Tuesday, August 13, 2019

The self-Deception that keeps on deceiving

Once again, the Jewish cycle has come to the point of intersection where the Jews will have to make a choice between living like the rest of humanity, or renewing the claim that they tower supremely above everyone else, thus deserving of special treatment.

This is the point in the cycle when the Jews always made the fatal claim of touting their supremacy, a move that sent them into the arms of a pogrom or a holocaust century after century. Seeing them standing at that intersection, makes you wonder which choice they will make. While their leaders seem to rush headlong into repeating the pattern that sent their flock into the ocean of bottomless abyss, the rank-and-file seem willing to push back against the leaders like they never did before.

The struggle between the Jewish leaders and the rank-and-file is a new phenomenon. As well, both the political and cultural settings in which the drama is unfolding are different from the past. Thus, we cannot rely on history to tell us how the drama will develop or where it will end. All we can do is rely on our instinct to tell us how human beings might behave under the prevailing conditions, and surmise how some people will react to the unfolding events, and how other people might respond.

Two articles published recently will help us understand what the Jewish leaders are doing, as they try to convince the rank-and-file they should follow their instructions. One article came under the title: “Paradoxes of the Middle East: A Frequently Asked Questions,” written by Eugene Veklerov and published on August 11, 2019 in the American Thinker. The other article came under the title: “It was a tough July for congressional anti-Semitism,” written by Jack Rosen, who is president of the American Jewish Congress, and published on August 12, 2019 in the Washington Examiner.

Eugene Veklerov began by laying out the premise of his article: “The older [Jewish] people tend to support Israel, whereas the younger people tend to view Israel negatively.” And so, to convince the younger Jewish generation that it should be more sympathetic toward Israel, Veklerov proposed to do the following: “The purpose of this piece is to list a few dry and well-established facts with little or no commentary.” He went on to list the frequently asked questions, and gave what he says are fact-based answers.

So, you go through the list of Q and A, and realize how loaded they all are with deception. In fact, the first Q and A sets the tone for all that follows. Understanding the trick employed by the writer with the first Q and A, gives a clear indication as to how deceptively the entire piece was put together. Here is what Veklerov did:

Q: Did Jews immigrate to what is now Israel as a result of WWII?
A: No. Jews have always lived in the Middle East … During the period 1850-1875 more Jews than Muslims lived in Jerusalem.

What's wrong with that? What's wrong is that the question points to a serious legal and moral concept, whereas the answer points to something that's trivial and irrelevant. The point of the question is that the Jews made a mess of their lives during the centuries that they lived in Europe, a sojourn that culminated in the Holocaust. This resulted in the Palestinians paying the price for the Jewish misbehavior and the Nazi overreaction to that misbehavior. This is unacceptable morally and legally in any civilized culture.

Now look at the answer that Veklerov gave to that question. First, he began with an assertion that's totally irrelevant. He said this: “Jews have always lived in the Middle East.” So what? Jews have always lived in Europe, Asia, Africa and the Americas too. Does that give them special rights? Of course not. But the writer made it sound like it does.

Second, Veklerov said that during a 25-year period, more Jews than Muslims lived in Jerusalem. No. Not in East Jerusalem where even today, more Arabs (Christians and Muslims) than Jews live there. What happened toward the end of the Nineteenth century was that Jews began to move into a western district of Jerusalem where mostly Christians used to live. At some point there might have been more Jews than Muslims in that district, but not more Jews than Arabs (Christians + Muslims). And then, by 1875, the Muslims outnumbered the Jews again in that same district. In any case, this occurrence does not give the Jews a right to claim Jerusalem or Palestine any more than they can claim ownership of New York or America because they outnumber the Buddhists or the Christians or the Muslims or whomever in Brooklyn.

When confronted with this kind of arguments, the older generation of Jews gets tired quickly and sticks with the idea that Israel can do no wrong, therefore must not be asked to change anything. The same is not true with a younger generation that knows it will have to live with the consequences of Israel's behavior whether they live in America, in Europe or anywhere else in the world.

This attitude of the young is scaring Eugene Veklerov and all those like him, including Jack Rosen, the writer of the second article.

Being president of the American Jewish Congress, Rosen must have felt duty-bound to discuss the future of Israel and the Jews in Pollyannaish terms to a younger generation that's growing restless by the day.

The problem is that Rosen remains totally oblivious of the fact that the young wish to see an Israel that can stand on its own. They want it to work on winning the approval of the American people, not the approval of the political scoundrels in either Party.

They also want to see an Israel that will work on winning the approval of the 200 or so countries in the world, not an Israel that keeps running into the arms of America, asking to be sold to foreign leaders who will hold their noses with one hand, take a bribe with the other hand, and vote in favor of Israel at the United Nations or some other international forum.

Today, young Jews have more than their grandparents to teach them history. They have highly qualified professors who talk about many topics, not just the Holocaust. They have a mountain of publications they can consult at the library. And they have the internet which offers an infinite amount of information that's literally at their fingertips.

The young have realized that they stand at the intersection where they must choose between living a normal life on equal footing with the rest of humanity, or continue to be the black sheep of the family; the one that will end up being culled in the gas chamber and incinerated in the crematorium yet again.

More and more, young Jews are choosing the life that humanity is offering them, rejecting the death that their self-appointed leaders are trying to heap on them.

Good for them.