How did this come to pass?

 

by Ruth King     

 

"A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banner openly. But the traitor moves amongst those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself. For the traitor appears not a traitor; he speaks in accents familiar to his victims, and he wears their face and their arguments, he appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the hearts of all men. He rots the soul of a nation, he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of the city, he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist. A murderer is less to fear. The traitor is the plague." (Marcus Tullius Cicero, in a speech to the Roman Senate, 42 BC)

 

In 1929 Zeev Jabotinsky warned the Jews of Europe to get out in face of a coming cataclysm. Absorbed in their daily lives, most Jews ignored the escalating anti-Jewish rhetoric in the newspapers and the academies; the boycotts of Jews among Polish factory workers and trade groups; the ritual murder libels in Lublin and Vilna; the mounting attacks and beatings; the riots and desecrations of synagogues; the discriminatory laws and taxations; and the staggering failure by host nations to protect their Jewish populations.

 

Yes, the tragic Jews of Europe just tried to get on with their lives. Who could fault them? Who could have foreseen Auschwitz?

 

But what about today? After many decades of Jewish renewal and enhanced prestige brought about by the advent of Israel, Jews are threatened by the recrudescence of world-wide vicious anti-Semitism, all couched as "anti-Israel not anti-Semitic."

 

Even here in the United States trade and religious and academic institutions boycott and "disengage" from Israel, synagogues are vandalized and the mainstream media, at fever pitch to condemn Israel, gives scant attention to the threat against Jews.

 

Why has the American public lost sight of the fact that Jihad threatens the entire Western world and not Israel alone? Why did conservative Jews, even those who stood firm against Oslo become so besotted with President Bush that they swallowed whole the "road map" and the ensuing departure from Gaza without understanding or pressing the fact that Israel is in the front line of the war against Islamic terror?

 

The sad fact is that Jews themselves have contributed to the morass in which we find ourselves. First, let's examine those whom Cicero calls the fools and the ambitious.

 

Women of Hadassah: Your work in the ingathering when you provided rescue to millions of wretched survivors of the Nazis and those expelled from Arab states is the stuff of legend. When did abortion rights, gay rights and assorted trendy environmental crusades become more important than Jewish survival and Israel?

 

Listen up, ADL: You had a distinguished history in defending Jews against defamation. How did you get into the business of defaming our Christian evangelical supporters? Do you really think that Mel Gibson and a crackpot Catholic Bishop threaten Jews more than Arabs and Jihad? And, speaking of Holocaust deniers what say you about Abbas, whose doctoral thesis was devoted to that topic?

 

Esteemed grandees of the Conference of Presidents: There was a time that you were an instant deployment group, your clout felt in the corridors of American power when there was serious offense to Israel and Jews. What have you accomplished in the past ten years? Your major "achievements" were to insult Sarah Palin and elevate Mahmoud Abbas to the role of "peace partner." Even now, faced with the disastrous results of leaving Gaza-from which you egged Israel on to withdraw-you prod Israel to accept its dissolution with the "two state plan."

 

Can you not see that your servility contributes to the climate of blaming Israel?

 

Now let's discuss The Filth Column...the traitors within.

 

Jews who defame Israel are the most pernicious tools in the war against Israel and Jewry, those who, to paraphrase Cicero, move among us freely, teaching our young, their sly moral equivalence, which equates Israel with its tormentors, heard in the halls of government itself. They preen and strut as supposed devotees of "peace" and "justice." They besmirch Israel with vile comparisons to the Nazis. They pepper their talk with Yiddish, indulge in Holocaust metaphor and willfully and maliciously provide fodder for the cannons of those who would extinguish us. They are in a league of their own.

 

Here is a baker's dozen list of The Filth Column: Not in Our Name Coalition, Jewish Voice for Peace, Jews Against the Occupation, Jewish Peace Fellowship, Gush Shalom, Jews Not Zionists, Truth Justice and Human Rights in the Middle East, Rabbis for Human Rights, Visions for Peace with Justice in Israel/Palestine, Students for Justice in Palestine, Jews Against the Occupation, Jewish Women for Peace and Justice in Israel/Palestine, Jewish Social Justice Network.

 

JATO (Jews against the Occupation) recently hung banners calling for "Free Palestine" from bridges and highways. Its spokesman Ethan Heitner states: "Even if foreclosures and unemployment weren't decimating our neighborhoods, surely there are better uses for $3 billion a year than helping the Israeli government commit war crimes." Students for Justice in Palestine has groups on many campuses. Matan Cohen of Hampshire College in Massachusetts works among them to get "total international disinvestment from Israel."

 

Then there are the "independents" such as Norton Mezvinsky, who runs the Middle Eastern Studies Program at Central Connecticut State University who recently invited Norman Finkelstein, another pillar of the Jewish Filth Column, to bash Israel.

 

They have rotted the soul of the Jewish nation and undermined the pillars of Israel. Yet they proliferate in the media, the academies and the arts. They deserve the obloquy of all self respecting Jews and a corner in hell.

 

It is 1928 again, but unlike the unsuspecting and tragic Jews of Europe we cannot remain in denial. A strong Israel is our only guarantor of survival. In spite of those who have unwittingly contributed to the present climate and those who are active accomplices of our enemies, we cannot give up or fail. To do so will mean the end of the Jewish people.

 

 

Ruth King

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