Sitting at my command post which essentially is my office and the place where Yoram and I do our podcasts, it is weirdly quiet in Tel Aviv. Everyone is well aware that a war is raging but 30 kilometers as the crow flies from my door. Yet we all go about our normal lives with the full knowledge of the war.
That is not to say that the tragedy in Gaza is not on my mind. Yes, it is tragic that the suffering in Gaza results from the instigation of a terror organization that forces us to respond in kind in order to protect our people. Golda Meir once remarked regarding our fight with the Arabs that she can forgive them for killing our children but can never forgive them making us kill theirs. That is how I also feel about the current situation. It is an Iran-Hamas-Hezbullah axis of terror that incites and develops ways to destroy Israel. Their sole interest is to eliminate Israel as a sovereign country in the Middle East. When I think of the waste of lives, time and energy that is needed to pursue this effort it makes me angry. The possibilities of enjoying a free flow of commerce, cultural activities, and personal relationships between the two peoples that could be the envy of all the countries in the region is rejected for the spiral of terror supported by the weaklings of Europe.
In fact, the European countries lack of courage at home to deal with there own bullies that create support for all that is evil. They have turned out to be the quislings in the fight against Terror. All they care about is not to rock the boat. Look around Europe today and you find a beehive of incitement and hatred instigated by the Far-right and the Far left with the support of some in the Muslim communities. Together they once again have an excuse to blame the Jews. Using Israel as its whipping boy it has created a modern “crystal nach” ( the night of the broken glass) over and over again in the media and now on the internet.
If you call them on their hypocrisy and their anti-Semitic or anti-Israel rhetoric they pull out their token self-hating Jew that is embarrassed to be reminded of his Jewish-ness or anything Israeli and promenade him as the truth, the light and the right of their hatred for Israel. We are not talking about legitimate critics of government policies.
It appears to be okay to call Israelis and Jews almost anything you want because the rest of the world implicitly agrees. We have been used as scapegoats for much of our existence.
I believe there are two main reasons for this embedded hatred. The first is the rejection by Jews for not accepting the Jew Jesus( Joshua) as the new messiah by a group of non-Jews that hijacked him and made something out of nothing. Giving credence to their “rightness” they needed a scapegoat and the people that produced the Rabbi from the Galilee were the perfect goat. How can a group of people that believe in an all-knowing, all-encompassing God accept anything less especially when the need to convert non-Jews meant retreating from basic Jewish law. This one element of what was to be Christianity transmitted this hatred of Jews: The Christ killers” were now the “enemy” and must be punished by ostracizing and even killing them when the opportunity arrived.
The second main reason was the rejection of Mohammad by the thriving Jewish communities in Medina and the surroundings areas. It was at that moment Mohammad stopped praying toward Jerusalem and faced Mecca. He was very upset according to stories of the times and he was going to punish the Jews for the slight.
These two incidents produced a world culture that at the sight of any Jew would remind them of their inferiority and rejection of their prophets. As a result, Jews received pogroms and second class status through out the world. We lived in fear and concern and turned inward in order to survive.
Then one day the possibility of having a place of our own on the soil that Jews have lived for millennium witnessed the beginning of a rebirth. Today we produce in both physical terms and in brain power so many creative ideas and products that leads to more comfort and longevity for most of the world. Our spiritual legacy is also a source of inspiration to millions of Jews and non Jews a like. The words of the Torah say it best. To save one human being is like saving the world.
