By: Daniel Wiseman
A dangerous confluence of events and factors makes this the most precarious time for the safety of individual Jews around the world and the United States in recent memory.
First, whatever happens in Israel, affects all Jews. For the last several years, Israel has not been able to move forward with a clear electoral mandate from either the Left or the Right on the existential future of the country. But that’s because Israel allows its Arab citizens to vote, who on par would rather see the country not exist. Were Arabs given full civil rights in Israel, but not permitted to vote, there would be a clear Jewish mandate for “Peace through Strength.” This democratic electoral nightmare in Israel is comparable to the perhaps 30 percent of Americans who feel that the United States is evil and ought to disappear, too. Both Israel and the United States are on suicide trajectories unless they can coalesce around their founding principles and values, which frankly are not-so democratic.
Second, the Biden Administration has returned to the Obama era policy of appeasing Iran, including funding the “Islamic Republic” with cash used to buy rockets sent to Hamas in Gaza to fire at Israel. Biden has reversed President Trump’s pro-Israel policies that brought relative calm to the Middle East, including several peace initiatives between Israel and Arab countries.
Third, due to social media, there is a clear triumph of the “Israel as occupier, Free Palestine from the Zionists” narrative. The lie centers on the idea that there was an Arab “Palestine” that has been invaded by Jews for the last 130 years or so. There may be Arabs today who view themselves as Palestinians, but there was or has ever been an “Arab Palestinian” country and certainly it was never conceived of until the 1960s when the terrorist, communist PLO (Palestinian Liberation Organization) came into existence.
Fourth, there is a clear and present danger to American Jews today from their Liberal co-religionists for whom Progressive politics are more important to them than Judaism and Jewish solidarity. Their progressive politics through Open Borders and “soft-on-crime” policies have created the unprecedented occurrence of pro-Palestinian, sympathetic American Muslims attacking Jews with relative impunity from New York to Los Angeles and in all places in between. What has previously only happened in places such as France and Great Britain has now arrived on American shores with Muslims in this country emboldened to attack Jews on the streets.
Jewish public rallies against anti-Semitism seen in recent days following these beatings of Jews are pointless exercises and wastes of time. Attending them is dangerous, and ought to be eschewed. There is no telling how many of the American Jews attending these events are liberals and who have created the current circumstances by voting for Biden and undermining the Pax Americana created by President Trump. The situation for conspicuous Jews in this country is no longer safe in Blue cities and states, and anyone who thinks otherwise is deluded. The bulwark of American Philo-Semitism and pro-Israel enthusiasm exists in the Republican Party, primarily backed by conservative, evangelical Christians. Any person who does not see this combined with the Jew hatred of Democrat Reps. Ilhan Omar and Rashida Talib is willfully blind, not to mention oblivious to all the other self-hating Jews in that party.
But we cannot put the blame entirely on the Democrats and the progressives; there is the leadership of Israel itself, which in August 2005 unilaterally disengaged from the Gaza Strip in opposition to all sanity. Within a short time, the Gaza residents voted Hamas into power, and regular rocket fire has tormented the citizens of the south of Israel for years. Only the pro-Israel policies of President Trump and the isolating of Iran could reduce the number of rockets, which did happen. However, any country that is unwilling to defend its citizens ruthlessly, is a country in trouble.
Every few years or so, Israel masses along the border of Gaza, beats the hell out of it, and then accepts a cease-fire at the request of the “international community” opposed to “disproportionate force.” Israel is a county without vision. There are no civil rights; there is no written constitution. They were the leading lockdown country in the world and are fully on board with the surveillance society. Israel maintains the insane idea to allow its Arab residents to have full voting rights, which they consistently use to undermine the Jewish values of the country and to elect individuals who are in sympathy with the country’s enemies that seek its destruction.
Another problem for world Jewry is that almost all the world’s Jews who want to move to Israel have already done so. Israel is nearly 75 years old and is an effective reality, a first-world country, yet more than half the Jews in the world do not want to make Israel their home. Jews in the United States ought to decide about where their true allegiances lie, with America First, or in Israel, which is a progressive, socialist country.
Since Biden was inaugurated, America is in crisis again, and to survive, needs Jews as well as all people of good will to embrace the vision of the Founders. Times have changed; mass Jewish rallies are redundant and ineffective. All Jews ought to take a serious look in the mirror and work on themselves to be the best version of themselves that they can be, including answering the question of, am I an American Jew or ought I be an Israeli Jew? It is time to decide. Both countries need us, choose. But let us stop wasting our time with delusions and foolishness. Being Jewish is always going to be somewhat dangerous, but what is more dangerous is being deluded as to the seriousness of what is happening right now in this country as well as in Israel.
Daniel Wiseman is a frequent commentator of the Jewish scene and on American politics. He lives in United States
