Israel has had quite a past week of audaciously asserting its right to exist. As we approach the first anniversary of 10/7, the biggest massacre of Jews since the Holocaust, Israel has recently scored some big hits in its global counteroffensive. Notably, Israel has been able to eliminate Hamas' military chief and 10/7 mastermind Mohammed Deif, Hizballah military chief and 1983 Marine barracks bombing mastermind Fuad Shukr, and Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, all of which the mainstream media is calling an "escalation."
As Greta Thunberg, the child prophet and bandwagon Palestinian activist, might say to Israel: "How dare you?"
All this Israeli military "escalation" reminds me of the time in 1942 when a bunch of obstinate Jews in Warsaw violently rose up against the peaceful, unsuspecting Germans. Or in 1943 when like-minded Jews brutally fought their way out of the Sobibor concentration camp. During these Jewish "escalations," a number of Germans were killed. Family men. Men with hopes and dreams. Men resisting capitalist imperialism. Men just trying to reclaim their ancestral homeland, from the (Rhine) river to the(Black) Sea, that the colonialist Allied powers had stolen from them and given to others. How dare they?
But back to this past week. After Israel brought Haniyeh to room temperature in his Tehran guest house, media and government representatives broke Olympic records sprinting to the microphones to declare that Haniyeh was only the "political" leader of Hamas, not any sort of boots-on-the-ground military hotshot in the thick of the Rafah street fighting. Ok, so Haniyeh was a political leader. So what? You can say the same about Osama bin Laden or Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. Or Stalin or Hitler. What's your point?
Oh, that's right, your point is to try to paint Israel in the worst possible light.
These journalists and politicians are warning that Haniyeh's killing could lead to a wider war. The Financial Times wailed that Israel has "dramatically raised the risk of further escalation of regional hostilities." They lamented that tensions in the region "had already soared" after Shukr's killing but neglected to ponder whether or not Shukr's bombing of twelve children on an Israeli soccer field had done anything to raise those same tensions.
The Associated Press shrieked that Haniyeh's killing "risked escalating into an all-out regional war." But apparently, 10/7 lacked this escalation power. Dead infidels are business as usual, a price we need to accept for "regional stability," whether in Israel, Europe, or elsewhere. Dead terrorist leaders? That brings the nuclear clock to 11:59:59 PM.
Potemkin cutout Joe Biden mumbled that Haniyeh's assassination "doesn't help" the cease-fire talks. Yeah, it wasn't supposed to help. It was supposed to further degrade the capabilities of an organization of genocidal maniacs who only agree to cease-fires as tactical stepping stones in furtherance of their psychopathic goals.
UK Foreign Minister David Lammy warned against "regional destabilization." Good thing that Winston Churchill didn't take a pause during the London Blitz to consider whether a military response against Germany would risk "regional destabilization." Good thing that Abraham Lincoln didn't stop to consider whether a military response to the attack on Fort Sumter would escalate hostilities.
For our historically challenged friends in the media, the "hostilities" have been ongoing since a Meccan merchant and likely schizophrenic declared himself God's prophet and started butchering his way across the Arabian peninsula. And what began as regional quickly went global because the medieval West lacked the unity and cohesion for an effective response. On top of that, the modern West also lacks the courage and the moral clarity to do so.
With hindsight, this past year has revealed two ugly realities: one for Israeli Jews and the other for American Jews. Israeli Jews are realizing that the anti-Israel shift within the American Democrat Party was not just an aberration during the Obama administration. It's permanent, and it's entrenching itself daily. President Biden, Vice President Harris, and a significant number of Democrat representatives are openly siding with, and funding, Israel's terrorist enemies.
Current and future Israeli policymakers would be wise to factor in the likelihood that any support from Democrat administrations will be limited and extremely conditional if Democrats give support at all. A few Jewish representatives and Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.) can't reverse this realignment. The Squad is the future and the present of the Democrat Party.
As for American Jews, the lesson today remains the same as it was on October 8, when campus Kristallnacht mobs and their enabling professors celebrated the murder, rape, and torture of your brethren. And the lesson is this, once again for the cheap seats: The Left is not your friend.
The low-simmering antisemitism that you tolerated, ignored, or excused for years away has now exploded into the open. Stop lying to yourself and accept the fact that you've been played for suckers. The threat to your existence comes not from Beaufort the Bible Thumper from flyover country but from the keffiyeh-clad Marxists who spent the last two semesters overrunning campuses, blocking traffic, and attacking Jews in public.
They don't hate Israeli Jews. They hate Jews. They don't hate Orthodox Jews. They hate Jews. They don't hate identifiable Jews. They hate Jews. The upscale, temple-shunning, progressive Jew in name only is a scapegoat for the world's problems just as much as the payot-sporting Haredi from Crown Heights.
They. Hate. Jews. What about this do you still not understand?
The irony is that the Left doesn't hate Jews for their religion; most Leftists couldn't tell you the first thing about Judaism or about any other religious faith for that matter. The Left hates Jews because Jews committed secular blasphemy. Jews are successful minorities, their achievements all the more admirable considering they've suffered persecutions far worse than any other group clawing for the top ranking of the intersectional hierarchy of perpetual victimhood. Jews refused to be victims. As such, their very existence is a perpetual heresy. For this, the Left never forgave them. And they never will.
Jewish Americans can no longer pretend that the problem is "over there" or that it's only something the ultra-Orthodox have to deal with. It's here on your campus, in your workplace, and on your streets. And the only people who have come to your consistent defense during this time have been Christians and conservatives. Why any Jewish American would continue to vote Democrat absolutely blows my mind. You're voting for people who openly want to commit genocide against you or are at least willing to turn a blind eye to its recurrence for what overriding issue, exactly? Climate change? Abortion? Indigenous drag queen story hours?
The fact that our upcoming election is going to be as close as it is speaks volumes about how morally bankrupt we are as a nation. Kamala Harris belongs in a museum, with teams of anthropologists hellbent on discovering how somebody so appalling could rise so meteorically high. But she very well might win, in no small part because enough American Jews would rather vote for this bigoted DEI candidate instead of the man who did more than any other president to achieve peace and security for Israel since its inception.
So choose Kamala if you will. That's your right, fought for and secured by people much wiser to the dangers of identity politics than you. But do so knowing that if you do, you can never credibly complain about the persecution of Jews because you willingly voted for it.
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