A World Gone Mad

“Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all others” [Winston Churchill]

Very recently, PM Netanyahu has indicated that unless the political situation in Israel improves, he will call for a 4th election. At a time like this, books by the famous British historian , Barbra Tuchman come to mind.

When discussing the major Oslo failure, we recalls it as a function of Tuchman’s “wooden -headedness factor”. In her 1984 “March of Folly”, she defines folly as “the pursuit of governments of policies contrary to their own interests.”

By default, Israel’s great achievements manifested itself into a beleaguered people, struggling for bare physical survival. Consider the disastrous events which followed, Ehud Barak’s unilateral flight from Lebanon, Sharon’s unilateral flight for Gaza and the expulsion of its 10,000 Jews, the relinquishment of the strategically indispensable Philadelphia corridor, and the establishment of ‘Hamastan’. Not to mention, the continued funneling of funds and supplies of electricity and goods to the self-same ‘Hamastan’, and the failure to react against the rocketing of Sderot and Ashkelon.

Then followed the obsequious acquiescence to PA demands for “goodwill gestures”, primarily unilateral release of convicted terrorists, in-your-face sedition within Israel’s Arab sector and the shrinking of areas west of the security fence, typically 4,000 relinquished Ma’aleh Adumim dunams.

What was Oslo’s rational? Apparently to purchase a modicum of peace by sacrificing vital territory. By giving away pieces of the Jewish heartland, the Israeli leaders gave the impression that Jews have no roots, claims or connection to their country, that contrary to Churchill’s assertion, Israel was not in existence “by right”. Such was Oslo’s incontrovertible legacy to the Israeli psyche.

Sarah Honig, author par excellence, reminded us of the difference between what Menachem Begin contracted with Egypt and what Rabin was conned into championing. By compromising with an organization founded for the express purpose of Israel’s destruction, the Rabin-Peres government undermined Israel’s claim not only to territories it freed in the 1967 war of self-defense, it undermined its claims to the entire state Jews established in 1948.

It was as if the nation which liberated Jerusalem contemplated relinquishing it. That the nation that rescued hijacked passengers at Entebbe debased itself by freeing barbaric mass murderers and bankrolling the indiscriminate shelling of its own towns.

A further reminder from Sarah Honig. The primary culprits were the politicians who brazenly betrayed our trust were Tsomet’s MK Gonen Segev and MK Alex Goldfarb “who enabled Rabin to ratify Oslo by selling their votes for a ministerial appointment and a Mitsubishi respectively, and all the way to Ariel Sharon, Ehud Olmert and Tzipi Livni who ditched the platform on which they were elected and cheated their voters to implement Oslo’s disengagement sequel.”

Back to Barbara Tuchman’s question: “Why do holders of high office so often act contrary to the way reason points and enlightened self-interest suggests?” Her forthright answer is “wooden-headedness”, i.e. both “the refusal to learn from experience” and “the source of self-deception.” She is profoundly stressed that “The power to command, frequently causes failure to think.”

On December 12, 2016,The Jerusalem Post published Lee Bender’s “We Never Left: The Jews Continuous Presence in the Land of Israel.” Its specific bottom line relates to Israel’s indigenous claim. His commencement and conclusion is very much to the point, as is the evidence he provides. The subject essentially addresses recognition that wars have run their course and the world of ideas using the media, is not only less costly, but has far greater prospects for success.

Arguments based on international law while being important clearly needs to be supplemented with concrete evidence of claims on which party is indigenous. Contrary to common belief, the Romans did not exile the Jews. Bender quotes historian James Parkes, who explains why it is so important to remind the world that the Jews never left Israel:

“The omission [of the fact of continual Jewish presence in the land] allowed the anti-Zionist, whether Jewish, Arab or European, to paint an entirely false picture of the wickedness of Jewry in trying to re-establish a two-thousand-year-old claim to the country, indifferent to everything that had happened in the intervening period.” The words “world at large” would have been preferable to “anti-Zionist.” A few examples in history he selects to make his point:

[a] Talmudic Age: The Romans did not exile the Jews. Post-revolt synagogues dotted the land. The Mishnah and Palestinian Talmud were written. The Romans recognized the Patriarch as the community’s head until the 5th century.
[b] The Muslim Dynasties: The Jews were still there.
[c] Crusader rule: The Jews fought at Jerusalem, and held the Crusaders off – alone at Haifa – for a month.
[d] The Mamluks: The Jews were still there – in their 4 holy cities and elsewhere. The 400 years of Ottoman Turk rule: The Jews were still there, becoming Jerusalem’s majority during this time.

Yet another fine piece from the Jerusalem Post of 05/12/2015, “Debunking the claim that “Palestinians” are the indigenous people of Israel” by Daniel Grynglas provides further confirmation on the given scenario. In history, art,and literature, there is no trace of any Muslim people referred to by anybody as “Palestinian.” In fact, unlike the Jews, there are no records to support the “Palestinian” narrative.

“—in the Jewish settlement Rishon Ltsion, founded in 1882, by the year 1889, 40 Jewish families settled there, had attracted more than 400 Arab families—-Many other Arab villages had sprouted in the same fashion.”

Grynglas point to virtually all historic records which indicate that only insignificant numbers of long-term settled Muslims were present in “Palestine” before 1882, when large Jewish immigration began. Muslim Arab numbers increased dramatically as Jewish settlements developed infrastructure and provided work opportunities to Arabs from the neighboring countries.

He asserts that given the complete absence of any historical record to the contrary, one can authoritatively state that the “Palestinian people” never existed until they were invented in the 1960s as a tool for continuing the Arab war against Israel.

“The claim that ‘Palestinians’ are the indigenous people of Israel and that most of the present Palestinian Arabs have lived in these lands since time immemorial is a total fraud.” Too true, where were they during the Jewish wars against the Romans and the Greeks?

Soon after the Turkish Ottomans had ousted the Mamluks during the Ottoman-Mamluk War in 1517, the Safed attacks occurred in which many Jews were killed and left injured. Where possible they were compelled to flee the city and their property was plundered.

It was the Druze, not the “Palestinians” who in 1660 set about destroying Safed during a power struggle in Mount Lebanon. Both Safed and nearby Tiberius contained substantial Jewish communities who were victims. During the 1834 Peasants’ Revolt, the Jews faced a prolong attack including looting in Safed

As the British Royal Commission would report in 1937, almost 2,000 years after the defeat of Bar Kochba, “Always—since the fall of the Jewish state some Jews have been living in Palestine —-fresh immigrants arrived from time to time—-settling in Galilee—and in Safad and Tiberias.”

During the entire period of recorded history Palestine was never ruled by the so called “Palestinians”, the name adopted today by the Moslem residents of the Holy Land. The rule of the various Moslem Caliphates, which was a foreign rule, extended for a period of 432 years – Jewish rule of Palestine extended over a period of 2,ooo years.

As for the US, the prevailing hatred, craziness, lawlessness demonstrates precisely what Churchill contemplated as quoted at this paper’s introduction. As an admirer of America’s representative democracy, what is occurring presently is a hard pill to swallow.

Many years back, one could not have imagined how several “useful idiots” could have gained control of the US Democrat Party and that the self-same Party would tolerate anti-Semites, Marxists and plain fools. Who would have thought that street scenes in the US today would resemble that of Venezuela in June, 2018? They can be viewed in a newspaper, “The Post” accompanying an extraordinary and timely article entitled “Six types of ‘useful idiot'” by James Bloodworth.

One of his opening statements resembles that of Barbara Tuchman; ” It is more than mere stupidity that explains why citizens of relatively open societies are willing to offer up glowing appraisals of brutal political systems.” A brief summary of his 6 types of “useful idiots” follows:

[1]The Seeker
From the ex-communist Arthur Koestler; “An embrace of ideology ensures that the answer to every question is available at a stroke, with the newly acquired world view akin to a flashlight in a darkened room.” From this, he posits the rise and fall Venezuela-mania in certain circles of the Left stands as a tragic rejoinder to those who are inclined to unthinkingly seek out worthy causes overseas.
[2]The Utopian.
If history has a purpose, then any crime may be explained away as a necessary evil on the march to utopia. Logic is unimpeachable if one accepts the legitimacy of injustice in the present in the service of justice in the distant future.
[3] The Power Worshipper
The Fallacy of granting foreign journalists privileged access to territory that is off limits to more critical voices does so because it believes they will return to their own countries and make the case for the regime in question. Here, he quotes as an example of this phenomena, George Bernard Shaw. This prominent British author and playwright was feted by the communist authorities on his journeys around Russia and granted a two-hour long private audience with Joseph Stalin.
Following this trip, he appeared on the BBC to talk of the Soviet Union’s “atmosphere of such hope and security for the poorest as has never before been seen in a civilized country on earth”.
[4]The Relativist
The Relativist is a person who expects other people to adhere to rules which they have little intention of abiding by themselves, or who sees no hypocrisy in viewing other people (typically foreigners) as undeserving of the rights one takes for granted for oneself.
There are many such people around today. They are bleeding heart moralists when it comes to the actions of the United States but cool rationalists – forever unearthing some mitigating ‘context’ – when informed about the crimes of America’s enemies.
[5]The Stability-Fetishist
Both left-wing ‘anti-imperialism’ and traditional realism can be filed under this category. Each represents a different face of an attitude which views people as mere chess pieces in the great game of international statecraft.
For many left-wing anti-imperialists a murderous regime such as that of Bashar al Assad in Syria ought to be defended on the basis of its hostility to the United States.
[6]The Nostalgist
Today Russia is an economically stagnant backwater characterized by palm-greasing at home and violent chauvinism abroad.
Prominent American neo-Nazi Mathew Heimbach informed Business Insider in 2016, “I really believe that Russia is the leader of the free world right now.”

It does not take much effort to recognize Bernie Sander, Nanci Pelosi, Chuck Shumer, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib, Avanna Pressley, Linda Sasour from within these groups. What is even more disturbing is the “wood headedness ” of America’s ever-growing Jewish leftist majority organizations such as J Street who have the audacity to classify themselves as Zionists. How curious that of all people, famed psychiatrist Kenneth Levin has to address, “The Psychology of Jews who embrace their enemies.”

Have these ” Zionists” read Victor Sharpe’s “The Counterfeit Arabs” or “Pinhas Inbari’s “Who are the Palestinians” or Mitchell Bard’s “Pre-State Israel: Jewish Claim to the Land of Israel” or Richard Mather’s, “So-called Palestinians have no history in Israel – except as terrorists” or Moshe Dann’s “A realistic two-state solution”.

The current positions by American naysayers who are opposed to Israel’s extension of Israel’s land sovereignty and who feel that entire police forces should either be disbanded or reduced would have shocked Barbara Tuchman had she been alive.

Now Tuchman was a true liberal and not a modern day flaky leftist. She pointed out that the passion to be free is one of the positive traits of humanity and that the Jews are noted for fighting for their freedom. She mentions 3 Jewish rebellions against foreign rule: the Maccabees against Antiochus, the Zealots against the Romans and Simon Bar Kochba against Hadrian.

She suggested that the Arabs are “paranoid” in their attitude towards Israel, and that the Jews rebuilding of the land reminds the Arabs of their failures and shortcomings. In the War of Independence in 1948 and the Sinai Campaign in 1956, the Israelis “put territory under their feet at last in the land they once ruled, and they do not intend to be uprooted again—-In any event , the territory never formed part of an Arab state in modern times , having passed from Turkish sovereignty to the British Mandate.

Is it possible that America’s flaky and ludicrous leftists could set aside some time for reading recognized serious history?