Monday, September 29, 2014

They Don't Like Us No Matter What We Do

Netanyahu spoke at the UN today.  It was a good speech. What he said and didn’t say, or could have said didn’t matter.  Abbas didn’t have to hear the speech to decide what he would say about it. The audience had already decided what their opinion was In any event.  The one speech solution to international ostracism is not a winning strategy.

The world didn’t care about the speech,  except in Israel, where criticism was passionate.  The speech wasn’t "hopeful" enough. It was  “tired, worn-out and frustrating” and proved that Netanyahu is not a leader. The "smart" thing to do would  have been to extend his hand in peace, by announcing a "daring diplomatic plan" (read give something and get nothing in return)  for peace to "show" the world how different he  is from Abbas.  Unforgivable. He missed an opportunity to call for  a regional peace conference.

These Israeli moderates belong in a shtetl. Abbas should have been nailed on one lie after another.  He lies in what he tells the west in contrast to what he says to Palestinians in their Arabic press. He supports suicide bombers by payments to their families, despite claims to the contrary.  He incites anti-semitism by promoting the "sesame street" kill the Jews show that airs for Palestinian children, complete with blood libel episodes performed by cute cuddly animals.  He refuses to allow a single Jew to live in his apartheid Palestine, while calling Israel an apartheid state.  He claims to be able to keep his people from trying to kill buses full of children, but he does not control them.  He gave pictures of supposed war crimes to the news during Protective Edge, but they have been shown to be taken from wars in other parts of the world, or staged, or photo-shopped.  Netanyahu should have raised his voice and been much less reasonable.  He should have showed pictures of dead Jews, the close to a thousand Israeli civilians murdered since 2005. He should have had the guts to stand there and call Abbas a liar.

The world has proven anti-semitism is real, by demonizing us and blaming us for everything bad that happens in the world.  They take the words of terrorists as truth, and have special permanent committees whose sole purpose is to torture us.  They dare to call us Nazis, and call the wall that protects us from suicide bombers an apartheid wall.  This should be a time when Jews support each other. We have enemies --  almost the entire world --- and we no longer have the luxury of self delusion. All parties, including just about every member of the Knesset are guilty. None are able to face reality and lead.  But the Labor party’s crimes are unforgivable. To blame Jews for the genocidal intentions of our enemies or to blame  the "bad Jew" Netanyahu for  not caving in  even more is  self serving, petty and pathetic.  These poor excuses for Israeli leaders are still  deluding themselves into believing it's OUR fault, or Netanyahu fault,. If we just do it right this time, compromise, be nicer,  goyim will love us.

The truth is frightening. Wallowing in guilt and blame is more pleasant than accepting this simple fact. No matter what we do they will hate us. We have been their symbol of everything evil for thousands of years. They say we were Christ killers, and the cause of the black plague. Our Rabbis, the Elders of Zion, supposedly controlled the world (many people think they still do). They say we are the Illuminati, and the bombers of the World Trade Center.  We supposedly control the US, the world financial system, the media, entertainment and politics, for our own nefarious purposes.

This is a tough pill to swallow.  Unless we want to commit suicide we have no choice. We don’t have  a solution but we do have a guarantee we’ll never find one if we continue to blame ourselves or other Jews or bury our heads in the sand. We didn’t fight for Israel in order to lose it this way. For God’s sake WAKE UP!

Sunday, September 28, 2014

Is Israel the Cure for Antisemitism?

Talk to any Israeli about anti-semitism in Galut and you will get the same response. Jews victimized by anti-semitism should move to Israel. This is a virtual mantra but does it solve the problem of anti-semitism?

France is only one country in Europe where anti-semitism is spreading. There are half a million Jews in France. What if they all came to Israel and brought the rest of Europe’s 1 million Jews. What if anti-semitic trends in the United States increase and match Europe and 6 million Jews from Canada and the US relocated to Israel. If that happened South America wouldn’t be very safe -- add another 400,000. In Asia, the 20,000 Jews  in Georgia,  China, India  and Japan  seem safe at the moment, but increasing numbers of fundamentalist Muslims in Singapore, Yemen, and Kazakhstan could endanger another 8500 Jews. Iran's 10,200 Jews might finally leave this time. Growing Muslim populations in Africa would endanger another 5,000 Jews.  The Jews in South Africa 70,000 are already in danger. Australia and New Zealand share the western policy of appeasement  so add another 120,000 Jews.  That’s eight million new olim (Jewish immigrants to Israel) -- about 2 million more than the current Jewish population of Israel.

Of course they wouldn’t all come. Many would choose to assimilate.  In the  US, where the number of Jews based on Jewish parentage is over 5.5 million, about 50% consider themselves Jewish basd on ancestry only.  If  about half of the world’s Jewish population assimilates, there are only 4 Million Jewish olim.

Let’s assume that somehow this mass migration occurred successfully; that Jews from the US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South America, and Europe brought money and skills  and businesses. Some South Africans might do the same; others would lose their property, but there would be more than enough to support poor Jews. Let’s even imagine that the impossible happened and the vastly different viewpoints about the Jewish state were reconciled.  Would mass aliyah be a good idea?

All Jews would now live in one tiny place. Would our survival chances improve?  “Come to Israel” was an easy thing to say after the Holocaust, when we assumed there would never be another, when we thought that  a country of our own would  solve our problems. Today, as we experience the imaginary line between anti-zionist and anti-Israel,we know better.

Israel was supposed to solve our problems because having a country would change US. The new proud Israeli Jew wouldn’t stand still while goyim took advantage of him. He would stand up to his enemies and no longer depend on other countries for survival.. How naive that seems today!

There was no reason for Jew hatred to go away, and it didn’t.  Anti-semitism survived for thousands of years by adapting as we did, From Christ Killers, we became icons of all evil, the plotters controlling the world and the Imperialist colonialist oppressors. But after the Holocaust we thought it would never happen again. It was only a break.

We take ourselves with us wherever we go. Whether we are in Israel or galut, we don’t stand up for ourselves.  We explain, debate, justify, and put others’ survival above our own.  We don’t claim the power we have, in order to thrive or even survive, or to unite against our enemies. Instead, we take our internal disagreements to a world stage eager to listen. We talk about whether we deserve to survive instead of what our plan is.

Imagine a different scenario, no more bizarre than plans to put every Jew on the planet into a ghetto called Israel.  Instead WE change and take a firm, consistent, stubborn, relentless stand against those who dare treat us even slightly less than the way we deserve to be treated. Theodore Herzl said about the Arabs “ they never miss an opportunity”. That should become our mantra

If a store in Belgium welcomes dogs and not Jews, our “international Jewish conspiracy” sends 10,000 Jews and their Jewish dogs to the store. If Starbucks closes stores in Israel to open coffee houses in Dubai, the Jewish BDS movement springs into action, Starbucks stock plunges, Dunkin Donuts rises. Countries that boycott fruit, or require specified labels, suddenly run up against shortages of generic drugs, medical advances, and...experience a tremendous shock as the consequences of BDS sink in.

Jews have the power to do this and more. There is nothing complicated involved. All we have to do is
-  Accept reality: goyim don’t and won’t like us.  No amount of trying to please will change this.
- Use our vast resources to demonstrate our power.
- Work together.

Sound impossible? Under the threat of another Holocaust think again before dismissing simple solutions.

Tuesday, September 9, 2014

Dangerous Help from World Powers


Free Advice to world Powers

As you prepare to fight the ISIS menace, gather coalitions of Muslim nations, donate weapons, call a temporary truce with your enemies, here are some tips about what NOT to do to save yourself and the planet from destruction.

Tip#1 Don’t arm allies in unstable non-democracies

Guns,  missiles and atom bombs, have no IDs or passwords, We are suffering the consequences of this strategy all over the middle east. Iran has an atom bomb today because  the US helped Persia a former ally of the US get it. ISIS has arms from Iraq because the US left them there along with an unstable weak government,  ISIS has arms in Syria because the US gave arms to anyone fighting Assad.  As for $IB dollars the US gave Morsi of the Muslim brotherhood, or the weapons Stevens of Benghazi was passing on to who knows who, we don’t knot their exact location but it’s safe to assume that they are somewhere in the middle east and not where we want them to be.

Tip #2: Beware the distinction between moderates and extremists

Distinctions between moderates and extremists are used to justify arming alleged “freedom fighters” are not benign. They exist in the minds the west, to justify alliances. They may mimic the speeches of these groups but rarely their actions

Danger #3: Don’t create vacuums

Because fascist governments are bad, westerners tend to believe that arming freedom fighters is always good. Next time you find a fascist regime in a part of the world that has been  ruled that way for centuries, consider not getting involved. Fanning the flames of a conflict for to control governments will backfire big time. Topple a facist in a country with  no experience in  democracy and you will probably get fascist dictators that are even worse

The U.S, is getting ready to make these mistakes again  by giving arms to any group that will fight ISIS.  Even if they succeed watch morph into ISIS2.0.