The Gaza War and Anti-Semitism

Hamas has been recognized as a terrorist organization by the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, the European Union, Jordan, Egypt, Australia, and Japan. Its covenant calls for the creation of an Islamic state in Palestine, from the Jordan River to the sea. This, of course, means the destruction of Israel and its replacement by yet another terrorist Islamic entity, with the same evil Jihadist goals as ISIS, Boko Haram, and Al Qaeda, and their mentor states Turkey and Qatar. In short, it seeks not just to create a homeland for “Palestinians” in coexistence with the Jews, but the annihilation of the sovereign State of Israel, the single and unique Jewish homeland. The Hamas covenant asserts “Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it.”

When Israel totally disengaged from Gaza in 2005 it was in good faith and with the hope that it would usher in an era of cooperation and peaceful relations between Arabs and Jews. Unfortunately, the people of Gaza, in spite of being offered a unique opportunity to build a peaceful society that could have benefited from economic ties with Israel as well as the largesse of Europe and America, chose instead to elect the terrorists of Hamas. Since then, vast sums of money and international aid that that have poured into Gaza have been misdirected to serve the cause of Hamas’ genocidal agenda, and tens of thousands of rockets have been fired at Israeli civilian populations in unprovoked aggression.

Meanwhile the supporters of the Gaza Peace Flotilla of 2010 morally raked Israel over the coals for its blockade of Gaza. Israel insisted that it would not allow the free flow of the tools of terror into the hands of Hamas. “Cement” they taunted! Cement that was desperately needed for humanitarian purposes to build schools and hospitals! The “International Community”, that exemplar of human decency, bullied Israel into allowing the importation of “harmless” cement into Gaza. Predictably, Israel’s predictions were proven true and that same cement was diverted to build terror tunnels into Israel – tunnels that were intended to ferry the Jihadis and their nefarious cargo into Jewish communities, tunnels that burrowed under kindergartens and kibbutz dining rooms with the most evil of intentions to kidnap and murder Israeli men, women and children. The plan was uncovered and the mere thought of it takes one breath away! The lives that would have been lost, the children slaughtered, whole families and communities shattered – and the world did not skip a beat; it only cried foul at the very effrontery of Israel in using every means at its disposal to dismantle this apparatus of evil. The tunnels were dug in mosques, schools, private homes, places impossible to reach without attacking sites close to Gaza’s civilian population, a population that remained in situ whether through conviction, empathy, or coercion.

Only when Israel hits back at rocket launch sites and tunnels, cynically located in civilian population centers, including UNRWA administered sites, does the International Community spring to life and react in moral indignation and outrage. The worldwide eruption of Jew hatred, such as recent calls for “Death to Jews” and “Gas the Jews” in France, Germany and elsewhere, are remarkably unsubtle reminders of Europe’s inglorious and recent anti-Semitic history.

In an insightful article entitled Antisemitism in Britain written by George Orwell in 1945 he starts by offering a few quotes from people in different walks of life in Britain as World War 2 was drawing to a close. One of the more notable quotations is identified by Orwell as being uttered by a “Young intellectual, Communist or near-Communist” who said, “No, I do not like Jews. I’ve never made any secret of that. I can’t stick them. Mind you, I’m not antisemitic, of course.” That protestation of innocence from a blatant Anti-Semite is, I think, highly pertinent for our own times. It is what we are seeing on the streets of Europe, the US, Canada, and Australia. Although many of the Muslim and far right demonstrators may openly admit to their hatred of Jews, there are many others who, like Orwell’s young Communist, protest that they are not Anti-Semitic – they would just like to see the world’s only Jewish country wiped off the map!

So please, you who hate Israel, the Jewish State, above all others, you who feel moral repugnance at the deaths of Muslims only when they are the result of Israel’s need and absolute right to defend itself, spare us your faux self righteous superiority. Despise Israel if you must, but you owe it to yourselves and your children to examine your ugly motives and recognize them for what they are.