See: "War is not new to Israel" (Oct 16, 2023); "Jewish wisdom during war" (Oct 23, 2023); "Abraham's principles in war and peace" (Oct 31, 2023); "Facts and truths amid the fog of war" (Nov 13, 2023); "Samson in war and peace" (Nov 26, 2023), "The indestructible Jews in peace and war" (Dec 5, 2023), "Jewish victory depends on Jewish unity" (Dec 14, 2023).
Since the start of the war in Gaza on October 7, 2023 Israel, its Jews, and Jews everywhere are in the world's spotlights and under its microscopes almost everywhere you look in the news and in the media, especially on television and on the Internet.
In the gathering hole of the world at the United Nations there are currently 193 nations who are members of that noisy and nosy body and they are literally obsessed with Israel. This has been true for a long time, but when a war erupts between Israel and the Arabs, and Israel starts beating the Arabs, as happened in the past, the Jew-hatred and Israel bashing erupts like a volcano with very few expressing sympathy for the Jewish People or the fate of the one and only Jewish state of Israel.
At such times it might pay to remind the world, and ourselves as Jews that we really don't care what the nations of the world say because basically they are virtually all hypocrites.
The nations of Europe have a sordid history of war and mayhem going back to classical times. In recent centuries they were all complicit in many wars against each other. Through the system of Imperialism they conquered swaths of the Earth and its native peoples to enrich themselves.
Africa is known as the "Dark Continent" for good reason as no corner of it has been free from constant internecine tribal warfare and unimaginable human suffering.
Asia is crisscrossed with its own history of conflicting empires both large and small that continues to this day such as exhibited by bellicose China.
The Americas were once home to multiple indigenous native peoples at war with each other then the white people came from Europe and subdued them. The wars in the Americas got worse when the Europeans arrived from Spain, Portugal, France, Britain and mercilessly massacred the native Americans and also battled each other to set up a chain of rival new states in the north, center and south of the Americas.
They all know their own dirty national secrets and they all have tons of political skeletons in their national closets, but when they come together in New York City at the United Nations they conveniently forget everything about themselves and act as if they are afflicted by a compulsive antisemitic disorder. They cannot denounce Israel quickly enough as if they all had uncontrollable anti-Jewish convulsions. They spurt out lies and propaganda against Israel and its Jews that in turn effects all Jews everywhere. In this, the world's nations have the world's media empires of all kinds of technology on their side to broadcast, amplify and embellish the patent lies about Israel and its Jewish People.
Here is a collection of common myths that need busting:
Refusing to accept the international legitimacy of the creation of the state of Israel: It so happens to be that great conquering powers have the ability to create facts on the ground. They can delegitimize or wipe nations that they conquer off the face of the earth if they so choose and alternately they can create or legitimize other nations. This is what happened during World War One 1914–1918 when the Allies led by Great Britain defeated the Ottoman Turks and kicked them out of the boundaries of the Land of Israel, also known as Palestine in those days, and by the famous Balfour Declaration of 1917 officially promised to give Palestine to the Jews and not to the Arabs who were going to get 22 countries of their own in North Africa and the Middle East in any case, but Palestine, on both sides of the Jordan River, was to be given to the Jews.
Besides which, one need not look further than the Holy Hebrew Bible which amply supports the Jews' claim to the entirety of the Land of Israel as a God given right. The gentiles are entitled to the rest of the world but not to Israel.
Viewing the newly-established state of Israel's miraculous triumph against all the Arab armies in 1948 as a "Nakba" meaning "catastrophe" in Arabic: If one were to look at many of the ancient prophecies in the Hebrew Bible and at all Jewish prayer books it becomes very clear that the Jews, who were exiled from their land in Israel a few times were always bound to return and rebuild their homeland. This is part of God's Divine Plan and is immutable and cannot be changed or stopped by any force on Earth.
For the record, it was the 1947 United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine (Resolution 181) embodying international consensus that sub-divided the Land of Israel into two parts one to be given to the Jews and one to the Arabs. The Jews accepted the plan while the Arabs rejected it and went to war against both the Jews in Israel as well as ousting about one million Jews living in Arab lands that became a Jewish exodus from the Muslim world who lost all their possessions and wealth that to this day they still have not been compensated for.
Applying the words "occupied" and "occupation" to parts of of the Biblical Land of Israel in which Israeli Jews live: In classical Judaism, especially Orthodox Judaism, all Jews have unquestionable God-given rights to live in any part of the Biblical Land of Israel also known as the Holy Land to Jews. This claim is based on the Biblical record that has not changed from ancient times to modern times. From its beginning to its conclusion the Hebrew Bible is very explicit that the Jews as the descendants of the Children of Israel and of the Kingdoms of of Judah and Judea, hence the name "Jews', are the rightful God-given inheritors and owners of any and all parts of Eretz Yisrael — the Land of Israel.
Connecting Israel to the notion of Colonialism and Israelis as being "settlers" as a tactic to demonize Israeli Jews: Classical "Colonialism" basically ended in the era after the close of Second World War 1939–1945 with the collapse of the British Empire and French Empire and certainly with the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. Colonialism requires the establishment of colonies and Israel is neither an "empire" nor has it established "colonies" and it is not a "colony" of any other nation.
Israel is the historical land of the Jewish People who have never stopped hoping for and praying to return to it during the millennia of their exile from it. To apply the concept of "colonialism" or "colonizing" or "colonists" or "colony" to Israel in any shape, size or form is a total distortion of what colonialism really was and has nothing to do with the Jews of Israel.
Using "guilt by association" to tie modern Israel to defunct Apartheid South Africa: Racial segregation, or Apartheid as it is also known, is abhorrent to all Jews whether in Israel or anywhere else. Jews have been the foremost victims of racial segregation in modern times during the times of Nazi Germany 1933–1945 when the Nazis enacted the draconian Nuremberg Laws that classed Jews as subhuman Untermenschenand used that as a justification for eventually murdering more than six million Jews during the Holocaust. Israel has about two million Arab citizens of Israel who share the same freedoms and rights as Jewish Israelis.
Under Apartheid, South Africa's Black population was denied voting rights, they were restricted to segregated areas of the country, they could not do certain jobs, they could not marry white people, communism was banned, unlike the Arabs in Israel itself who have the vote, Arabs live in mixed cities together with Jewish Israelis, Arabs work in every field including being Supreme Court judges, Arabs are free to do any work they want in Israel, and are free to marry Israeli Jews, Arabs belong to any political parties they wish including communist ones together with other Israelis.
Arab Israeli citizens vote in Israel's elections, sit in its national parliament, the Knesset, and have even been members of the Israeli government, which is the exact opposite of the condition of Jews in Germany and Europe under the Nazis. The comparison with South African Apartheid is therefore a lie. As for Arabs in the 'West Bank' and Gaza they are represented by their own political and religious bodies that are in any case hostile to Israel and to Jews, but are still tolerated by the Israelis. If anything, the Arabs are the ones that can be called practitioners of Apartheid because they reject any Jews in what they consider to be their own territories and even worse seek to destroy the Jewish People much like the Nazis wished to do. By expelling all of their Jewish citizens it is the Arab nations that have fulfilled the Nazis' wish to be Judenrein, meaning free of all Jews in their lands.
Alleging that Israel is a racist state that discriminates against Arabs: This is an outright fabrication because Jews by nature are a tolerant people. Israel has diplomatic relations with nations of all kinds of races in Africa, Asia and the Americas. Israelis love to travel the world and many young Israelis gravitate to India and the Far East and love living there and sharing the cultures of the local populations. Israel's Jews come from all kinds of ethnic and racial groupings. Israel has welcomed Jews from Africa known as the Ethiopian Jews and from India known as the Indian Jews.
It is actually downright crazy to accuse Jews anywhere of "racism" because the two main components of the Jewish People today, especially in Israel, are made up the Sephardic Jews who are from North Africa and the Middle East and are mostly dark skinned and sometimes even called Arab Jews. The other major group are the Ashkenazic Jews who once lived in Europe and are mostly light skinned known as European Jews.
These two groups share Judaism and belief in the Torah and its commandments but they are ethnically virtual opposites. Nevertheless, in Israel they have coalesced and intermingled, serve in the IDF together and marry each other and share a common Israeli culture. Israel as a country is tolerant of all its minority ethnic groups such as Arab Christians, Armenians, Bedouins, Circassians, Samaritans and grants them the full freedoms of Israeli citizens including the freedom of religion and the freedom to vote in local and Knesset elections.
Calling for Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) against Israel as a way to destroy it: This is a very slippery slope that if it ever comes to be would pave the way for another Holocaust based on the history of the origins of the original Nazi Holocaust against the Jews. When the Nazis took power in Germany in 1933 one of the first things that they went about doing was the Nazi boycott of Jewish businesses in Germany. Then in 1935 the Nazis enacted the racist anti-Jewish Nuremberg Laws stripping Jews of their rights as German citizens. That was followed by Kristallnacht in 1938 when Jewish businesses and synagogues in Germany and Austria were smashed and Jewish property and wealth was confiscated by the Nazis. After that came the actual Holocaust 1939–1945 itself and total genocide against the Jews.
The point of all this is that when it is Jews who are the targets of boycotts, it becomes a case of where there is smoke there will be fire and that is precisely the point - meaning that boycotting, divesting and sanctioning Israel is an indicator of far worse things to come against the Jews of Israel. That is guaranteed to never end well for the boycotters, divestors and sanctioners.
It's actually pathetic to look at what the Arabs have done with Gaza from the time of the unilateral Israeli disengagement from Gaza in 2005 by turning it into a useless and dangerous armed terror fortress by digging hundreds of miles of underground tunnels and arming themselves to the eyeballs when instead they could have been making it into a flourishing farming and industrial community as Israel had.
On the other hand, when you look at Israel, it is the economic marvel of the Middle East with advanced farming, industry and technological prowess. It has to be in a fit of blind rage and hateful jealousy that the Arabs look at the wonders and miracles of the Israeli economy and state and the only thing they can think of is how to destroy it instead of emulating it. How low, evil and stupid, can you go?!
To be continued.
Rabbi Yitschak Rudomin is an alumnus of Yeshiva Rabbi Chaim Berlin and of Teachers College–Columbia University. He heads the Jewish Professionals Institute dedicated to Jewish Adult Education and Outreach – Kiruv Rechokim. He is the author of The Second World War and Jewish Education in America: The Fall and Rise of Orthodoxy. Contact Rabbi Yitschak Rudomin at[email protected]