"The Jew bows before no man, only G-d." Menachem Begin
As the "respectable" leaders wrung their hands, It was the Irgun, as well as Lehi, who responded to the brutality of the British measure for measure, whipping for whipping, hanging for hanging, and set the stage for the creation of the Jewish State.
The formal establishment of the State of Israel resulted in the retirement of the Jewish underground and its merger into the newly created Israeli government. The official military of Israel would henceforth assume the full responsibility for defending the citizens of the Jewish state. Further, the existence of a thriving Israel relieved supporters of the Irgun in the United States to relax and shift their efforts, if they wished to continue then, to activism more palatable to the American Jewish establishment.
The government has allowed the mullahs of Iran to approach, if not pass, the point of no return in their drive to develop a nuclear weapon, in the desperate hope that the the United States will take the urgently needed military action or at least cooperate with an Israeli preemptive strike. In view of President Obama's aversion to starting another war with a Muslim nation, proclaimed loudly by the selection of the pro-appeasement and anti-Semitic Chuck Hagel as Secretary of Defense, such wishful thinking is just that.
A third intifada may be in the works. A baby girl is in critical condition because of a rock attack just outside of Ariel, and her mother and two sisters were also injured. A Jewish man was shot in the leg while waiting for a bus near Kedumim. Just a few months ago, two religious Jewish men were assaulted by Arab teenagers in an attack captured on videotape. Riots accompany the funeral of a terrorist who died of cancer in prison. IDF soldiers are routinely the victims of rock attacks, but expected to hold their fire and even flee, as long as they don't injure their attackers.
Israel's government silently acquiesced as President Obama pointedly excluded students from Ariel University from attending his speech in Jerusalem.
If possible, American Jewry is in even more desperate shape. The Jewish establishment, including the supposedly powerful AIPAC, cowered in the face of the nomination of Hagel as Secretary of Defense, despite his blatant hostility to Israel.
It is virtually impossible to find an American Jewish leader who will tell the truth about the so-called two state solution, i.e., that it would be suicidal for Israel and should be renounced once and for all. It took a non-Jewish American candidate for President, former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, to tell the truth about the Palestinians, namely that they are an "invented people." Of course, it does not help that Israel's Prime Minister has announced his own support for the creation of a Palestinian state, despite his previous statements to the contrary.
Finally, Jewish students in American universities - and all over the world - are subjected to vicious and unrelenting boycott, divestment and sanctions campaigns and even physically intimidated by Muslim extremists who dominate campuses under the approving eyes of leftist professors and administrators. Israeli speakers and performers are heckled, insulted and even put in danger.
In the security sphere, they must demand fitting responses for attempts to harm Jews. Rock throwing, which is attempted murder, has at last been recognized by the courts for what it is. It must not stop there. Jewish activists must demand that it does not.
In the political sphere, anti-Israel politicians should be met with loud and visible protests by Jewish activists every place they appear. Although the likes of Ahmed Tibi have the right to speak freely, so do the Jews who oppose them, and they should assertively exercise that right.
In the United States, modern day versions of Peter Bergson and Ben Hecht should step forward to organize American supporters of the New Irgun.
American politicians hostile to Israel should be confronted. College students should be organized to coalesce and confront anti-Israel professors and Muslim extremist groups. Undoubtedly they will be subjected to the same demonization experienced by Bergson, Hecht and their supporters, but history will vindicate them.
The writer has requested that Arutz Sheva write that the opinions expressed in this article are his own and do not speak for the organizations with which he is involved.