Who would have believed that the Jews would ever be so defamed again? That Israel and Zionism—the liberation movement of the Jewish people--would become despised by both western intellectuals and Islamist mobs?
Who could ever have predicted that the United Nations would remain utterly ineffective in all things save one: the legitimization of Jew-hatred?
Who could have imagined a world in which savage Islamist leaders would be stoning, crucifying, and burning civilians alive; blowing up other Muslims at prayer; building monuments to Palestinian human homicide bombs—but in which the New York Times would denigrate mainly Israel—systematically and often twice daily?
Who would ever have believed that an American president would operate so blatantly and shamelessly in such a pro-Islamist (not merely a pro-Muslim) way? That he would bow to and “negotiate” with barbarian tyrants and publically scorn and threaten America’s most reliable, most stable, and most militarily adept ally—Israel--in the Middle East?
Standing up for an unjustly maligned Jewish state has proved too heavy a burden for many dis-informed American Jews to bear.
President Obama is trying to drive a wedge between liberal American Jews and Israel by turning Israel into even more of a pariah state than it already is.
Standing up for an unjustly maligned Jewish state has proved too heavy a burden for many dis-informed American Jews to bear.
Many assimilated American Jews do not want to risk their safe and happy lives in America. They are not self-hating; they are opportunistic. Perhaps they believe that being the first to criticize Israel proves that they themselves are no longer in any danger of persecution and that uber-assimilation will save them even though it did not save the assimilated Jews of Europe.
American Jews are an anxious lot. Perhaps they achieve so mightily not only because they are gifted but because they also wish to be important, indispensable, popular—loved. And therefore, not killed.
Non-religious American Jews cannot bear being actively disliked or under attack.
Is the relationship between American Jews and Israel in trouble?
If so, this is a conflict between American religious Zionism and American secular left-liberalism. Evangelical Christians and conservatives in America love and support the Jewish state as do Orthodox Jews.
For many left-liberal Jews, the bottom line is a series of demands for human rights: women’s rights, minority rights, gay rights, equality rights—and the separation of religion and state. For left-liberal Jews, “repairing” the world (‘tikkun ha’olam”) takes precedence over obeying patriarchal Jewish tradition and remaining insular.
For religiously committed and/or Zionist Jews, Israel and Judaism are the bottom line issues. They are concerned with survival.
Rabbi Hillel famously asked: “If I am not for myself, then who will be for me? And if I am only for myself, then what am I? And if not now, when?
Zionist Jews are answering Reb Hillel’s first question; left-liberals are answering his second question.
Neither group is answering both questions. The Israel-firsters are not committed to a secular human rights agenda. The left-liberals are not viewing this moment in history as perilous.
Given the hot and relentless nature of anti-Semitism/anti-Zionism today, should the world’s Jews simply pack up and leave wherever they are on Planet Earth? Should they go to Israel, to America, or somewhere else?
Given all the genocidal threats made against the Jewish state, should Israel pioneer space travel so that those Jews (and our allies) who believe that wherever we are has become “Egypt” can leave a world in which Jew-hatred has become the signature calling card of Islamic terrorism and anti-Western barbarism?
This question now belongs to us all, not only to Jews. Should civilians everywhere flee the path of oncoming Islamist barbarianism? Where can they go? Where is “safe?” Is any single place now “safe” for anyone, since Islamist terrorists have designs, not only on Israel, but on Europe, North America, the entire Middle East, Africa, Central and South Asia, the Far East, and Australia?
All those who refused to acknowledge that Israel was suffering a “slow motion Holocaust” in the 21st century, have nowall become Israelis. The kind of Jihad that Israel once faced alone has now been unleashed against the entire world. No one place is safe.
Both lone and indoctrinated jihadists: ISIS, Al-Qaeda, Hamas, Hezbollah, the Taliban, and Boko Haram, have attacked and enslaved civilians on every single continent. ISIS is destroying humanity’s history, even in Nineveh, where God sent the prophet Jonah.
Muslim leaders today are the world’s largest practitioners of colonialism, imperialism, slavery, anti-black racism, conversion by the sword, religious and gender apartheid—and video-taped torture-deaths of the “wrong” kind of Muslim, apostates, and infidel appears almost daily on our TV and computer screens.
The current American president prefers not to name this as such. The American people increasingly disagree with him. The Israeli people disagree with him and have just elected Benjamin Netanyahu to another term as Prime Minister.
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.
We are told that in every generation Amalek will rise up against us…
As Jews, as Israelis, as members of a nation holy unto God, we must understand, and never forget, that ours is an eternal struggle.
This article was initially published in the Jewish Word.