A Purim scenario is being enacted
“The king of the Persian Empire signed off on the idea of his Minister to kill all the Jews. Not oppress, not dehumanize, not exile – genocide. The king was criminally stupid, had given his pal his ring and the keys to the kingdom, and his pal was playing him like a fiddle.” (Rabbi Eli Friedman, Chabad of Calabasas, California.)
Genocide plotters are playing criminally stupid ‘emperors’ in Washington like a fiddle. Israel, hitherto their ally number one in the Middle East, is heading to be, in the world’s number one hotspot, the emperors’ number one fall guy. A breakup, in other words, is brewing between the world powerhouse and the world’s sour pickle jar.
Skeptics may look at this as a prelude to more Republican propaganda. What US government ever made Israel its fall guy? Should they look into the Jewish festival of Purim they will find more than a smattering of substance.
Falling on Sunday this year, and on Monday in Jerusaelm and Tiberias,the festival centers on confused identity. Hence the masquerade parties and parades with young and old disguised in gaudy getups. We can see in this the benchmark politics of today, befuddlement running riot. In every "guardian of Israel" there is a betrayer, and in every wringer of hands over Gaza there is a plotter of genocide, so that a tipsy Jew cannot tell between hero and villain.
Celebrating Purim 2024 will be America’s top ranking Jew in government, Chuck Schumer. He likes to say that the surname derives from the Hebrew, shomer meaning guardian. Though his first loyalty is to help return his decaying president for a second term, Schumer feels duty bound to live up to his name and be the "guardian of Israel" that neither slumbers nor sleeps. Even if it means deposing the king of Israel, he knows what is best for Israelis in their bubble of trauma, insecurity, fear and worry.
On the floor of the Senate in a 44-minute Decalogue Schumer pronounced that,
“Prime Minister Netanyahu has lost his way by allowing his political survival to take precedence over the best interests of Israel. I believe a new election is the only way to allow for a healthy and open decision-making process about the future of Israel.”
Biden, never one to criticize his allies publicly, said murkily that Schumer “gave a good speech”.
What made "guardian" and President break with precedent by telling Israelis to vote smarter next time? Surely even dithery Biden, who can’t remember why he stored top secret documents in cardboard boxes in his garage, appreciates that Netanyahu’s replacement would not improve the lot of Gaza’s suffering civilians. And how would an election while Israel is at war bring home the hostages? If anything it would delay their release; a three-month transition period would leave Netanyahu in charge after the elections – in charge and less constrained by pragmatic members of the war cabinet.
Well then, why did Schumer as "guardian of Israel" call for him to be deposed?
As a case of the pot calling the kettle black there can be none better. What was it Schumer said? Netanyahu had “lost his way by allowing his political survival to take precedence over the best interests of Israel.” He could be describing himself!
Schumer wants Biden to be elected for a second term as much as he wants to remain majority leader. Therefore it is he, Schumer that has lost his way by allowing political survival to take precedence over the best interests of Israel. Biden’s political advisors have warned: that being pro-Israel would cost him the Muslim vote in Michigan and Minnesota –what Democrat Alan Dershowitz calls Biden’s 2-State solution. The IDF going into Rafah could lose Biden the swing states and even the election. Letting Israel win the war, Biden would have to say goodbye to his pro-Hamas voters. Sheer political survival must come before all else – what Schumer excoriated Netanyahu for.
“There's nothin' you can do that can't be done,” sang the Beatles in the hit, “All you need is love.” Israel, all you need to be loved is commit suicide with our 2-state solution for you so that Biden, with his 2- state solution, can trump Trump in November. Fair trade. If Israelis give the Palestinians a state and let Hamas win the war, then genocidal Muslims in Michigan will be willing to vote for Biden. That’s some deal.
Of course it will render Israel ripe for the plucking. It will have to rely on the Biden-Blinken-Obama- Schumer configuration to figure a way out. That won’t be so easy - not when the emperors of Washington have got their way and their 2-state solution, and the flag of Palestine flaps defiantly over Ramallah.
The new country would have international boundaries. so that when the IDF has to pursue perpetrators of terror into Jenin or Jericho or Gaza City it will have to cross the border. Israel, in other words, will be continually invading Palestine, in other words, committing acts of war. Won’t the UN Security Council, the International Court of Justice, the media and the street be busy! And the old now redundant war cry, ‘Occupation’ : what will it be now? “Act of War!”
If nothing else makes the Washington set criminally stupid it would be bad. Problem is, there’s a lot else. Biden and Schumer choose not to know that (a) post Oct 7, there is hardly an Israeli who’d support a two-state solution, and b) there is hardly a Palestinian Arab who ever supported a 2-State solution.
The Palestinian Arabs were given tryouts with the Oslo Accords in 1993 and with the Gaza pullout in 2005. How did the tryouts work? Politically and diplomatically they instantaneously transformed the PLO and Hamas into internationally accepted political actors while upholding their commitment to Israel’s destruction and edging it towards global isolation.
The nitwit fantasy of independent Palestine met hard reality – so one thought – not two months before the searing October 7 pogrom. To his Fatah party in August 2023, Mahmoud Abbas let his Purim mask drop.
“They say that Hitler killed the Jews because they were Jews and that Europe hated the Jews because they were Jews. Not true. It was clearly explained that [the Europeans] fought [the Jews] because of their social role, and not their religion. Even Karl Marx said it was not true. He said that the enmity was not directed at Judaism as a religion but to Judaism for its social role. The [Europeans] fought against these people because of their role in society, which had to do with usury, money, and so on and so forth. Everybody knows that during World War I, Hitler was a sergeant. He said that he fought the Jews because they were dealing with usury and money. In his view, they were engaged in sabotage, and this is why he hated them… This was not about semitism and antisemitism.”
Martin Indyk, who was Barak Obama’s US ambassador to Israel, is another criminally stupid fantasist. Indyk was shocked:
“Despairing about how to respond to Abu Mazen’s profoundly anti-Semitic diatribe. How could someone who has treated me as a personal friend for three decades at the same time harbor such hateful views of my people?”
Law Professor, Eugene Kontorovich, was aghast at Indyk's response.
“I don’t understand how someone who helped establish the two-state solution policy and defend it for three decades can be such a fool! Abbas wrote his dissertation denying the Holocaust, but he smiles at Martin Indyk and everything is good?”
If the Left has one defining characteristic it would be lack of self-awareness. Indyk has forgotten his shock and despair in August 2023. Five months later the clown has climbed back in the circus ring and doing what he does best: personalize a a contempt for Israel that won’t do what he is convinced will be best for it.
“Israelis of all political views are coexisting in the same bubble of trauma, insecurity, fear and worry. It makes them all incapable of hearing anybody or anything else. They are largely oblivious to the suffering of the Palestinians and seemingly uncaring about the rift with the United States, Israel’s only reliable friend in this crisis.”
Israelis are selfish and self-centered, Indyk gripes. When will they put away their Oct 7 obsession and think of the Palestinian Arabs once in a while. Shouldn’t he be addressing that question to Hamas? Tell them to think of the Palestinian Arabs once in a while. And leave the Jews alone once in a while.
Topsy turvy guardians like Biden and Schumer Israel could do without. Their shenanigans bring to mind the tale of the sorcerer’s apprentice. Left in the workshop to his own devices the apprentice enchants a broom and a pail to do chores for him. In no time the place is in chaos and the apprentice clueless how to stop the magic. He splits the broom in half, hoping that will do the trick, but both pieces turn into more brooms while the pail slops water at twice the rate. On his return the sorcerer beholds the chaos. “Powerful spirits,” he tells the apprentice, “must be left to a master wizard.”
Here is an apt lesson for dabblers in America –Israel relations. The spectacle of natural allies falling out of bed and habitual enemies climbing into bed, point to Biden and his handlers’ criminal stupidity.
What advice to give the supposed "guardians of Israel"? How about, don't get into bed with genocidal people just to save your own scrofulous scalps.
Steve Apfel is a veteran authority on anti-Zionism and a prolific author in general. His works have appeared in many journals and sites. After “Hadrian’s Echo: The why’s and wherefores of Israel’s critics,” a new book, “Hitlers at Heart: anti-Zionism and its Believers” is with publishers. A selection of Steve’s works can be accessed at https://steveapfel.substack.com and https://enemiesofzion.wordpress.com/