Appeal to all Jewry: “Wake up or face another Holocaust”

You wake up each morning over here in Israel, in the heart of the Middle East, and you pray that you have been dreaming this whole time… Dreaming a horrible, never ending nightmare…

Then… it hits you. Oh no, this is no ‘dream’. This is reality!

 This is the pathetic reality of the world. This is the moral standing the world shows in the year 2014, after overcoming such historic atrocities and injustices, such as the South African Apartheid (A TRUE Apartheid – separation and discrimination in every sense of the word); the Holocaust – after which the world, along with the United Nations, our dear ally United States and even Europe came to reassure us Jews that such a brutality would not be stood for, with compensations and diplomatic declarations.

The world has accomplished much in this Technological Age… but I am starting to think that it may be our very dependence on social media that acts to our detriment, as one of the problems lying at the heart of this burning Anti-Semitism we are witnessing overseas…As opposed to the past, even just 70 years ago, when it was still possible to convince yourself that the Apartheid or the Holocaust was initially just a sick rumour…As opposed to the past, when we were so conservative and naive as to arise immediately against persecution. – Today, we Jews know better!

Perhaps, after nearly 74 years, the massacres of the Holocaust have drifted from our modern day conscience? Have we been influenced and misled by the United Nation’s efforts in advocating human rights? Maybe this can substantiate our blind belief that such brutalities are a thing of the past. 

Remember that promise we made after the Holocaust? “NEVER AGAIN!”. Well…we meant it! We are not going to be led like “sheep to slaughter”, as the Israelis perceived the Holocaust survivors up until the Aichman trial, until they were exposed to the revelation of the true monstrosities that were committed. We are more educated today.

Today, as part of institution of Democratic governments, and as opposed to Totalitarian regimes and its purpose, expressed in its focus on assuring that its citizen’s human rights are being actualized. Accordingly, we have been granted the right to freedom of expression, and our right to collective awareness and access to public knowledge with reference to political decisions, in particular. Indeed, we have the opportunity to choose what means of communication, media and Journalism we would prefer to engage in, watch, listen to and read.

Unfortunately, I have learnt far too much about the grave consequences we Jews have suffered in the past, as a result of our attitudes, of our response, or albeit, the lack of one… Of mistakenly postponing immediate action in the face of what appears as yet another guise of mild animosity or strongly flawed political beliefs – out of sheer ignorance or denial . Of course we would all prefer to just close our eyes to the evils and try to block the fear of impending danger to our children, spouses, friends and loved ones; to instead pray for our nation’s well being before going to sleep at night, and believe that these moral violations are part of some, twisted, temporary game directed by G-d. To hope that G-d has a Divinely justified plan for all this suffering and hatred, of which only time may reveal.. 

 Of course we would think that – that is one of our beautiful Torah values- benefit of the doubt. We cannot fathom how this world can be used as a stage for practicing “Master plans” of eliminating certain ethnicities, races and religions. We are not them. We do not celebrate the deaths of innocent lives. How could we, when we, ourselves have been subject to such baseless extermination… even worse than “sheep to the slaughter”; rather “rodents that must be poisoned”.

I urge you to think critically, even in this modern age. Read between the lines of the journalism, of “The Star”, of the “Sunday Times”, “The Tribune”, “Haaretz”, “The Jerusalem Post”, the “Time”, “The New York Times”, or whatever other publications are available in your countries. I believe that you are well enough educated to do so. No matter if these articles are written by Jews, Leftists, Rightists, Jewish or Islamic radicals, non-Jews, Neo-Nazis, Anti-Semites – whatever they may be… –  Challenge these opinions, whilst acknowledging the fact that in the Democratic age, everyone has a right to Freedom of Speech; yet not when it endangers a racial, religious or ethnic sect.Educate the unaware with facts, and abstain from inappropriate opinions when doing so! 

Stand up for justice, for truth – before it’s too late!! I urge you- Jews worldwide, I beg of you — not as an official representative of anything, yet merely as a young Jew, a South African olah chadasha, and a Social Work student, who is maybe overly passionate about these issues…

I just look toward my future, along with the future of my Jewish brethren. I do not want to end up educating my children one day of yet another massacre to the Jewish or Israeli people. Neither, would I want to educate them of unjustified murders of innocent civilians – whoever they may be, whether Arab, Christian, French or whatnot – merely because they belong to a body led by radicals, by terrorists, by those plotting evil.

With what is going on in Europe, France in particular, and so surprisingly, South Africa, I have reason to believe, however, that this is no exaggeration.

Our great Nelson Mandela, may he rest in peace, who still stands as an inspiration to the South African people; to the average white Afrikaner, Jew, American and to the world on a global level – yes, Mandela, the great advocate of peace and defender of injustices. I would like to ask you something… 

Mandela, how did you somehow slip when it came around to supporting the Jewish nation? How could you have started out your legacy with only the purest of motives, with the principles that shaped the establishment of the Truth and Reconciliation Committee – the values of your Xhosa tribe, which your father as chief directly instilled in you? Customs, such as “Circling”, whereby conflicts are dealt with, by sitting in a circle, and presenting each side equally and thereby, coming to a compromise…

How could you have then moved to Johannesburg, with intention of practicing law and advocating human rights – only to personally witness the National party’s discrimination of every black and their disrespect of each black individual’s dignity, no matter how well educated, charismatic and talented he may have been? How could you have started out your mission of instituting justice and equality, with Ghandi’s peaceful teachings in mind? How could you have then resorted to joining the terrorist African National Congress, only as a desperate means for ending unjustifiable massacres, after witnessing the 69 innocent black people shot dead mercilessly by the Afrikaner police force in the Sharpeville massacre (1960)?

How could you have fled to Algeria, and trained to fight the National Party, along with the Algerian rebels of the National Liberal Front by using strategies of Menachem Begin and the Israeli Mossad? How could you make your famous “I am prepared to die” speech in your Rivonia Trial (20 April 1964) – stating that “I [you] have fought against white domination, and I [you] have fought against black domination. I [you] have cherished the idea of a democratic and free society, in which all persons will live together in harmony and with equal opportunities. It is an ideal for which I [you] hope to live for and to see realised. But my Lord, if it needs be, it is an ideal for which I [you] are prepared to die.” [sic] (See: “http://english.alarabiya.net/en/News/middle-east/2013/12/07/Minister-Mandela-received-his-first-military-training-in-Algeria.html”>) 

(See: The unknown story of how Israel secretly trained anti-apartheid activists in ‘judo, sabotage and weaponry’, including Nelson Mandela himself.

http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-1.564411)

(See: “I am prepared to die recording”- Rivonia Trial, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g5OJ205MdKI)

(Source for the aforementioned facts: Course in the Fundamentals of Law and Human rights; Community Lawyer – Yuval Elbashan, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem).

How then, Tata Madiba, my role model, my true ‘moral compass’ could you go and one-sidedly support Yasser Arafat, and the Palestinian Liberation Organization on the grounds of a supposed Israeli occupation and Apartheid of the Palestinian people, when you, yourself know better than everyone what a constitutes an Apartheid state?! Where is the fight against both Israeli and Palestinian domination when it comes to the Middle East conflict? Not to mention Hamas’ Jihadist and radical Islamic command over the Gazan Arab civilians…

How, Tata Madiba, could you have fueled the current ANC party as well as its Youth League (ANCYL), along with the numerous South African citizens with the misleading information of the Israeli treatment of Palestinians, when you know yourself that you were not permitted to attend the same universities, schools; visit the same hospitals, or even sit on the same bench as those who oppressed your people? How, could you in doing so, downgrade the horrors of the Apartheid regime?

?How? I still am battling to contemplate how you of all people in the world could have been one of the initiators of the Anti-Zionism (/ Anti-Semitism) we are witness to in South Africa? How did this slip get so out of hand, as to result in the current boycott of Israeli products, anti-Israel rallies – to such an extent that they are presented on the Israeli news, alongside with the violent French demonstrations? How did you fight prejudice and inhumanity and for the right to live equally and peacefully among your oppressors; yet we the Jews seem to be unworthy of the ideal for which you were willing to die? We the Jews, are unable to execute our right of establishing a Jewish, Democratic state, a state wherein Arab civilians have the choice and freedom to live alongside the Jews, so long as they do not practice terror. 

Therefore, I ask you all, my dear brothers and sisters: what use is history, if not to learn from its mistakes?! Why study or educate your children at all about human rights and matters like the Crusades, the Holocaust; Genocide – whether in Rwanda, Tibet and whatnot; Massacres of a pure Ethnic, racial or religious basis; the Intifidas; the South African Apartheid; the fight for Women liberation and suffrage; Slavery in the United States; Gay and Lesbian rights, etc. etc.?The list goes on… There is no shortage of past evils.

However, I am not about to witness another one; and neither are you. This is because, YOU – my brothers and sisters are going to share this message with your friends, and with those around you. Yes, YOU, will pass this message along because as the famous saying goes “אִם אֵין אֲנִי לִי, מִי לִי? וּכְשֶׁאֲנִי לְעַצְמִי, מָה אֲנִי? וְאִם לֹא עַכְשָׁיו, אֵימָתַי?” – “If I am not for myself, who is for me? [it is evident that the world is not..] And if I am only for myself, what am I? And if not now, when?” (Hillel, Ethics of our forefathers 1:13).Yes, YOU, because THIS TIME, we Jews are going to take action BEFORE the world annihilates us; before Terrorism and evil triumph. (See:- Hillel quote explanation- http://www.aish.com/sp/pg/48893292.html) 

 The very reason that the nations of the world have historically risen against the Jewish people is for this G-d given gift of intelligence – of being a “light unto the nations” – “אור לגוים” (Isaiah, 42:6) They know we possess G-d given powers and want to exterminate us, as we pose a threat to their inferiority.(See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light_Unto_the_Nations)

Why don’t we use that intelligence, and stop playing their game? They have proven time and time again, and continue to demonstrate their defiance of the Israeli’s right to a Jewish state, even when they present such hypocritical and distorted reasoning to justify this. How many historical and current events do we have to analyze, until we start to believe this?!

Here’s the thing- I don’t want to waste my energy in negotiating with these people, when we saw with our own eyes how apathetic they were to our suffering in the Holocaust. Yes, our ‘ally’, the United States – the conceived international superpower and ‘moral compass’ knew about the train tracks leading to our death camps, leading to our crematoria, leading to the “Master Plan” – the annihilation of the Jews.

What have we taken from the Holocaust I ask you? Are you really going to be so naive as to buy into the world’s pretense, the UN’s self-interests, the United States’ –  two-faced assurances (those of Obama and Kerry in particular), when they have done nothing to help even the Syrian ‘civil war’, raging on for over 3 years now  – with their 9 MILLION REFUGEES!!!(See: http://syrianrefugees.eu/”>http://syrianrefugees.eu/

See:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syrian_Civil_War ).

Furthermore, I find it very amusing that the U.S. is convinced that Egypt is capable of instituting a stable cease-fire and treaty between the Israelis and Chamas terrorists, when they cannot even handle or control their own national upheaval. In case you forgot, or are unaware, you should know of the instabilites and violent riots that have been abound in Egypt since the ‘Arab Spring’; since the ousting of Muhammad Morsi – the hoped fair and democratic presidential candidate, after having been dictated by the despotic Hosni Mubarak for nearly thirty years (1981-2011). (See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hosni_Mubarak”>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hosni_Mubarak</a> ).

The Egyptian people, had been influenced by the uprisings of many Arab states around the world, which started from Tunisia in late 2010;  there forth spreading to countries such as Libya, Iran, Kuwait, Syria etc… Subsequently, they had the courage to challenge dictatorship and to try out a different approach. They rose up against tyranny, and displayed the democratic right to freedom of expression. However, unfortunately their protests, instead of reflecting democratic values of equality, justice and an emphasis on protecting human rights,  escalated into a mere channel through which they could engage in violence and they served as an outlet for practicing human barbarity. Many cases of fatal beatings, and mass rape were reported. (See: http://middleeast.about.com/od/tunisia/tp/How-The-Arab-Spring-Started.htm”>http://middleeast.about.com/od/tunisia/tp/How-The-Arab-Spring-Started.htm

See:http://www.thenational.ae/news/world/middle-east/the-arab-spring-country-by-country”>http://www.thenational.ae/news/world/middle-east/the-arab-spring-country-by-country

See: http://edition.cnn.com/2013/07/03/opinion/burleigh-rapes-tahrir-square/ )

What happened after such protesting, might you ponder? I shall inform you, my dear friends. What happened, even after Morsi was elected, was that the Egyptian people were not satisfied. They, themselves, just a year after Morsi had been elected, engaged in yet another violent uprising.

They decided, themselves, that democracy is not for them; that the Christian and Muslim sects are not able to co-exist, and they my dear friends, rose up against Morsi as he instituted the moral, democratic values that support freedom of religion (although this issue is controversial owing to the reports of corruption..). This opposition arose from the Muslim community, who could not stand being governed under a slightly Christian rule.

After months of upheaval, following an emergency establishment of a replacement military government, just over a month and half ago, on June 8, 2014, Former military general, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, who in fact led the military takeover between elections and during protests, was officially sworn in as president. Even today the violent attacks against Christians are ongoing (see: http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2014/01/10/violence-against-egypt-christians-endangers-us-foreign-policy-egypt/)</span>

(See: http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/international/countriesandterritories/egypt/index.html”>http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/international/countriesandterritories/egypt/index.html</a>.

Additionally, see: <a style=”font-weight: inherit;font-style: inherit;color: #346f99″ href=”http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/09/world/middle%20east/sisi-sworn-in-as-egypts-president.html”>http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/09/world/middle east/sisi-sworn-in-as-egypts-president.html</a>? _)

I ask you, my dear friends, yet again – do you really believe that such a proven unstable government is capable of solving the Israeli conflict? Do you really feel that a government, evidently displaying intolerance for freedom of religion and democracy is the eligible negotiating partner for the Middle East conflicts?

Oh Egypt, Egypt, Egypt, the very same place in which Jews were oppressed by the many Pharaohs thousands of years ago, in Biblical times. (Shemot, Book of Exodus, Jewish Bible, the Torah , see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pharaohs_in_the_Bible)                  

Egypt, I must say, you just do not seem to be able to escape from tyrannical, autocratic leaders. What is new?…Just the very fact that this neighboring state of Israel is considered the liberal and most stable of the states in the Middle East depicts so clearly what fight we are up against. (Source: Time)

Multiple opinions have been voiced, claiming that for somewhat reason, democratic leadership just does not seem to work for the Arab states. (Source: Time letters and opinions). Even the rich Arab states are headed by autocratic leadership, where the dominating religious view reign – even in the more ‘liberal’ of Arab states, including Dubai, Saudi Arabia, Quatar. I say this, not really believing that they are liberal in the slightest – all of these states forcibly restrict even tourists, let alone their own citizens, from violating Islamic laws, such as dressing immodestly, drinking of alcohol or even practicing homosexuality. 

Furthermore, I would like to show you, my dear friends, that we are not only dealing with the complexities and hypocrisies of the Middle East countries. The “Super-Power ” of the International world, as determined through the Cold War – the United States of America has not escaped her own conflicts, however much she would like to believe or present the world otherwise. (Do you identify a subtle, familiar similarity?..)

The Time magazine published an opinion a few weeks back, with regards to the Putin/ Crimea conquest, and its imminent threat to the United States. They brought forth the suggestion that Obama is playing a completely different game to Putin’s age-old Military “all or nothing” regime.  

When studying in a preparatory course, preceding my University studies at the Hebrew university – ‘Mechina’, at the Rothberg International school of Jerusalem, I took a course in International relations.  I learnt of such a ‘Realist’ concept, whereby the main goal of a sovereign state is to engage in an “all or nothing”, military-type game. This stands in contrast of a more Liberal stance, whereby a rather diplomatic approach is encouraged when dealing with conflicts.  

That is why the Time magazine explained that even after the Cold War, the U.S. and Russia are still fighting the ‘silent war’, only they are essentially going about it in two opposing directions. Consequently, they are bound to never reach a solution or peace agreement. We have here, another example of our ally’s contradictory behavior when dealing with worldly conflicts (of which by the way, even Americans express much backlash with Obama’s “all talk, but no action ‘policy’, including his failed and controversial Health Care reform).

View the Time magazines current issue: “Cold War 2 – The West is losing Putin’s dangerous game” for more information: http://time.com/3028057/in-russia-crime-without-punishment/)

I quote Jon Meacham (2014), who voices a similar insight on the matter and proposes that ‘the effects of WW1 persist, from Gaza to the Ukraine’: “Americans who grew accustomed to a largely static balance of power during the Cold War must teach themselves to think in kaleidoscopic terms, not binary ones. Our national imagination is still partly shaped by the FDR-JFK rhetoric of American responsibility and the idea that we are capable of bearing any burden and paying any price to bend the world to our purposes. Yet we must be realistic–not defeatist but realistic–about our power. While we should never give up the conviction that we can effectively exert our will around the globe, we should also appreciate that any undertaking is inherently limited, a point supported by the experience of the American President of the 1914–18 era, Woodrow Wilson, who believed that the war of that age would end all wars. He was wrong–woefully so. The first Bush was closer to the mark when he spoke, usually privately, of how foreign policy was about “working the problem,” not finding grand, all-encompassing solutions to intrinsically messy questions.” (see: http://time.com/3028068/from-gaza-to-ukraine-the-effects-of-world-war-i-persist/)

So why, I ask do you continue to believe that the U.S., the U.N.,, so heavily represented by the U.S. superpower can solve the Middle East Conflict? The U.N., additionally, has a self-interest in appealing to the Arab states, such as Saudi Arabi, and Quatar – all of which have a highly recognized international reputation and powerful say, owing to our dependence upon them for their abundant crude oil resources.

Oh no, please do not be fooled into thinking that the institution of a United Nations Council in the 21st Century, translates into the respect and advocacy of human rights! Sorry to disappoint, my dear friends, but we are not yet in the Moral Age. Unfortunately, we are in the Technological Age, where society is more attuned to their Facebook accounts and their smartphones than the person standing right next to them.

Do not get me wrong!  I am not negating the wonderful contributions that the social media continues to generate. To do so would be to denounce the very significance of this blog and appeal. My sole intention is to somehow circumvent the disadvantages and threats posed by the social media, and even ‘informed’ news sources and means of communication world-wide. We should not be fooled into believing the distorted facts, and their one-sided publications. It is so blatantly evident that doing so will only result in “blindly stabbing ourselves in the back”.

Stand up against injustice. Stand up against prejudice! Educate the public. Show the United States, the U.N. and whoever else it may be that you know better than them. If needs be, even go about and establish a Jewish/ Israeli U.N. council.

WAKE UP. BE INFORMED.  Do not sit idly in your comfort zones, whilst you express your frustration and knowledge to the already educated, when there are many ignorant people bound to be brainwashed by the Anti-Semitic and Anti-Zionist rhetoric swarming all over the world. Go out and execute your right to be heard.

Go and inform the world that you and your brothers and sisters are no exceptions to the rest of Arab states in establishing governments, with a religious or ideological intent in mind.

Just because the Super-power  of the globe, our American ally was founded, with no ancient, nor cultured roots, does not mean that we have to sacrifice our own in order to please them or the world.

BECAUSE WHEN HAVE THEY EVER PLEASED US?!

Daniella Cohen  

For more informed opinions on the Middle East, see: http://time.com/3028043/in-gaza-a-just-but-bloody-war/ )