...new assault on the world’s Jews. The hostility is based on a unique and intense hatred of Israel and deep resentment of its supporters, accompanied by a growing willingness to use violence.
As though in a "perfect storm," two global ideologies, rooted in different radical critiques of the West, have suddenly aligned against us:
1. Islamic anti-Semitism. Fueled by Saudi petro-dollars and Iranian revolutionary zeal, a global campaign in mosques and madrassas (Islamic schools) teaches hundreds of millions of Muslims that Jews are the sons of monkeys and pigs, and killing them is a holy deed. The internet and television embellish the message: docudramas in Iran, Egypt and Jordan depict Jews harvesting the organs of Muslim children, killing non-Jews to make matzo, and plotting to rule the world.
This poison reaches Muslims in the West. Europe’s Jews are besieged and violently assaulted -- on the streets and in the no-longer varnished rhetoric of polite society. In America, Freedom House told Congress it found Saudi-produced hate literature aimed at Americans, Christians – but mostly Jews – in mosques across the U.S.
2. In the West, "Palestinianism" -- the notion that an innocent, indigenous people suffers a senseless, cruel oppression by the Jews of Israel (who ought to know better) threatens to become the standard view. It is the basis for an attack by Western radicals on Zionism, Jewish national self-determination, and by extension on Jews everywhere. The "oppression" of an Arab people by Westerners is, for the far Left, morally and politically more consequential than the massacres, enslavements, beheadings, bombings, and ethnic cleansings committed by Arabs and Muslims from London to Sudan, from Spain to Indonesia. These are treated by radicals as distractions from (even caused by) the deeper Zionist evil.
While the description of the challenge is fairly clear, the solution is not:
Confused, with our defenses down, Jews need to consider the profound impact of losing the ideological battle that can destroy the Jewish state. This new time requires courageous and talented leaders to grasp these new realities and create strategies to defeat the latest defamations, grounded in a libelous portrayal of the Arab-Israeli conflict.A leadership correctly prioritizing the threat would convince us to lay aside our furious left-right debates, and teach us instead to make Israel’s basic case – from the left as well as from the right. It would gather the support of non-Jews and distinguish clearly friends from enemies. Most important, a new leadership would bravely and tirelessly tell us the truth about our new situation and recruit our talent and resources to the task.
If current Jewish leaders – in this country which has been so good to the Jewish people – can’t or won’t do these things, then this small but enormously talented people will have to get new leaders. For in this, the Jewish community cannot and must not fail.
I don't think there is any doubt about the challenge, nor that there is an enormous need to overcome the equally enormous lack of information, education, and Hasbara that we are making available both to the world in general and to ourselves--especially to our college youth who seem to be on the front lines confronting Moslem students, liberals, and fellow left-wing Jews who have the passion--though not the facts--on their side.
What bothers me is that the call for leadership and hasbara is one that has been made for years now. It is important to make this call, but I would have hoped that there was something more structured and detailed being offered.
The implications of this call to action is that little or nothing has been done yet--and I find that even more unsettling than the challenge itself.
Technorati Tag:
Israel and The David Project and Islam and Anti-Semitism and Palestinians.
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