Israel Burns, Greta Cheers

Massive Hezbollah bombing of Israel’s north caused large forest fires to erupt, causing substantial damage.  By early this week, the fires had consumed nearly 10,000 dunams (about 2,500 acres), with more rockets being fired daily into the hot, dry weather.

Politically, the barrage has prompted some Israeli ministers to demand aggressive military action against Hezbollah.  Indeed the Times of Israel reported on Tuesday that British officials had warned the Lebanese that Israel will launch an offensive by mid-June.  Ecologically, the fires already have been an environmental disaster.  The Israeli Nature and Parks Authority estimates it will take years before the flora can repair and regenerate itself.  https://www.timesofisrael.com/hezbollah-rockets-spark-fires-burning-10000-dunams-of-open-areas-in-north/.

As the Israeli environment burns following eight months of relentless bombing, the world’s major environmental groups remain silent.  Unlike the Ukraine war, where within four months the United Nations was weighing in on how to restore the damaged ecology, https://www.undp.org/ukraine/press-releases/new-coordination-center-assess-environmental-impacts-war-ukraine, the UN and ecological organizations at best remain mute, and at worst cheer on the environmental destroyers.

Chief among them of course is the ubiquitous Greta Thunberg, who sits in Sweden unconcerned for the environmental damage being done to Israel.  Instead she cheers on those who seek to destroy it.  Last month, she joined thousands of Israel haters in Malmo, Sweden protesting the participation of Israel in the Eurovision Song Contest.  Just days after the October 7 Hamas invasion, Ms. Thunberg made clear her support for Palestine and her revulsion at the thought of a Jewish State.  https://www.newsweek.com/greta-thunberg-pro-palestine-message-1836437.  Clearly, given the choice between maintaining her leadership of the environmental movement and hating the one Jewish state, Greta made her priorities clear.

Ms. Thunberg’s willingness to subordinate her lifelong work for her hatred of Jews is being played out over many fields.  Women who have dedicated their lives to fighting violence against women suddenly said nothing when faced with mass rape of Jewish women on October 7.  LGBTQ rights advocates have come down squarely on the side of those who will put LGBTQ people to death, free speech advocates wax polemic on the need to support those who do not allow free speech, and children’s rights groups support those who use or allow their children to be used as human shields.  The common denominator is that all of the above hate Israel, the one Jewish country.

For nearly 80 years, we in the post World War II generation have never had to deal with antisemitism in its most vile form.  The memories of the Holocaust were too fresh.  October 7 and its aftermath have shown that those memories are now in the distant past, and that far from being discouraged, antisemitism is now chic.  The way to advancement at most Western colleges and universities is to show hatred toward the Jewish state.  If there is safety in numbers, the antisemites now have their own backs covered.

What will be the future for Ms. Thunberg?  Just 21 years old, she seemed to be the natural leader for the world environmental movement in the 21^st Century.  But how can such a leader advocate for the use of weapons like environmental degradation in order to destroy a people and a country, even one that she so loathes?  If history holds she and the environmentalists will find a way.  There is little more flexible than the antisemitic mind.  In the same way that the world has found little trouble excusing Hamas’s attempt at genocide while accusing Israel of the same, and as the “Gays For Palestine” find a way to blame Israel for the anti-Gay attitudes of Islamic people, the environmentalists likely will blame Israel for causing Hezbollah to fire rockets at the Jewish State, thus setting the fires.  Accepting the destruction of the world environment seems a small price to pay so long as it can bring about destruction of the Jews.  After all, we all need our priorities, don’t we?