fear we are very close to the beginnings of another Holocaust.
Norman
Great piece, Phyllis. Courageous and clear. As a gentile, I found it moving, sad, and deeply troubling.
One more thing, if I may guys, gals (and creatures in between, to be correct) I ain’t trying to corner wisdom here, I ain’t nobody, I am unemployed and have time to write. Just a few facts.
Again, the most important point I find in the above article by Ms. Chesler is the following:
“We must understand that anti-Semitism is an illness – a madness – something evil that is not caused by Jews. We may not be able to appease those who are afflicted with it any more than we can please Hamas or al Qaeda, but we must defend ourselves against it – in every way possible.”
When Hitler took power, Jews in Germany were less than 1% of the population. Hitler famously stated: “If we did not have the Jew, we would have to invent him”. A Japanese delegation traveled to Germany in the late 1930′s to learn how to implement a movement like National Socialism, they concluded they could not because they had no Jews, or other minorities to hate.
It is a fact, evil mass movements like Nazism or Communism need an enemy to hate or perish. The Soviets were fine hating Hitler till he committed suicide, and right away switched the hate to the American Capitalist. Castro can’t afford to have the embargo lifted as his revolution is anchored around the hate of the Yankee Imperialist. Chavez is learning fast and hates Americas and now the Jews too. Islam, well, we all know who they hate. What about this madness that Ms. Chesler writes about? Is this real? Better believe it, this is the same madness that affects the far left libs and that Ann Coulter has been warning us about in Fox News while people stare at her as if she was the mad one. For, how can you explain a Ward Churchill, PhD and Professor, calling the innocent victims of the twin towers “little eichmanns”, but for a mental malady, a neurosis of some sort? These people are “loco”, bad in the head, they need a master shrink. Or Reverend Wright about America inventing HVI to infect black people?
Think about it.
Phyllis:
Well put. Clear rendering of the situation as stands. One would like to hear suggestions for solutions. Crying gevalt, albeit elegantly, gets us nowhere.
I don’t think there is any chance of putting steel into the spines of cowardly American Jews wilfully burying their heads in the sand. They are worthless to themselves, to their nation,and their coreligionists.
Far wiser to to focus on our supporters among the Christians. Especially the Evangelicals. Likewise the Mormons. Likewise civil and enlightened Catholics of the WFB stripe.
Christian end-of-days eschatology looms large and frightening mainly in the minds of secular liberal Jews. Practicing Jews don’t trouble much about it.
Jews who know something of the history of modern Israel know that English Evangelicals were pressing the Grand Turk to protect his Jewish subjects in Palestine and laying the groundwork for Zionism before Theodore Herzl was born. (see Barbara Tuchman, Bible and Sword.)
Better to lay down with Christian lions says this Hebrew than bed down with Jewish Hyenas.
I look forward to more specific suggestions.
I don’t know about Macy’s, but there has already been a beheading of “someone rather well liked”, when Muzzamil Hassan beheaded his wife (see- Chesler chronicles below)
There are other example’s of the kind of solidarity Ms Chesler and others share with the targets of slaughter by these enemies of humanity, namely women and individuals who have no real rights other than those afforded to private property.
I enjoin myself to that solidarity.
I am also an admirer of Israel. I, a non-Jew, have so much affection for Jewish people, and I am repeatedly stunned by their strength and resolve. Keep fighting, Dr. Chesler!
“We must understand that anti-Semitism is an illness – a madness – something evil that is not caused by Jews.”
No, but is an illness that is among and is also spread by JINOS.
I’m afraid I too have been a victim of European antisemitic propaganda.
Until reading your article,I actually thought the victims last Christmas were the 3,000+ people killed by a disproportionate military attack in Gaza, by Israel (who suffered around 10 victims, half by friendly fire).
How ignorant!
Now I realise at long last, that it is actually the Israeli and Jews in general who are the physical and mental victims of a mad conspiracy.
Kill All Arabs! Long Life Israel!
Thank you for enlightening me.
Discord:
Wow, Discord, not only did you more than double the number of “victims” killed in Gaza (even Hamas “only” claimed about 1,300), you also fell hook, line and sinker for the propaganda that turned armed fighters into “civilians”.
You are what the Islamists so sweetly call a “useful idiot”. Enjoy your role, because one day, when you are truly enlightened, I predict that you will feel more than a little used.