From actress to politician to the media, I have the post Yom HaAtzmaut blues

Reality has set back in.

Today, along with the usual right-wing suspects, we have the left-wing haters whose detestable bonafides include the BDS (Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions) movement. And there are those without and within our community who may not go as far as that but who wittingly and unwittingly add to the rabid enmity by word or by deed.

“I don’t hate Jews, I hate Zionists.” “I actually love Israel, but I hate its government.”

Uh-huh.

There are a lot of places the faux touchy-feely of the world, Jew and not, could hate and with much more legitimacy. But they are transfixed on some tiny country surrounded by millions who wish it destroyed. Why the endless obsession with Israel? The ceaseless harping and condemning? The nitpicking and the whining? One miniscule place on earth.

When it comes to many, we all know why.

For others, you who are just so compassionate, who seemingly without malice toward Israel think you are only protesting the country’s Prime Minister, when you selfishly play right into the hands of thugs who would kill you in an instant had they the opportunity, try to understand, just try, you do not hurt only one. You hurt us all.

Now don’t get yourselves into a tizzy. We live in a democracy, I know. Freedom of speech and all that. And Israelis live in a democracy as well. Unlike those in Gaza, whose dead terrorists some of you grieve, the more extreme of you even chanting the ancient Jewish Mourner’s Kaddish for the barbarians. These far leftists are not the norm for sure, but what they have done and do is no less appalling, and oh so sad.

There is a time and a place for everything. And with that, there is a degree, a line, a measure if you will, about what should or should not be said or done, and when.

King Solomon wrote in Ecclesiastes (3:1-8): “To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven. A time to be born and a time to die, etc.” Verse seven includes the following: “A time to be silent, and a time to speak.” These, of the wise king’s words, are too often ignored when they should desperately be heeded.

Because listening to a good number on the left, at a time when Israel is trying to keep brazen genocidal maniacs from breaking into the country to slaughter innocents (when is Israel not?), one would think the Jewish state is like Nazi Germany.

It’s bad enough when the UN and others as virulent make the pernicious comparison. But from our own?

As we all are now very much familiar, a Bibi-hating actress, about whom I could not care less except for the problems she has now created, who once said, “I don’t want to use my platform [the wrong way]. I feel like there’s [sic] some people who become prominent, and then it’s out in the foreign press. You know, s___ on Israel. I do not. I don’t want to do that,” did just that.

Denying she was part of the BDS movement (as if it now matters), using very poor judgement along with very bad timing, Natalie Portman said the following in a “clarification” recently when explaining her decision to boycott, yes boycott, a ceremony in Israel during which she was to receive an award (NOT from the Israeli prime minister who aggravates her so much, and yes, he would speak there, but get over yourself, Natalie): “Israel was created exactly 70 years ago as a haven for refugees from the Holocaust. But the mistreatment of those suffering from today’s atrocities is simply not in line with my Jewish values.”

Wow! Aside from the fact this proud Israeli-born (having left as a toddler) prima donna has her understanding of history wrong, atrocities? Did she really mean the non-violent actions against the African migrants who entered Israel illegally?

Atrocities? Is Portman that ridiculous? Most everyone understood or attributed her intentions, even post-clarification, toward the clashes at the Gaza border.

Certainly the haters who gleefully embraced her words did so. Can you blame them?

And mentioned in the same textual breath as the Holocaust? Really? Yet another cheapening of history’s greatest crime by yet another foolish person.

Typically, when the woodwork is disturbed, our very own absurdly guilt-ridden are among the first to castigate and to shame, and so, to do great damage. These far left Jewish politicians, actors and “journalists” (note the quotes), along with far left loons add their voices and sadly, their undeserved gravitas, to the obsessive haters’ voices, and give them comfort and strength.

Perennially clueless and hopeless US Senator Bernie Sanders could not wait to pounce on Israel at the start of the Gazan rioting and attempted infiltrations. Sanders is beyond disgraceful, but what else is new?

Maybe it would have helped had Israel only gotten out of Gaza, lock, stock and barrel, every annoying Jew, every prayer book, every piece of gefilte fish, and left that whole strip of land, all of it, to the Palestinians. I guess that would have done it for the uncomfortable, incessantly squirming in their seats, unholy holier-than-thou, Kumbaya singing, pampered members of the tribe living continents away.

Just leave Gaza already!

Oh, wait.

Those who think their vociferous Netanyahu-bashing and Israel-bashing – when Hamas terrorists are trying to infiltrate and murder as they have tragically proven quite capable time and again – only hurts the PM or the current government, need a reality check.

I read and I watch terribly dishonest reports backing up Hamas, and the liars who generate them gladly exploit useful idiots to defame, not just a particular Israeli government, but Israel itself, and the reason and right of its existence. It’s true.

And contrary to what the ignorant far from the front line believe, the violence on Israel’s borders and the need for protection are not about Netanyahu. Only the far left thinks everything is about Netanyahu.

When Israel’s Labour Party finally cut ties with its United Kingdom leftist compatriot Labour Party less than two weeks ago due to anti-Semitism within it and its Hamas-friendly leadership, Israel’s party chairman said this: “This is in addition to your very public hatred of the policies of the Government of the State of Israel, many of which regards the security of our citizens and actions of our soldiers – policies where the opposition and coalition in Israel are aligned.”

To you who put your social and political views above all else, and who because of that, enable BDS – yes, you do, do you use your same Bibi-loathing or Israel-attacking energy to shout about actual monsters? Have you hyperventilated about the half-million killed in Syria, and counting, as much as you constantly do about Israel and its prime minister? Of course you don’t.

You are selective as it suits you, and you forfeit any and all credibility because of your unabashed hypocrisy.

Look, it is OK to disagree and say so, but care should be taken when and how, because it is not OK to become heroes to the hateful who mean harm to us all. And it is depressing to witness.