Get the Ricochet app
Ricochet will work fine in a browser on your mobile devices, but for the best experience please download our app.
When I was a wee bairn in the 60s, I remember seeing movies about WWII, the Holocaust, and all of that. I could not believe that people could do the things that were done. How could they be so evil?
My mother fixed her gaze on me when I voiced these opinions and told me that someday the evil that is hatred of the Jews would rise again, because it is an ancient evil that will never go away. It’s just something that goes along with being God’s chosen. Satan will always be after the Jews, and he has many allies. When antisemitism came back in full force I would have to choose whether I would be good or evil.
At the time I considered this to be one of those dumb things parents say to their kids, a too on-the-nose moral aphorism. But over the last several months, I’ve marveled at its prescience.
It’s as if all that hatred against Jews was out there, hidden but spring-loaded, to burst out at the first barely plausible moment. It has been like that scene from the movie Cabaret where everyone is suddenly revealed to be a Nazi. The evil was all around us all this time.
Antisemitism is back in full force all over America, and it is just as irrational and ignorant as it ever was. It’s based in part on a stupid, ahistorical version of the history of Palestine, in support of which our college students have been reduced to morons spouting a simplistic Manichaean ideology.
The antisemitic rationale here does not stand up even to mild scrutiny.
The history of Palestine is complex. There are no clear-cut oppressors or victims, and all groups have at one time or another played both.
Who, for example, are the Palestinians? No, they are mostly not the indigenous peoples of the area. They are almost all Egyptians and Albanians who came to Palestine in modern times. Some were imported to Palestine during the 1940s to work for the foreign owners of the land.
How did the Jews obtain the land? Some of it they simply bought from the Arabs or from foreign owners. Some of it they got by settling the land and then fighting off Arab attackers. Some of it they got by fighting the British, who wanted to restrict Jewish immigration even after the Holocaust. Then later, when the Arabs got together to wipe Israel off the map at its creation, they lost big pieces of land to Israel. Then Israel gave the land back as part of a peace deal, then the Arabs attacked again and lost. Rinse and repeat.
Is Israel’s action against Gaza, in fact, a genocide? No, not by any stretch of the of the word. Civilian deaths in Gaza have been lower in proportion to combatants than in any major war in modern history, even though Hamas deliberately uses civilians as shields.
The tragedy of this war is 100% the fault of Hamas, who, when given control of Gaza and lots of money to build a paradise on the Mediterranean coast instead chose to build a fortress to attack Israel, and did so for years, culminating in October 7th. They could at any time end the war and the killing if they want to, but they do not.
What could be a more humane way to conduct war than targeting the leadership of Hezbollah and their armaments to reduce loss of life to a minimum while accomplishing necessary military goals? If the U.S. were fighting this war to win it, Lebanon would have been flattened by a billion dollars worth of munitions, and, you know, all that collateral damage would be a shame, but…
Israel ought to get a peace prize.
Discussion (12)
CHARTER MEMBER
To read this bio, please join Ricochet.
Great way to end a very nice "cliff's notes" summary of Israel's modern saga of survival.
To read this bio, please join Ricochet.
I appreciate your thoughtful post, Roderic. I have just one item to add. The Jews aquired the land more than 2,000 years ago. Although many of the Jew are now in the diaspora, there has always been a small community residing there. Accusations that the Jews abandoned Israel are simply not true.
To read this bio, please join Ricochet.
Excellent post, and thanks.
It has been a commonplace in the social media pages I read to say "Have you ever wanted to know what you would have done for the Jews in Germany after Kristallnacht in 1938? After October 7th, 2023, you know. And so do your neighbors."
To read this bio, please join Ricochet.
Very well said!
CHARTER MEMBER
To read this bio, please join Ricochet.
If I'm thinking what you're thinking, the Jews conquered the land more than 3,000 years ago -- because it was promised to them. And while "conquering" doesn't sound as mild as "acquiring," the Jews would be neither the first nor the last to conquer territory. They're just the ones held to a higher standard than every other people ever. And especially compared to the barbaric Islamists around them who want to wipe them off the face of the earth.
I'm neither a Zionist nor an anti-Semite, but the moral distinctions here are black and white to me. Israel has the right to exist and finds itself in the position of having to utterly destroy those who would deny them that right. It has the moral obligation to its people.
You're seeing five of twelve comments. Sign in, or join for just $5 per month, to read them all and add your own.