False News, Lies, and Curses

There’s nothing new under the sun in the way the Jews and Israel are portrayed in the news, social media, and by outlets like the BBC. Headlines often reflect an anti-Israel bias, blood libels, exaggerations, and attempts to cast Israel’s actions in a negative light. I originally penned some of these thoughts last year. How much more profound are these thoughts this year? How little has changed over the last 3,000 years?

I go on to ask the questions: Why-What is God’s plan here? What is this War against the Jews?

This week’s Torah reading of Balak provides the first example of false news and antisemitism:

“Behold, there is a people come out of Egypt, which covers the face of the earth; come now, curse them for me; perhaps I shall be able to overcome them, and drive them out.”

“הנה העם היצא ממצרים ויכס את־עין הארץ עתה לכה קבה־לי אתו אולי אוכל להלחם בו וגרשתיו׃”

(Numbers 22:11)

My immediate reaction to this is false news, greenwashing, exaggeration, lies, and fear. Really—covers the face of the earth? Words like genocide, apartheid, racism, and occupation are often used to describe Zionism and Israel. These terms are promoted by mainstream and social media. On LinkedIn, I saw a post that called India and Israel evil states. Hindus lead India, and it seems this Muslim writer could not tolerate other religions. Why are there so many Muslim and Christian states, but Jews are not allowed to have their own state? It seems little has changed in the last 3,000 years.

We may get praised as Bilaam did:

“How goodly are your tents, O Jacob, and your tabernacles, O Israel!”

“מה־טבו אהליך יעקב משכנתיך ישראל׃”

(Numbers 24:5)

And again:

“For from the top of the rocks I see him, and from the hills I behold him; lo, the people shall live alone and shall not be reckoned among the nations.”

“כי־מראש צרים אראנו ומגבעות אשורנו הן־עם לבדד ישכן ובגוים לא יתחשב׃”

(Numbers 23:9)

These quotes symbolise the struggle today. Israel seeks to do good, striving to spread peace, innovation, and technology worldwide. Yet, it is still not reckoned among the nations, singled out by the UN, its capital not recognised, and its right to exist questioned.

The Continued Blood Libel

The other day, the BBC reported the deaths of “innocent” Palestinians in a school. But the facts reveal a different story.

The BBC kept this headline over the weekend, not the reporting on a new prime minister, 60 Christians killed in Congo by ISIS, Muslim persecution of Christians in Nigeria, and the continued famine in Sudan.

The BBC never verified the story, nor was there an attempt to verify this (we now have a new thing called BBC Verify, which “allows” the BBC to use a disclaimer and publish untruths), and no correction was issued. The headline had the effect of portraying Israel as the bad guy, and that is what the intention was. How Sic.

Air Strike on Gaza School Kills at Least 16 People

Tucked in the article, it was written: “A local source said the target was a room allegedly used by Hamas police. The BBC is unable to verify this claim. Hamas said five local journalists were among those killed in Israeli attacks on Saturday. Members of their family were also reportedly targeted. More than 100 journalists have lost their lives in Gaza since the 7 October attacks, according to Reporters Without Borders.”

The same event was reported by Arutz Sheva as follows: “IDF strikes terrorists in structures near UNRWA’s Al-Jaouni School. Terrorists used structures near UNRWA school as a hideout, directing and carrying out attacks against IDF troops from the buildings, which served as operational infrastructure.”

It is sad to see the continued blood libels which play into Hamas’s hands and strategy. As reported in the Jerusalem Post: “There is no question that Sinwar has placed his bets on the protesting students, the biased media, the Jew-haters, Palestinian advocates, the progressive wing of the Democratic party, and many others, all of whom constitute a growing shift against Israel and its people, whether in the country or only ethnically related.”

There is no need to state the obvious. Look at what is not in the headlines or hardly reported at all…

Why – What is God’s Plan Here?

Amid the war in Israel and Gaza, which has gripped the world, the conflict between Ukraine and Russia, the  Iran / Qatar Global terror campaign, China’s global domination ambition,  continued corruption and poverty in many countries (looking at you, South Africa)_ The hypocrisy of the EU (Germany, Spain, UK..) and the US, the ridiculous election between Trump and  Biden, and global unrest has made the world appear darker than ever.

We are searching for answers. Maybe on the mystical and physical level, with so much moral decline, a lack of real leadership, and the rise of evil leaders, the world needs redemption—dare say it, Moshiach (Messiah).

I am sharing this documentary movie by Berel Solomon titled “Searching for the Jewish Messiah”

Let’s look at what Rav Kook had to say in an article by Rabbi Itzchak Evan-Shayish here.

“In Parshat Balak, the Torah recounts Balak’s hateful fear of Israel and his unsuccessful attempts to curse Israel through the prophet Bilaam. His claim that the ‘multitudes of Israelites will take over everything if we don’t stop them’ records perhaps the first anti-Semitic sentiment expressed and acted upon. The constant attacks of anti-Semitism that the children of Israel have experienced historically are rooted in this Torah account.

Balak’s four separate attempts to curse Israel do not succeed, as Bilaam describes Israel’s ultimate triumph in detail. His remarkable prophetic statements describe Israel’s true nature and history.

The unique circle around Rav Kook felt he was experiencing prophetic insight. We can see this clearly by reviewing Rav Kook’s prophetic expansions of two of Bilaam’s central utterances.

Both statements were written during World War One. Rav Kook was in London from 1916-1919. Around 1917—as the Balfour Declaration was coming into being—he explained that Israel would soon experience this Bilaam-uttered prophecy coming true:

“The nation will rise up like the king of beasts, and it will lift itself like a lion.” (BaMidbar 23:24)

“Our nation will be built and established. It will return to its strength, to all its foundations of life through its faithfulness and reverence. [Israel’s] exalted Divine sanctification will expand, become courageous, perfect, and grow strong. And what will be the nature of this nation rooted in Divinity be?

Bilaam described it in his next vision:

“How good are your tents Jacob, your tabernacles Israel.” (Ibid, 24:5)

In Switzerland in 1915, Rav Kook expands on this passage as he describes the future influence of Israel:

“‘How good are your tents Jacob, your tabernacles Israel.’ The radiance of the world will be fully revealed through the strength of Israel as it sprouts and rises. The hidden secret will become clear to all the nations and kingdoms, ‘in all four corners of the world to where I scattered you’ (Zecharia 2:10) that [the world’s future] depends on the revival of the community of Israel. It’s a complete revival—natural and miraculous, spiritual and material, ethical and practical, internal and external. [It will be] a glorious crown in the hand of Hashem, a royal diadem in the palm of the God of Israel.” (Isaiah 62:3). ‘He will be called the God of all the earth’ (Ibid, 54:5). “And all flesh, as one, will see that Hashem Himself has spoken.” (Ibid, 40:5) (Notebook 7:36)

Rav Kook integrates Bilaam’s and Isaiah’s prophecies as he describes Israel’s birth and its positive worldwide influence.”

There is something very profound and powerful about the children of Israel (the Jews) being in the Land of Israel. Jerusalem, Mount Zion (Zionism), and the State of Israel symbolize God’s involvement in the world.

What we are seeing today is a united front by the Muslim extremist world, leftwing secularism, and rightist anarchy against the Jewish people’s right to be in Israel. It is a battle of ideas and principles, one of domination, and about which agenda will prevail. Whoever holds the keys to Jerusalem can ‘control’ the world. We are living in Messianic Times—the world needs redemption. The misuse of power and resources causes unprecedented challenges.

While the world has good intentions in setting out the 17 UN SDGs for a better and fairer world, climate change is just one of these. The world—the UN, the EU, and even our “friends” in the EU—are siding with Palestine and being used as pawns to attack Israel. They would Instead of obsessing over Israel, deal effectively with these 17 UN SDGs, which are the basis for a better world.

They want us dead. They want to curse us. They spread lies to carry out their agenda.

What is this War against the Jews?

‘We have to face without flinching what is now undeniable: there is a war across the globe raging against the Jewish people. It’s a war not just to destroy their national homeland but to drive them out of people’s heads, their conscience and their world.

Led by Muslims and the left, with its base in the universities, this war has extended much further than these circles into professional and commercial life.

The Palestinian flag, the symbol of the agenda to destroy Israel and erase the identity and history of the Jews in their ancestral land, is everywhere. Often-murderous antisemitism, once confined to cranks, Nazi supporters and the clinically insane, has been normalised and is surfacing in the most banal, everyday settings.”

Melanie Phillips

Rabbi Sacks writes, “ It was at this time that Leon Pinsker, a Jewish physician who had believed that the spread of humanism and enlightenment would put an end to Anti-Semitism, experienced a major change of heart and wrote one of the early texts of secular Zionism, Auto-Emancipation (1882). In words strikingly similar to those of Netziv, he said,

“In seeking to fuse with other peoples [Jews] deliberately renounced to some extent their own nationality.”

Yet nowhere did they succeed in obtaining recognition from their fellow citizens as natives of equal status.”

They tried to be like everyone else, but this only left them more isolated.

Jews cannot cure Anti-Semitism. Only Anti-Semites can do that, together with the society to which they belong. The reason is that Jews are not the cause of Anti-Semitism. They are the objects of it, but that is something different. The cause of Anti-Semitism is a profound malaise in the cultures in which it appears.

 It happens whenever a society feels that something is badly amiss when there is a profound cognitive dissonance between how things are and how people think they ought to be. People are then faced with two possibilities. They can either ask, “What did we do wrong?” and start to put it right, or they can ask, “Who did this to us?” and search for a scapegoat.

In century after century, Jews have been made the scapegoat for events that had nothing to do with them, from medieval plagues to poisoned wells to inner tensions in Christianity to Germany’s defeat in the First World War to the underachievement of many Muslim states today. Anti-Semitism is a sickness, and Jews cannot cure it. It is also evil; those who tolerate it when they could have protested are accomplices to evil.

We have nothing to apologise for insisting on being different. Judaism began as a protest against empires, symbolised by Babel in Genesis and ancient Egypt in Exodus. These were the first great empires, and they achieved the freedom of the few at the cost of the enslavement of the many.”

https://rabbisacks.org/covenant-conversation/balak/people-dwells-alone/

Today, we protest the evil, the lack of morals, wokeness, Muslim terror extremism, lies and hypocrisy. The Jews and Israel remain a thorn and an obstacle to obtaining world peace. If only the Jews and Israel did not exist … Then we would have utopia in this world!!

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Images sourced from social media or of online “newspapers”