George Soros fans the flames of anti-Semitism
George Soros fans the flames of anti-Semitism
A timeless consolation to the Jewish people is the reminder that being hated is not their fault. No one expects the victim to cure the villain. It takes wisdom deep and wide, even a Lord Jonathan Sacks, to debunk what may be true only some of the time.

The peerless thought-leader, scholar and former Chief Rabbi, writing on hatred in the Bible, delves into Pharaoh turning the Israelites into slaves. “When hate is rational, based on some fear or disapproval that – justified or not – has some logic to it, then it can be reasoned with and brought to an end.”

Such was Pharaoh. Out of fear he hated the Israelites. By reproduction alone they’d come to overwhelm mighty Egypt. (‘Two Types of Hate’ (Covenant and Conversation, 29 August 2017).

On the other hand there’s irrational hatred – the one we believe, wrongly to be the only type.  Without logic hatred of this variety has neither beginning nor end. Rabbi Sacks points to the Amalekites attacking the vanguard of Israelite columns heading for the Promised Land. They attacked without cause or strategic purpose. It was hatred pure and simple. Firebrand anti-Zionists would be our modern Amelekite crazies. 

What would be the modern Pharaoh type, a-la Sacks?  - in other words anti-Semite with logic and justification.

Look to Hungary mired in an existential threat posed by migration from the Middle East to Europe. Bring on a meddling Jew flinging billions at bringing on his godless vision of utopia for a country he’s no business to meddle in, and we have that case to hand. Bank breaker George Soros is no symbol. More than the House of Rothschild could do in bygone times, Hungary-born Soros can summon the capital, buy the alliances, educate disciples, and trouble every corner of Europe with mad visions of a borderless world. Backwater Hungary is nothing to the financier and his Open Society Foundations, with mountains of capital and a bottomless cause.

Love or hate Hungarian leader Viktor Orban, only the dishonest could deny the bind he’s in consequent of a Jew gambling with countries and even whole blocs.     

The crux of Orban’s bind involves the sanctity of borders. Whither are they going?-not in Hungary alone but the whole of Europe? Some forty years ago a president of America seemed to anticipate the question. To quote Ronald Reagan: “A nation that cannot control its borders is not a nation.”

Today anti-Semite and Jew face off on either side of the border issue. Hungary’s freely elected leader versus multi-billionaire philanthropist. For his part, the latter is perfectly candid. Soros, a citizen of the USA, looks to reshape a country across the Atlantic. He’d be a meddler even if Hungary were a failed state. But what is he doing with a fully functional democracy, a paid up member of Europe and the United Nations!  He calls it a Mafia state.  Viktor Orban might come closer to the mark if he called his antagonist a Mafiosi.

Though Soros is not secretive. He tells the world what’s in his mind. Talking of the resister Viktor Orban, he had this to say: “He treats the protection of national borders as the objective and the refugees as an obstacle. Our plan treats the protection of refugees as the objective and national borders as the obstacle.

Could it be the definitive meaning of Jewish chutzpah? No question, it’s the perfect example of, ‘Who pays the piper calls the tune.’

In the bastions of freedom, in America, Israel and Europe, Soros busy as a bee is undermining the will of the people spoken through the ballot box.
From when the philanthropist set up the Open Society Foundations in 1993 he’s flung in excess of $11 billion at feel-good groups, staffed or loved by the Left. It could be with tongue-in-cheek that Soros named the foundation after the 1945 book by Karl Popper, ‘The Open Society and Its Enemies.’ The meddler operates as the enemies do in Popper’s title, and not just in the open society of Hungary.

In the bastions of freedom, in America, Israel and Europe, Soros busy as a bee is undermining the will of the people spoken through the ballot box. And the disciples he bought do their utmost to push back on behalf of the paymaster.   

Rights groups and watchdogs lambast Hungary’s elected government for cracking down on Soros and the civil society NGO’s proliferating on his money.

Balint Bardi, a Budapest journo says, “We have pushed for greater acceptance of refugees and migrants, putting us at odds with right-wing governments and far-right political parties,” Bardi believes that Hungary’s government is waging a campaign against Soros as part of a broader strategy to exploit xenophobic feelings. His opponents, according to Bardi, want to deflect attention from a government crackdown on civil society in order “to gain popularity for the government".

Notice:

[i] A watchdog decrying the xenophobia its master orchestrated - by pushing Orban to open borders to untold migrants who, learning from Britain, France, Spain, will not assimilate into a Judaeo-Christian culture, let alone the risk of security, PC for outbreaks of terror using bombs, knives, trucks for murder and mayhem.

 [ii]“Right-wing governments and far right political parties.” When did Bardi the journo qualify a government as ‘Left-wing’ or a political party as “far-left?” Only left-wing is good? Democracy is only acceptable when voters return governments the left-wing like? 

[iii] “To gain popularity for the government.”  Is it not precisely what a political party in a democracy is supposed to do: get elected by popular vote? What does Bardi want of the successful party: to make itself unpopular, to please foreign meddlers?

For an astute reader of markets who broke the Bank of England, Soros’ investment in disciples has returned products of asinine quality with faulty brains like Bardi.

Another Soros product of sub-quality is a human rights expert named Nora Koves. It’s not playing fair, she complains, to require transparency of NGOs receiving $26,000 or more from outsiders. What business is it of government and citizenry to know that her NGO is controlled by a foreigner out to make Hungarians, like God made man, in his own image“.”Basically,” says Nora Kovos, “we are the last critics standing in Hungary. We are the professional criticism of the government.”

Notice:

[i] Who or what is a ‘human rights expert’? Could it be Nora Koves describing herself? 

[ii}Is there even a talent known as human rights expertise?

[iii] Nora Koves works for Budapest-based Eotvos Karoly Policy Institute, another outfit surviving on the bottomless pocket of the meddler.

[iv] “We are the professional criticism of the government.” Yes they are. Professionals live on what they get paid to do.

Meanwhile Hungary’s government styles itself as the defender of "Christian Europe" against a surge of Muslim migrants incentivized by Soros and his EU corruptibles to pick Hungary as a likely place to settle down, all the while educating Europeans to regard borders and sovereignty as unwonted vestiges of bygone days.

Do not imagine Hungary is alone. All over Europe leaders and parties blame Soros for the mess. A former Prime Minister of Poland, Jarosław Kaczynski, blames Soros-funded bodies for advocating "societies without identity". Anti-Soros laws and rhetoric are part of the landscape in Serbia, Bulgaria and Slovakia. Together all the fed-upness amounts to a big deal.

Who shall cast the first stone at Viktor Orban for plastering billboards with the face of the instigator on them all over Hungary!  “Don’t let George Soros have the last laugh,” the caption on the billboard warns Hungarians.

Anti-Semitic!  Rights protection bodies blow the whistle. Are the billboards that? You don’t see on them a dark voracious rodent. There’s no hint of a spider with a big nose spinning a thick web about the globe. You see a jovial face, maybe Jewish, or maybe not. Quite possibly Viktor Orban is anti-Semitic. It could mean nothing that on a diplomatic mission the Hungarian leader made obligatory bows at Western Wall and Yad Vashem in Jerusalem.

Lydia Gall, another expert watchdog, a researcher for Human Rights Watch, regards the anti-Soros billboards as "reminiscent of Nazi propaganda from the 1930s". Gall is offended by the image of "the traditional grinning Jew" and the play on "stereotypes that have been floating around against Jews for aeons of history".

Gall is the proverbial pot calling the kettle black. Her watchdog NGO’s pure record of picking on the Jewish state is well established. Founder Robert Bernstein admits it – the  creature’s agenda is an embarrassment, “issuing reports helping those who wish to turn Israel into a pariah state.” Yes they do....Helped by the watchdog’s weirdo staff.  obsessive collector of Nazi memorabilia. HRW dismissed the madcap but kept his reports on Israel. The Executive Director, Kenneth Roth, himself issues poisoned reports that the New York Sun terms a “slur on the Jewish religion” and a “de-legitimization of Judaism, the basis of much anti-Semitism. “  

The first goal of the ADL, as the name tells, used to be to fight defamation of the Jewish people. Today it not just tolerates anti-Semitic bodies, it partners them!
The fact that Jewish watchdogs are aligned with the pro-Soros circus probably means the hullabaloo is more about Leftism than it is about Viktor Orban being an anti-Semite suspect. No, it does mean that. The first goal of the ADL, as the name tells, used to be to fight defamation of the Jewish people. Today it not just tolerates anti-Semitic bodies, it partners them!

Jonathan Greenblatt, the National Director, admits to collaborating with anti-Semites, provided they do not engage in anti-Semitic activities. When they do Greenblatt “reserves the right to denounce their anti-Semitism.” Is this not the lamb lying down with the beast while reserving the right to protest when the beast begins to eat him for supper? Or is it that Greenblatt ventured too far left and got ensnared by bigotry? “There’s no doubt,” he declared “that the vast majority of American Jews live with what we would call white privilege.”  

If being privileged is sinful, if the more privileged you are the greater the sin, then Zionists and the little country they love are culpable. Then hating them is more than justified, it is the morally correct thing to do, and people of good conscience are duty bound to hate the Jews. A moot point: are we dealing with Amelikite crazies or the Pharaoh rational type?

The myths and madness of hate are indiscriminate. Watchdogs seem to be a more susceptible group. Hence meddling Jews turn into the fox guarding the henhouse. And the empire of the greatest meddler of all is camouflaged by a veneer of nonsense.

Steven Apfel is a prolific author of novels and non-fiction, essayist and commentator on ‘enemies of Zion’ which happens also to be the title of his latest book.  His books are The Paymaster, 1998; Hadrian’s Echo: The whys and wherefores of Israel’s critics, 2012;  War by other means: Israel and its detractors, Contributor. Israel Affairs, 2012;  Enemies of Zion;  Balaam’s curse ( a novel in progress.). He blogs at https://enemiesofzion.wordpress.com/