Letter to an Israeli friend - from a concerned Montrealer
Letter to an Israeli friend - from a concerned Montrealer

Dear Friend!

We may not know each other personally, and yet I dare call you ‘my friend’: we are similar enough, we have the same ideals, the same values, and the same hopes. (This means that my letter is addressed exactly to the people who fit my cursory characterization.) This letter is a cry from the heart.

Let me introduce myself: I am probably much older than you; and having been born in the Soviet Union, I am likely to have significantly  more REAL experience than you. I was born soon enough after the end of the Russian Civil War so that I met and remember many survivors of the prerevolutionary era.

I lived through the Stalinist purges and terror, and I was twenty-one years old when Stalin and the Communist authorities started  preparing the Final Solution of the “Jewish question” in the Soviet Union (February of 1953): the deportation trains were already waiting close to the urban centers, the barracks without side walls had already been built in Siberia, the popular anti-Semitic anger was drummed up, and a model of the system of gallows on the Red Square where fifteen Jewish doctors were supposed to die was presented to the Greatest Leader of all Times and all Peoples…

I lived through the War (World War II); I saw the destruction and famine; I also went through a Soviet University, where I had to learn by heart the text of Stalin’s “Short History of the Communist Party of the USSR”.

As a result, I am cynical enough to clearly understand the flip side of the beautiful Leftist-Socialist-Nazi-Islamist discourse—I feel it on my skin and in my guts. And I am afraid that you have no such ability: you don’t have enough experience and you may not be worried enough to ponder deeply enough about what is actually happening.

I am, therefore, scared to death. First, of course, for you, but also for myself and for my (more precisely, our) whole world. Because, if Israel falls, then the civilized world will not survive for long…

Do you fully understand the present situation in Israel? The concerted enraged attack of the Israeli Left on Netanyahu isn’t in fact an offensive against his person—this attack aims at returning the Left to power. And this means another round of Oslo-like concessions, more blown-up buses, the fall of the shekel and, most importantly, an Iranian atomic bomb.

And you believe Netanyahu is being persecuted, not for a political sin or a grave mistake, but for champagne received as a gift! It would be ridiculous if it weren’t so tragic.

Just look soberly at Israel’s achievements due to Netanyahu:

1. Israel is far wealthier than she was 10 years ago and her terrific economic growth is 100% due to Netanyahu’s policies.

2. Netanyahu has opened up export channels across the world for Israel’s high-tech sector and has encouraged the world’s technology giants to invest hundreds of billions of dollars in R&D centers.

3. Netanyahu successfully withstood Obama’s brutal pressure, did not yield, but seeing the frailty of international ties, he ensured the strengthening of previously nonexistent relationships with world powers—China, India, Japan, and Russia.

4.  Netanyahu managed to make incredible inroads into the Arab world. Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain now look to Israel as an island of stability in a chaotic region and a protector against Iranian ambitions across the Middle East. (Just a couple of days ago the media brought in the following Good News: “A few dozen public figures from 15 Arab countries held a meeting last Tuesday and Wednesday in London, UK, called Arab Council for Regional Integration, in order to fight the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement and encourage relations with Israel.”

Much more than could be expected from Europe!)

5. Netanyahu heavily contributed to USA’s withdrawal from the lethal nuclear “deal” with Iran; he also deserves full credit for the move of the US embassy to Jerusalem, as well as the US recognition of Israeli sovereignty in the Golan Heights and in Judea and Samaria.

Just these achievements, unthinkable without Benjamin Netanyahu, make him one of the best, if not the best, Israeli Prime-Minister.

Just think: all this was achieved because of the Likud Government and Netanyahu. And if Netanyahu were to step down, this would mean the end of normal government. The power then goes to the colorless trio who never had and don’t have a common long-term strategic and economic policy and who will be at each other’s throats the day after they become the rulers. 

Note that the accusations against Netanyahu were leaked to the press all along, but have yet to be heard in a court of law. This is an attempted coup perpetrated by the Leftist establishment. I smell a rat, and I have an excellent nose!

Why have I written all of this? To try to influence your vote in the next election: Likud, nothing but Likud, and a Likud led by Netanyahu! Down with Leftist quasi-Commies and political adventurers!

Igor Mel’čuk, Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, was born in1932 in Odessa (now part of Ukraine).  He lived the first half of his life in Moscow, where he graduated from Lomonosov University (1956) and worked in the Linguistics Institute of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR. In 1976 he was fired due to political accusations (a letter published in the New York Times in defense of the dissident physicist Andrei Sakharov), and was forced to emigrate. From 1977 to 2009, he taught linguistics at the University of Montreal and is now Professor Emeritus. He has authored 48 books and 288 scientific papers.