Growing Anti-Semitism Causing Concern

When the subject of anti-Semitism is discussed many areas in the world are more likely to be included before anybody would even think of including the United States as a place of major concern. The most often chosen discussed areas where there is growing anti-Semitism are the Muslim Middle East and North Africa and Europe. The Muslim anti-Semitism is often claimed to be driven mostly over Israel and the Palestinian statehood issue. This is not the entire truth and more than likely being chosen as the reason behind anti-Semitism is done so as not to need to address the historic anti-Semitism which has risen periodically throughout Muslim lands since the inception of Islam in Mecca and especially Medina. Another misrepresentation has been the claim that after the Holocaust and the end of World War II that anti-Semitism had disappeared from Europe and the West. The truth is that anti-Semitism had simply retreated beneath the societal radar and had become unacceptable which only served to put it in apparent remission but did not cure these peoples of the disease called anti-Semitism. The proof of this having been the case is the rapid growth of the national socialist political parties which have adopted much of the original Nazi racial puritan ethic which has a definitive anti-Semitic strain driving the movement. This has been most evident in those countries which are experiencing economic difficulties or other stressful pressures on their social fabric. Still, much of the public try and dismiss these political groups as passing blips on the political spectrum and simply if ignored they will pass away before they cause any real harm. If my memory serves me, that was exactly the thoughts of polite European society about the rise of the national socialists in Germany and elsewhere prior to their rise to power in Nazi Germany, and the rest is, as they say, history.

 

North America and the United States in particular are considered to be paragons of acceptance where anti-Semitism is something which has been relegated to a miniscule minority whose numbers are so minute as not to be any actual concern. If this were only true. What masks much of the anti-Semitism is that it exists in the form of either anti-Israel or anti-Zionist political movements. The claim that virulent anti-Israel and anti-Zionist adherents are protesting only Israel and do not necessarily have any hatred towards Jews is more often a false premise than truth. This article is not intended to argue this point but rather to address the rise of anti-Semitism within North America and particularly within the United States. Where in the general society there is not much evident anti-Semitism in any of its incarnations; but in the arenas from which our future leadership is being molded and educated, the elite colleges and universities, the growth of anti-Semitism is extremely troubling. The initial foot in the door has been the anti-Israel, anti-Zionist, and pro-Palestinian movements and in particular the BDS Movement which demands Universities and whomever else they can persuade to fight Israel through Boycotts, Divestment, and Sanctions. The one item which these groups will stress and go to great lengths to emphasize are that under no circumstance are they or do they condone in any form anti-Semitism. To quote Macbeth, “The lady doth protest too much, methinks.”

 

The truth is in their actions and we need to judge these people by their actions and not simply listen to their words. On many campuses there exist different main events behind those utilizing the political difficulties concerning Israel in order to promote their masked anti-Semitism. These are BDS Protests and Palestinian Solidarity Weeks or Months. These events are often accompanied by general measures taken presumably to demonstrate the “sins” of the State of Israel. One such is to present eviction notices to certain students that they are to leave their dorm room within the next few hours as they are scheduled to be destroyed. This is done implying that Israel simply randomly destroys Palestinian homes for absolutely no reason other than just because they are Palestinian owned homes. The students whose doors receive the fake eviction notices are known Jewish students, Hillel members, and those known to support Israel. Another event is to place checkpoints around the campus where any students wearing Star of David jewelry, Yarmulkes, or other ways are known to be Jews are stopped and treated roughly and demeaned simply because they are Jews and presumed to support Israel. The truth is they seldom give such treatment to Christian or other supporters of Israel. Then there are the Walls of Shame where they place a wall that supposedly represents the anti-terror fence which in urban areas or areas where snipers have targeted Israeli homes and vehicles they erect actual walls but the vast majority of the barrier uses fencing. Often this wall is covered with the names of Palestinians who have been arrested by Israel on terrorist charges, also the names of terrorists Israel has killed in the commission of acts of terror and even the names of those who died in suicide bombings for which they blame Israel. As these demonstrations have grown in size and numbers there has come with them a general atmosphere on numerous campuses where all things Israel are condemned and anybody who supports Israel is scorned and many professors are known to grade these students harshly with some even being failed. Some campuses the atmosphere has grown so toxic that Jewish students have taken to hiding the fact that they are Jewish and those who have not taken such precautions are physically attacked. The situation has reached such epidemic proportions that there are currently lawsuits filed against Universities for not providing a safe and secure educational environment and not protecting students from religious persecutions in Federal Courts under civil rights laws.

 

But the problems of today will pale in comparison to what is likely to be coming in the near future. Directly resulting from the poisoned educational environment which casts Israel directly and Jews by inference as evil and undesirable entities and such premises tainting administrations especially in the social sciences will produce a core of future leaders tainted to varying extents as a result. The percentage does not need to be as significant as many would like to believe to do immense damage. The reality is that should the current trends continue to grow at the same rate as they have been growing in recent history, the problem will soon become a major influencing factor in our advanced educational systems. Studying such occurrences throughout history produces a very troubling picture where what begins as a small movement within the elite educational society will rapidly gain adherents and reach a societal movement often as quickly as a decade and more readily within three decades. The anti-Israel and anti-Zionist movement infecting the elite educational societies in the United States and in Canada are already closing in on their first decade and have grown significantly to the point that even some traditionally Jewish colleges and universities have supported BDS protests and Palestinian solidarity protests. One of the hotbeds of these movements has been the California College System, one of the largest university and college systems in the United States. The one factor which guarantees that these events and support structures driving them will remain well funded and will have all the resources they require is the simple fact that Saudi Arabia, Iran, the United Arab Emirates and other Muslim organizations will continue to supply monetary support. This support has been most evident when one researches the Middle East Departments of almost every American major university where Arabists hold most of the positions of power and influence. Where much of this problem has remained largely out of sight and is not covered in any depth in the mainstream media, the ramifications and ramifications of this situation will produce its foul and rotten fruit which will unfortunately become evident and recognized likely far too late to avoid the worst results even I might predict. This coming from one who is often dismissed as a pessimist but too often prove out in time to have been a realist.

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

Middle East One Year After a Nuclear Iran

Everyone has given their picture of the horrors which would follow a nuclear armed Iran. Most of these warnings point to the possibility of Iran distributing their nuclear capabilities to their closest allies Syria and Hezballah in Lebanon. They explain how Iran might choose to attack Israel with a nuclear device smuggled into Israel by Hezballah in the north, by Hamas from the southwest, or Bedouins or others from within the Sinai Peninsula in the south. They mention that Iran could threaten Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Oman, the UAE, and Bahrain with severe and dire consequences while loosing the Shiite populations in each country to serve whatever ends the Ayatollahs decide. Where these scenarios are troubling enough, they completely miss a far worse situation which is actually more likely. There have been some who have hinted at these problems but they warrant retelling.

 

All of the Sunni nations in the Middle East are fully aware of the threat they would face should Iran become a nuclear armed nation. The struggle for supremacy between Shiite and Sunnis Islam would become far more competitive with Iran having nuclear weapons with which to threaten the major Sunni powers who currently enjoy a measure of preeminence provided by their oil wealth. What has been omitted from many explanations of a future after Iran goes nuclear is that when Pakistan faced a nuclear armed India they went on an emergency nuclear weapons development program. This was an exceedingly costly program far beyond anything the Pakistani government could ever have afforded. Enter the ever helpful but not too egalitarian Saudis with all the cash that Pakistan would need. There was a very simple price for the assistance of the Saudis, the promise of nuclear weapons on demand should Saudi Arabia ever find themselves on the wrong end of a nuclear situation, say like Iranian threats. This agreement would provide the Saudis with a number of operative nuclear weapons along with the plans for building their own weapons once they put the processing and other required productions into place. There have been numerous conjectures to the number of weapons which would be provided the Saudis on demand with a dozen being the median figure which would be more than sufficient to keep Iran in check while the Saudis brought their own nuclear weapons program online. But the Saudis are but the first in a line of new nuclear powers which would result from a nuclear Iran.

 

There are other countries who would feel compelled to reply to a nuclear Iran by immediately developing their own nuclear arsenals. The idea that every nation in the Middle East, and even further, would be satisfied to rely on the United States nuclear umbrella to keep them safe is a foolish and silly belief. For starters, any nation which currently views themselves as being major players in the Middle East would take a nuclear armed Iran as an unacceptable challenge to their place in the order of the Middle East. Of these the first two which come to mind are Turkey and Egypt. Turkey and Egypt both have sufficient technology available to them to produce their own nuclear weaponry within a nominal amount of time, likely less than three years from inception to production of their first two or three devices. They would require negligible research times as access to plans for a nuclear weapon are readily available to any nation with sufficient money. The readily available sources for such plans are well known and include but are not limited to North Korea, Pakistan, China, Russia, and other former Soviet countries. Even without any assistance from a current nuclear power the designs for a simple nuclear device are readily available on the internet though not necessarily in sufficient detail to assemble one straight off those plans. But with sufficient engineering and nuclear physics expertise, nuclear weapon designs require mere months to successfully develop. With computer aided design it becomes even more readily accomplishable. But who else might decide they were in need of a nuclear arsenal should Iran complete their nuclear weapons plans?

 

The first suspects would likely be many European countries; especially Germany, Poland, Romania, and very likely all of the rest would either desire their own or would ally forming treaties of mutual protection with neighboring countries that were developing such weapons. England and France would likely resume building nuclear weapons and update any nuclear weapons they currently hold. Once any of the nations of North Africa developed nuclear weapons they might start a nuclear arms race through the rest of Africa. South Africa was once a nuclear power and who knows where those plans are now. Then one needs to reevaluate the equation even if only three or four nations in Africa manage to go nuclear and also look to Asia and South America. If Iran is allowed to go nuclear then the entirety of Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty goes out the window and a truly horrific domino theory will come to fruition. Such a world becomes the most ominous threat condition from which mankind may cease to exist along with near extinction event enveloping the world. Many of the nations which would become nuclear armed and enabled were either nonexistent or uninterested in the last World War and may not have taken the lesson of Nagasaki and Hiroshima to heart as those nations involved in World War II.

 

The United States and allies faced off against the Soviet Union and its allies in a nuclear standoff in which great care and mechanisms were built in to assure that no accidental confrontation would occur. Even with these precautions there were a number of times when the two sides came perilously close to the brink but fortunately never went beyond the cusp and committed their nuclear response. Once even one-third of the nations of the world possess nuclear weaponry the possibility of either a mistake or an intentional use of nuclear weapons would simply become a matter of time. Once one nation utilized nuclear weapons then either the attacked nation and the nations with which they have mutual defense treaties either respond in kind leading to an ever escalating nuclear conflagration or they stand down at which point every other nations’ nuclear deterrent becomes just one small bit less effective. Once a nation and their allies allow a nuclear attack to go without a response in kind then it becomes a measured consideration which would make the offensive use of nuclear weapons just a small amount more tempting. Since mankind has always used the weapon of previously unequaled destruction which ended the previous war to start the next war, how long before nuclear weapons become the first strike weapon of choice? Look at the evidence, the Ancient Greek used the Phalanx which was perfected by the Romans. World War I brought into use tanks and aircraft and World War II revolved around armor, bombers, and fighter aircraft. World War I used dreadnaughts which were the follow-up to the ironclads and metal warships of the American Civil War and the other wars between then and the outbreak of World War I. It may have been inevitable once mankind invented the nuclear weapon that it would be the weapon of initiation for World War III which may very likely be World War Last until the next intelligent species rises from the mire left afterwards. Maybe we should press for more actions to be committed for preventing Iran or anybody else developing and building nuclear weapons.

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

Israel is Our Only True Sanctuary

The pattern is as old as Jewish history itself. The prototypical mold was cast from our days in Egypt. When our family first came to Egypt times were uncertain and difficult but soon resolved and placed us in positions of power, respect, and acceptance. The initial years, decades even, were years of plenty where we reaped the rewards of our acceptance thus being allowed the fruits of our labors. Things began to change with a new Pharaoh who no longer remembered the times and qualities of our previous service to the people and leaders of Egypt, to the former Pharaoh. Then everything changed bringing upon us years of bitterness, of slavery, of persecutions, and of suffering under evil edicts. All of these were the results from suspicions and false charges of our having loyalties which may have influenced us to revolt and raise our hand against Egypt. The fact that there had been little or no indication of such even being discussed, being suggested, or any evidence that we meant anything but to serve the good of Egypt which had become our home was of absolutely no consequence. But the misgivings arose and we came under suspicions and thus were placed under the yoke of slavery and suffered the bitterness of unfounded jealous hatreds against us. This was the very first epoch of our being separated and exiled from our true homelands and placed in the original Diaspora. This was to be the same sequence that was to become our history for every time we were to suffer the yoke of foreign rule which could be referred to as the “Cycle of Egypt”.

Babylon was an enemy from the very outset. There were times at the start in which the Jewish nation had peaceable and mutually advantageous relations as our nation was of sufficient power that the kings of Babylon feared a war between our nations. It should be noted that when we possessed such strength we chose not to attack or take up arms against those neighboring nations and tribes and simply chose to live on our lands enjoying peace, security and the wealth of our toils and serving the L0rd our G0d. When we turned from the path of righteousness, our strength sapped and our defenses failed, the neighboring Babylonians wasted little time before setting out to conquer our lands. Again we were in exile suffering the bitterness of being forced from our lands. When the Persian conquest defeated the Babylonians many of us returned to our lands and we enjoyed a period of peace and security despite being a part of the Persian Empire and thus under their rule. Initially the Persian rulers allowed us a fair amount of autonomy but that eventually evaporated eventually leading to Haman and the threat of annihilation simply for being what we were, Jews. We faced persecution under the Greek Empire after an initial period where we were granted some autonomy. The final occupation was the current one, which we have the opportunity to bring to an end, which began with the great dispersion inflicted upon us by Rome in an attempt to dissolve and destroy our very existence as a people, removing the Jews from all of history.

After the fall of Rome the Jewish people were no longer a single community as we had been intentionally dispersed to every corner of the empire, intentionally separated into small and insignificant communities intended to die within a generation or two. The saving grace was Torah which kept our identity viable and with time tied our dispersed communities together in a loose confederation which has lasted through to modern times. During this Diaspora we faced the “Cycle of Egypt” continuously with some of our dispersed far-flung communities under persecution even if most of our communities lived lives of serenity and marginal independence. The communities of Jews found themselves in the near two-thousand-year exile repeatedly having to flee from one place to another sometimes even finding necessity to flee entire countries as royal edicts demanded our departing under pain of death. Often we found at the end of such persecution driven resettlements that our new homeland received us willingly and with acceptance. Unfortunately these favorable conditions would always deteriorate until we found ourselves once again fleeing for our lives, often literally. Our lives became a continuous string of desperate times where the fulfillment of the final curses depicted in Leviticus 26:37-8, which reads

“And as for those of you who are left, I will send faintness into their hearts in the lands of their enemies; the sound of a shaken leaf shall cause them to flee; they shall flee as though fleeing from a sword, and they shall fall when no one pursues. They shall stumble over one another, as it were before a sword, when no one pursues; and you shall have no power to stand before your enemies. You shall perish among the nations, and the land of your enemies shall eat you up.”

This brings us to the current times. The Shoah was the latest end result of the “Cycle of Egypt” which began with our fleeing the pogroms and persecutions in Czarist Russia, a state of persecution which carried over to the Communist rule which followed the Czars. Many of the Jewish people fled westward from Russia back into Eastern Europe with large numbers choosing to reside in the first areas where they found an accepting community. This placed a very large population of Jews in Poland and also increases of Jews also residing in Germany. My father’s family was among those who fled Czarist persecution and my great-great-grandfather made a wise decision and continued to flee westward through Poland, Germany, Belgium and France eventually stopping in London. Still, my family lost members to the ravages of World War II as one of my uncles died flying over Europe with the British Air Force. My mother’s family being Sephardic was spared from the curses which befell European Jews but faced their own persecutions which afflicted the Jews of the Middle East, especially in Iraq and Iran during the same time period. Both sides of my family have been extremely reluctant in discussing the particulars even among family members such that I was never a recipient of their experiences or educated as to the hardships they survived.

After World War II the world changed drastically for the Jewish people as Israel was restored making it possible for Jews to once again live in their own homeland under self-rule. With the reestablishing of the country of Israel the Jewish people have a safe haven where they can defend themselves as an independent nation and people. Despite the facts which depict Israel as a nation under continuous siege, Jews still have an advantage in Israel which had been denied them for much of the past two millennia, the option of self-defense. This has caused some uneasiness for those who are more comfortable with the idea of the Jewish people as a small minority living within their states completely defenseless against their persecutors whenever and wherever they arise. The concept of Jews with tanks, fighter jets, naval ships, missiles and all kinds of combat arms securing their lands and fellow Jews from attempted persecution and annihilation is a concept which many appear to prefer to deny the Jewish State which is exemplified by their condemnations of any use of force by Israel in the defense of her people. There are many who oppose allowing the Jewish State to defend itself and wish to deny Israel’s right to exist, yet the same people also wish to expel the Jews from within their countries as well. Where these haters are powerless to dissolve Israel by edict, it is only their hatreds for the Jews residing outside of Israel where they deleterious desires can be actualized and it is these desires that need be addressed.

With the formation of the State of Israel in May 1948, we saw the dispossession of their Jewish populations by numerous Arab and Muslim nations over the next decade. Those Arab and Muslim nations who did not forcibly expel their Jews often did make the lives of their Jews difficult. There were the occasional pogroms, riots, confiscations of property and vandalizing of businesses, homes, synagogues and schools which belonged to or were operated by Jews. Some of these countries went to the radical ends by making being Jewish a crime punishable by death such as in Saudi Arabia. Europe experienced a guilt driven reprieve from its long, consistent history of recurrent, sporadic anti-Semitism after having their conscience assaulted by the revelation of the horrors of the Holocaust. Unfortunately, this suspension of Jew hatred was more of a suppression than an elimination which is now rapidly coming to an end. Once again as the European economies hit difficult times there are some in the masses who are turning to an old hatred on which to place the blame for their difficulties. The destruction and defacement of Jewish cemeteries, synagogues, schools, businesses and other easily identifiable places has become more prevalent with time. There have been actual physical attacks on Jews wearing readily identifiable clothing and items. The demonstrations against Israel have become larger and more hateful. The levels of hatreds and attacks have culminated in the assassination of a Rabbi, his two young sons and the daughter of the administrator at the Ozar Hatorah Yeshiva in Toulouse, France. Adding to the sickening reality of this horrid incident was the fact that anti-Semitic acts greatly increased following this hateful act. Adding to the ever growing problems and hatefulness in Europe has been the fact that the United States also has had an increase in acts against its Jews and those places and buildings which can be identified as Jewish. The acts in the United States may not currently rival those in Europe, but they appear to have a similarity to the situation in Europe of about a decade ago. Should these trends continue to increase and grow then the return to Israel of the world’s Jews may become a reality sooner than any expected when Israel was founded in May of 1948. This may be a sad reason behind forcing the return to Israel of the Jewish people but it may become result in a blessing upon its completion. For all that we can know these realities which may result in driving the Jewish people to return to their homeland and the Promised Land could be the result of a hidden hand forcing history to mold to a greater plan. It is said that there are no consequences and all things will play out as they are intended. Time will tell.

Beyond the Cusp