This is an edited version of a comment originally posted on Solomonia
The Fence
Some say its apartheid
Some say its self defence -
When the guy on the other side wants to kill you...
opt for common sense.
Tuesday, January 30, 2007
Augean Stables has a nice analysis of the British Multiculturalism Problem. It is a brilliant vignette of the pernicious effect of multiculturalism. The ultimate danger, of course, is that now Britain has a formidable fifth column, thriving and virulent. For a little historical perspective, here is a description of the German American Bund of the 1930’s by Jim Bredemus.
Hmm…, "Germans in America" sounds like "Muslims in Britain"- second generation immigrants, advocating that a totalitarian ideology come to rule the host country… If this sounds familiar, just try to imagine what would have happened had the same kind of multiculturalism had held sway in the U.S. Would we have approved the Bund because to all our citizens of German extraction, in Mizra’s words, their identity is the most important thing? Would they have been encouraged to express that identity through solidarity with the Nazis?
We demanded more of our German citizens than that. We went after those who crossed the line into intolerance and subversion of our basic tenants (remember Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness?). I am not sure of my facts but I seem to recall that Britain had a flirtation with sympathy for Nazism early on too. The limit of tolerance has to be that you cannot allow yourself the sloth and cowardice to tolerate the intolerable. Britain and the U.S. did not tolerate the intolerable in the 30’s thereby temporarily saving Europe from the fate that Lewis predicts for them now.
The organization was soon filled with those calling themselves “Germans in America” and dreamed of the day when Nazism would rule the United States…, It is estimated that around 25% of Bund members were German nationals—the rest being mostly first or second generation Germans. Research indicates that most Bund members were of lower-middle class origin.Here is the rest of the article.
Hmm…, "Germans in America" sounds like "Muslims in Britain"- second generation immigrants, advocating that a totalitarian ideology come to rule the host country… If this sounds familiar, just try to imagine what would have happened had the same kind of multiculturalism had held sway in the U.S. Would we have approved the Bund because to all our citizens of German extraction, in Mizra’s words, their identity is the most important thing? Would they have been encouraged to express that identity through solidarity with the Nazis?
We demanded more of our German citizens than that. We went after those who crossed the line into intolerance and subversion of our basic tenants (remember Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness?). I am not sure of my facts but I seem to recall that Britain had a flirtation with sympathy for Nazism early on too. The limit of tolerance has to be that you cannot allow yourself the sloth and cowardice to tolerate the intolerable. Britain and the U.S. did not tolerate the intolerable in the 30’s thereby temporarily saving Europe from the fate that Lewis predicts for them now.
Wednesday, January 24, 2007
Watch PBS- But Don’t Let Your Brains Fall Out
Anybody who has been paying attention knows that anti-Semitism is a problem. It is an especially bad one in the Arab world. So when I heard about the program Anti-Semitism in the 21st Century: The Resurgence that aired on PBS a week ago last Monday night, I was very excited. I sat down and watched it all the way through and expected to digest it and write a quick essay for my blog. It has been two weeks now and I am still not over the feeling that there was something disappointing and disturbing about it. I’ve been having a hard time putting my finger on it though. I was more than ready to put aside the skepticism with which I generally greet anything on PBS. I had wanted very much to be satisfied with it and I was looking forward to seeing a deep exploration of the problem and perhaps getting some insight into what can be done about it.
All these two weeks I have tried to pin down my thoughts. Somehow they keep returning my senior year in high school, and the SAT test I took that year. The essay section of the test asked for an elaboration of this sentence, “If you keep your mind too open, your brains might fall out.” I grappled with the essay and, though I have no memory of what I wrote, I have often thought of that sentence since then. Why does Anti-Semitism in the 21st Century: The Resurgence remind me of it so persistently? I have begun to sort that out.
There were many worthwhile moments in the film. It was open and wide-ranging. It got in front of a lot of people of many diverse stripes and let them talk. Some of them came off well and others- not so well. It was fascinating to see very ordinary people saying monstrous things. For the most part these passages were illuminating and sometimes chilling.
Then too, there were a number of places, when the filmmaker was talking directly to us. It was in a couple of these that I felt that we were being let down
The film explicitly endorsed the notion that Arab/Moslem anti-Semitism was essentially non-existent until European Christians brought it to the Middle East. This assertion came directly from the narrative of the film without the usual preface of “So-and-so says” or “This or that group felt as though”. At first my reaction was a kind of bemused hopefulness.
It felt oddly comforting to hear this. If it were true, then maybe its possible that the Islamic world could someday return to that state of acceptance and tolerance in which, the filmmakers told us, they dwelled for 15 centuries. When they realize that their minds were poisoned against their Jewish neighbors by European influence wouldn’t they resent those corrupters and throw off the blinkers of hatred imposed from the west?
Then you realize, “no, it’s not that simple.” The program goes to relate the long and sordid history of social discrimination, political defenselessness, economic dispossession, physical intimidation suffered by Jews in the Caliphate land- even mantioning the outbreaks of deadly vilence and major massacres that had occurred in the Muslim world in the course of those “golden” centuries.
So, how to account for the idea that anti-Semitism was a European invention?
Was it simply an expression of a basic racism on the producers’ part, a kind of racism of lowered expectations? Were they saying: “Arab culture is primitive but noble; they could never have thought up the depraved curse of Anti-Semitism on their own. It is too base and they are simple religious folk who just have this funny little way of relating to anyone who does not believe in the deity precisely the same way they do”?
Or, then again perhaps they were indulging in wishful thinking. After all, hasn’t Europe gone a long way toward tidying up since the unpleasantness of the 1930’s and 40’s? The case might even be made that if you average it out over the past several hundred years, Anti-Semitism has been trending downward, on the whole since The Inquisition. It would be nice to believe that even as European Anti-Semitism which has, in spite of the occasional, nearly successful, genocide seemed to show moderation. There is the possibility that the Arabs and Islamists, if they adopted the practice from the Europeans, will eventually see their error too and begin to moderate as well.
Or maybe it’s just a tendency on the part of this most liberal of American media giants to blame everything that goes wrong on the planet earth on Western Civilization. In any case, even with them presenting the case, their attempt to place the exclusive blame on The West is not supported by the facts they uncover.
There was, for example, some “unpleasantness” when Jewish immigration began to swell the population of the Jewish communities that had lived continuously in Palestine since it was ruled by the Jewish people during biblical times. Arabs, by the film’s account, still unsullied by the taint of European anti-Semitism, seem to have figured out how to massacre the Jews of Hebron, they also invented quaint pastimes such as burning synagogues and they diverted themselves by destroying Jewish property of all kinds. They did a great many other exceedingly unpleasant things in “The Holy Land” during the teens, twenties and thirties of the last century, including forming a formal and enthusiastic alliance with Hitler and the Nazis. Oh, but that, according to Anti-Semitism in the 21st Century: The Resurgence, was nothing more than a by-product of their “understandable” resentment of the influx of Jewish settlers who were changing life in the area.
When was the last time a PBS program advanced the idea that anti-immigration groups in the American southwest aren’t racist but are simply expressing an “understandable” regret in regard to the change in the local ethnic balance and life style that are caused by illegal Hispanic immigration. Did any commentator on PBS ever speculate that the white people of South Boston, Little Rock, Alabama or Mississippi were not really racist when they resisted school integration? Was there ever a film on PBS that theorized that school segregation, redlining and blockbusting were artifacts of simple, innocent resistance to change?
While oblique mention is made that Arabs were moving to the area in increasing number during this period also, there is nothing said about the fact that much of this Arab immigration was drawn there by the increased economic opportunity and improved standard of living created by the Jewish influx and their investment of labor and capital.
The crowning moment of moral equivocation in the film, though, is yet to come. We are informed near the end of the show that one of the reasons that the Arab world has been unable to make peace with Israel is that they cannot come to terms with the loss of the 1967 war. We are informed that since ancient times Islam has collectively believed that Jews (along with Christians, Bahais, Buddhists, etc..,) are “pigs and apes” and that because of this belief they find it impossible to countenance the existence of an autonomous Jewish state. This is an especial affront to the Arab psyche because this state is on land that was once enslaved by the Ottomans and has some Arab citizens.
I try to picture the writer of this passage as he types it into the computer while attempting to avoid seeing the incongruity. I imagine him sitting in his chair with his head rising above his shoulders in a cloud of steam and turning three hundred sixty degrees exorcist style. Having told us that Islamic Anti-Semitism was an import from Europe in the first half of the film and then intimating that it is understandable that the Arabs should not be judged for their understandable atrocities that were motivated by the natural resentment of Jewish people arriving in their own homeland a scant step ahead of the bullies and executioners of Europe, now he is informing us that the Islamic world is all upset because people that they consider sub-human have achieved liberty and economic success on the very doorstep of their continent-wide expanse of more than twenty countries where the majority of the populations live squalid lives of poverty and frustration under the heels of a corrupt assortment of dictators, kings and mullahs.
Hold onto your whirling head there for a moment fellah, I thought that if someone considered a race of people to be inferior by virtue of their racial identity, if you dehumanized them and rationalized treating them in a systematically unfair and unequal way, if you excused physical violence against them that that was a pretty clear proof of racism.
Maybe the form of anti-Semitism that was imported to the Middle East from Europe is different in some particulars from the native Arab/Islamic version, but it is no less real or pervasive. It seems to me that the film missed an excellent opportunity to explore what happens when two formidable streams of the different flow together and form a new and even more virulent one.
Why was the opportunity missed? This is the very reason I can’t get that old essay question out of my mind. I think it’s because the Filmmakers and PBS have been so open minded for so long that their brains have fallen out.
Almost everyone agrees that in principal open-mindedness is good. Unfortunately, almost no one agrees on what being open-minded is or how to use it. There is a spectrum of interpretation of the uses of open-mindedness. The spectrum ranges from being just open enough to listen to opposing views so as to gain just enough evidence to reject them while sounding as if you were really listening, to being so accepting of differing opinions that you can no longer differentiate between ideas that can be demonstrated to have merit and those that clearly don’t work. There are many ways to misuse and misunderstand open-mindedness. One of the most common and futile of these being the tendency to value open-mindedness as an end in itself rather than a means to attain a better understanding of the world and a more felicitous way of living in it. While expending energy and resources to be open-minded and inclusive in seeking out ideas and opinions from every source, it has forgotten to be open to the possibility that some of those ideas and opinions may actually be more moral, more consistent, better, more just and more productive ideas than others. This is moral relativism.
This particular perversion of the “marketplace of ideas” is a hallmark of the liberal, leftist and socialistic. Just as, in socialist and communist economies, where the economic marketplace is driven not by what works for the people who participate in it but by the prejudices of a collectivist ruling class ( Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Castro, Pol Pot, etc…,) based on the intellectual theories of Marx and supplemented by a legion of supporters and apologists. The implication is always that the central authority knows better than the real forces of the market and the real people whose behavior constitutes those forces. The leftist/liberal marketplace of ideas as exemplified by this film likewise does not insist that ideas prove their usefulness and gain a consensus of support from real people. Rather, it gives equal weight to all ideas no matter how destructive, bigoted, silly, unproductive or spiteful they are. Then (because we wouldn’t want to display any cultural bias) they only feel free to criticize those that are closest to them. Unfortunately those ideas of which they are critical are the ones that underlie the freest, most successful superpower in history and the most democratic and dynamic small country in the Middle East.
Culture is not a pass/fail enterprise. Human history is the story of the succession of cultures that have overpowered the ones that preceded them and been superceded and overpowered in turn by newer, more effective ones. To succeed, a civilization has to have enough power and economic success to secure its position. Western democracy has been on top for a while now but we have never been without our challengers. The old monarchies, National Socialism and Communism have made their bids. But the oldest and fiercest rival is still with us.
If you listen to them they will tell you what they are and what they want. They are the Islamists. They want to reinstitute the Caliphate and make Shar’ia Law the universal law of all mankind. They see themselves not as a new phenomenon but as a continuation of the march of conquest that started in the time of The Prophet and reached its high watermark in Spain and at the gates of Vienna. The ancient caliphate lasted until the demise of the Ottoman Empire in the years after World War I. The Caliphate died not, as Muslims like to fantasize, because of Jewish treachery or Western trickery but because it is a system based on the idea that certain human beings are the perfect and infallible representatives of the almighty Allah here on earth. It failed because it is a collectivist, religious form of fascism that stultified its people and prohibits them from thinking and acting as individuals. It pretends to Divine Perfection while it despoils the initiative and integrity of the human will.
The Caliphate would, in fact, be a dead issue entirely now were it not for the unearned and accidental ocean of oil money that fuels the efforts to reinstate it. We in the west must find the moral fiber and self-assurance to rally in support of our ethical ideals and constitutional principals and resist this threat or we will cease to have a future and join the failed civilizations of history.
We face two critical tests. First we must find the moral resolve to close our minds to the moral relativism of excessive multiculturalism and say out loud that, as imperfect as our practice of our democracy is, it is infinitely preferable to the sham perfection of the Caliphate. We must acknowledge the imperfection of our system and leaders while still respecting them and working with them to improve ourselves and our system. The other test is to find a way to deprive the Islamist fascists of the oil money that allows them to invent and aspire to their prurient fantasies of world domination, misogynistic persecution of women and forced conversion of dhimmis.
This film has intentionally ignored the opportunity to identify, expose and explore the biggest, most potentially lethal problem in the world today. By denying the xenophobic, atavistic anti-Semitism of the Islamic world and refusing to examine its interaction with the unique anti-Semitisms of both the radical left and the reactionary right in the west, it has thrown away a unique and vital opportunity to raise awareness of a confluence of forces that threaten the existence of Israel in the short term and all of Western Civilization in the long term.
Despite the unspoken attitude of the film, it is not only Jews who need to be concerned. The mixing, mutation and recombining of the totalitarian camps of Whahbism, fascism, socialism and Islamism is a geopolitical nightmare equivalent to the viral time bomb that has been threatened by AIDS, SARS, Avian Flu, Ebola, etc…, If our minds are too open we might just find we are all dying from it.
I am forced to admit that I seem to have committed the error of excessive open-mindedness too. I had dared to hope that PBS would come through and take a stand for something other than the pass/fail, multicultural, I’m OK- You’re OK acceptance of evil that is moral relativism. If Culture is not pass/fail neither is Life. We can’t continue to say I’m OK-You’re OK when the other guy in that idiotic equation would like to force us to live under Shar’ia law. Under Shar’ia law, I am unalterably not OK and neither (willingly or not) are you or, for that matter, any of the dreamy folks at PBS. They seem to believe that we need only be open enough and we will win the other guys over. Actually, we need to be less open minded rather than more. If our brains don’t actually fall out of their own, the Islamists will happy to beat, or blow them out.
We have to be open to reality first. We have to be open to the idea that there is a problem. We have to understand the problem and be open to all of the possible solutions. So as I bend down to pick up my brains, dust them off, and put them back into my mind, I suggest that we all do the same and in the future keep them open in a rational way- a way that is faithful to our finest principals of democracy, law and ethics.
All these two weeks I have tried to pin down my thoughts. Somehow they keep returning my senior year in high school, and the SAT test I took that year. The essay section of the test asked for an elaboration of this sentence, “If you keep your mind too open, your brains might fall out.” I grappled with the essay and, though I have no memory of what I wrote, I have often thought of that sentence since then. Why does Anti-Semitism in the 21st Century: The Resurgence remind me of it so persistently? I have begun to sort that out.
There were many worthwhile moments in the film. It was open and wide-ranging. It got in front of a lot of people of many diverse stripes and let them talk. Some of them came off well and others- not so well. It was fascinating to see very ordinary people saying monstrous things. For the most part these passages were illuminating and sometimes chilling.
Then too, there were a number of places, when the filmmaker was talking directly to us. It was in a couple of these that I felt that we were being let down
The film explicitly endorsed the notion that Arab/Moslem anti-Semitism was essentially non-existent until European Christians brought it to the Middle East. This assertion came directly from the narrative of the film without the usual preface of “So-and-so says” or “This or that group felt as though”. At first my reaction was a kind of bemused hopefulness.
It felt oddly comforting to hear this. If it were true, then maybe its possible that the Islamic world could someday return to that state of acceptance and tolerance in which, the filmmakers told us, they dwelled for 15 centuries. When they realize that their minds were poisoned against their Jewish neighbors by European influence wouldn’t they resent those corrupters and throw off the blinkers of hatred imposed from the west?
Then you realize, “no, it’s not that simple.” The program goes to relate the long and sordid history of social discrimination, political defenselessness, economic dispossession, physical intimidation suffered by Jews in the Caliphate land- even mantioning the outbreaks of deadly vilence and major massacres that had occurred in the Muslim world in the course of those “golden” centuries.
So, how to account for the idea that anti-Semitism was a European invention?
Was it simply an expression of a basic racism on the producers’ part, a kind of racism of lowered expectations? Were they saying: “Arab culture is primitive but noble; they could never have thought up the depraved curse of Anti-Semitism on their own. It is too base and they are simple religious folk who just have this funny little way of relating to anyone who does not believe in the deity precisely the same way they do”?
Or, then again perhaps they were indulging in wishful thinking. After all, hasn’t Europe gone a long way toward tidying up since the unpleasantness of the 1930’s and 40’s? The case might even be made that if you average it out over the past several hundred years, Anti-Semitism has been trending downward, on the whole since The Inquisition. It would be nice to believe that even as European Anti-Semitism which has, in spite of the occasional, nearly successful, genocide seemed to show moderation. There is the possibility that the Arabs and Islamists, if they adopted the practice from the Europeans, will eventually see their error too and begin to moderate as well.
Or maybe it’s just a tendency on the part of this most liberal of American media giants to blame everything that goes wrong on the planet earth on Western Civilization. In any case, even with them presenting the case, their attempt to place the exclusive blame on The West is not supported by the facts they uncover.
There was, for example, some “unpleasantness” when Jewish immigration began to swell the population of the Jewish communities that had lived continuously in Palestine since it was ruled by the Jewish people during biblical times. Arabs, by the film’s account, still unsullied by the taint of European anti-Semitism, seem to have figured out how to massacre the Jews of Hebron, they also invented quaint pastimes such as burning synagogues and they diverted themselves by destroying Jewish property of all kinds. They did a great many other exceedingly unpleasant things in “The Holy Land” during the teens, twenties and thirties of the last century, including forming a formal and enthusiastic alliance with Hitler and the Nazis. Oh, but that, according to Anti-Semitism in the 21st Century: The Resurgence, was nothing more than a by-product of their “understandable” resentment of the influx of Jewish settlers who were changing life in the area.
When was the last time a PBS program advanced the idea that anti-immigration groups in the American southwest aren’t racist but are simply expressing an “understandable” regret in regard to the change in the local ethnic balance and life style that are caused by illegal Hispanic immigration. Did any commentator on PBS ever speculate that the white people of South Boston, Little Rock, Alabama or Mississippi were not really racist when they resisted school integration? Was there ever a film on PBS that theorized that school segregation, redlining and blockbusting were artifacts of simple, innocent resistance to change?
While oblique mention is made that Arabs were moving to the area in increasing number during this period also, there is nothing said about the fact that much of this Arab immigration was drawn there by the increased economic opportunity and improved standard of living created by the Jewish influx and their investment of labor and capital.
The crowning moment of moral equivocation in the film, though, is yet to come. We are informed near the end of the show that one of the reasons that the Arab world has been unable to make peace with Israel is that they cannot come to terms with the loss of the 1967 war. We are informed that since ancient times Islam has collectively believed that Jews (along with Christians, Bahais, Buddhists, etc..,) are “pigs and apes” and that because of this belief they find it impossible to countenance the existence of an autonomous Jewish state. This is an especial affront to the Arab psyche because this state is on land that was once enslaved by the Ottomans and has some Arab citizens.
I try to picture the writer of this passage as he types it into the computer while attempting to avoid seeing the incongruity. I imagine him sitting in his chair with his head rising above his shoulders in a cloud of steam and turning three hundred sixty degrees exorcist style. Having told us that Islamic Anti-Semitism was an import from Europe in the first half of the film and then intimating that it is understandable that the Arabs should not be judged for their understandable atrocities that were motivated by the natural resentment of Jewish people arriving in their own homeland a scant step ahead of the bullies and executioners of Europe, now he is informing us that the Islamic world is all upset because people that they consider sub-human have achieved liberty and economic success on the very doorstep of their continent-wide expanse of more than twenty countries where the majority of the populations live squalid lives of poverty and frustration under the heels of a corrupt assortment of dictators, kings and mullahs.
Hold onto your whirling head there for a moment fellah, I thought that if someone considered a race of people to be inferior by virtue of their racial identity, if you dehumanized them and rationalized treating them in a systematically unfair and unequal way, if you excused physical violence against them that that was a pretty clear proof of racism.
Maybe the form of anti-Semitism that was imported to the Middle East from Europe is different in some particulars from the native Arab/Islamic version, but it is no less real or pervasive. It seems to me that the film missed an excellent opportunity to explore what happens when two formidable streams of the different flow together and form a new and even more virulent one.
Why was the opportunity missed? This is the very reason I can’t get that old essay question out of my mind. I think it’s because the Filmmakers and PBS have been so open minded for so long that their brains have fallen out.
Almost everyone agrees that in principal open-mindedness is good. Unfortunately, almost no one agrees on what being open-minded is or how to use it. There is a spectrum of interpretation of the uses of open-mindedness. The spectrum ranges from being just open enough to listen to opposing views so as to gain just enough evidence to reject them while sounding as if you were really listening, to being so accepting of differing opinions that you can no longer differentiate between ideas that can be demonstrated to have merit and those that clearly don’t work. There are many ways to misuse and misunderstand open-mindedness. One of the most common and futile of these being the tendency to value open-mindedness as an end in itself rather than a means to attain a better understanding of the world and a more felicitous way of living in it. While expending energy and resources to be open-minded and inclusive in seeking out ideas and opinions from every source, it has forgotten to be open to the possibility that some of those ideas and opinions may actually be more moral, more consistent, better, more just and more productive ideas than others. This is moral relativism.
This particular perversion of the “marketplace of ideas” is a hallmark of the liberal, leftist and socialistic. Just as, in socialist and communist economies, where the economic marketplace is driven not by what works for the people who participate in it but by the prejudices of a collectivist ruling class ( Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Castro, Pol Pot, etc…,) based on the intellectual theories of Marx and supplemented by a legion of supporters and apologists. The implication is always that the central authority knows better than the real forces of the market and the real people whose behavior constitutes those forces. The leftist/liberal marketplace of ideas as exemplified by this film likewise does not insist that ideas prove their usefulness and gain a consensus of support from real people. Rather, it gives equal weight to all ideas no matter how destructive, bigoted, silly, unproductive or spiteful they are. Then (because we wouldn’t want to display any cultural bias) they only feel free to criticize those that are closest to them. Unfortunately those ideas of which they are critical are the ones that underlie the freest, most successful superpower in history and the most democratic and dynamic small country in the Middle East.
Culture is not a pass/fail enterprise. Human history is the story of the succession of cultures that have overpowered the ones that preceded them and been superceded and overpowered in turn by newer, more effective ones. To succeed, a civilization has to have enough power and economic success to secure its position. Western democracy has been on top for a while now but we have never been without our challengers. The old monarchies, National Socialism and Communism have made their bids. But the oldest and fiercest rival is still with us.
If you listen to them they will tell you what they are and what they want. They are the Islamists. They want to reinstitute the Caliphate and make Shar’ia Law the universal law of all mankind. They see themselves not as a new phenomenon but as a continuation of the march of conquest that started in the time of The Prophet and reached its high watermark in Spain and at the gates of Vienna. The ancient caliphate lasted until the demise of the Ottoman Empire in the years after World War I. The Caliphate died not, as Muslims like to fantasize, because of Jewish treachery or Western trickery but because it is a system based on the idea that certain human beings are the perfect and infallible representatives of the almighty Allah here on earth. It failed because it is a collectivist, religious form of fascism that stultified its people and prohibits them from thinking and acting as individuals. It pretends to Divine Perfection while it despoils the initiative and integrity of the human will.
The Caliphate would, in fact, be a dead issue entirely now were it not for the unearned and accidental ocean of oil money that fuels the efforts to reinstate it. We in the west must find the moral fiber and self-assurance to rally in support of our ethical ideals and constitutional principals and resist this threat or we will cease to have a future and join the failed civilizations of history.
We face two critical tests. First we must find the moral resolve to close our minds to the moral relativism of excessive multiculturalism and say out loud that, as imperfect as our practice of our democracy is, it is infinitely preferable to the sham perfection of the Caliphate. We must acknowledge the imperfection of our system and leaders while still respecting them and working with them to improve ourselves and our system. The other test is to find a way to deprive the Islamist fascists of the oil money that allows them to invent and aspire to their prurient fantasies of world domination, misogynistic persecution of women and forced conversion of dhimmis.
This film has intentionally ignored the opportunity to identify, expose and explore the biggest, most potentially lethal problem in the world today. By denying the xenophobic, atavistic anti-Semitism of the Islamic world and refusing to examine its interaction with the unique anti-Semitisms of both the radical left and the reactionary right in the west, it has thrown away a unique and vital opportunity to raise awareness of a confluence of forces that threaten the existence of Israel in the short term and all of Western Civilization in the long term.
Despite the unspoken attitude of the film, it is not only Jews who need to be concerned. The mixing, mutation and recombining of the totalitarian camps of Whahbism, fascism, socialism and Islamism is a geopolitical nightmare equivalent to the viral time bomb that has been threatened by AIDS, SARS, Avian Flu, Ebola, etc…, If our minds are too open we might just find we are all dying from it.
I am forced to admit that I seem to have committed the error of excessive open-mindedness too. I had dared to hope that PBS would come through and take a stand for something other than the pass/fail, multicultural, I’m OK- You’re OK acceptance of evil that is moral relativism. If Culture is not pass/fail neither is Life. We can’t continue to say I’m OK-You’re OK when the other guy in that idiotic equation would like to force us to live under Shar’ia law. Under Shar’ia law, I am unalterably not OK and neither (willingly or not) are you or, for that matter, any of the dreamy folks at PBS. They seem to believe that we need only be open enough and we will win the other guys over. Actually, we need to be less open minded rather than more. If our brains don’t actually fall out of their own, the Islamists will happy to beat, or blow them out.
We have to be open to reality first. We have to be open to the idea that there is a problem. We have to understand the problem and be open to all of the possible solutions. So as I bend down to pick up my brains, dust them off, and put them back into my mind, I suggest that we all do the same and in the future keep them open in a rational way- a way that is faithful to our finest principals of democracy, law and ethics.
Wednesday, January 17, 2007
Jimmy Carter - the Great Humbug
Here’s A Great Article by Spengler.
I picked up the reference on this wonderful analysis of the pious humbug Jimmy Carter on the American Thinker. It originally appeared on the Asia Times Site. I find it revealing and tantalizing. Since it came to light that Carter’s pro-Arab cheerleading (you can’t merely call it bias) come to light articles like this one (Jimmy Carter's Li'l Ol' Stink Tank) in such places as Investor’s Business Daily it was still difficult for me to see how a man of such sanctimonious facade could still hold his head up in public. Spengler provides a plausible theory for how he rationalizes his sellout.
It’s good reading too!
I picked up the reference on this wonderful analysis of the pious humbug Jimmy Carter on the American Thinker. It originally appeared on the Asia Times Site. I find it revealing and tantalizing. Since it came to light that Carter’s pro-Arab cheerleading (you can’t merely call it bias) come to light articles like this one (Jimmy Carter's Li'l Ol' Stink Tank) in such places as Investor’s Business Daily it was still difficult for me to see how a man of such sanctimonious facade could still hold his head up in public. Spengler provides a plausible theory for how he rationalizes his sellout.
It’s good reading too!
Monday, January 15, 2007
You Can Speak Up II!
Here are two more "Quick" answers that you can use and adapt when challenged by the usual lies and misrepresentations.
Let’s look at
Blaming Israel
Accusation:
The “Occupation” is the cause of the conflict.
Answer: The root cause of the conflict is that, for a variety of reasons, the Arabs and the Islamic world in general refuse to accept the existence of Israel. The Arabs fought a war of annihilation against Israel in 1948 twenty-one years before the occupation.. Israel’s presence in the territories is a result of ongoing Arab aggression. Arab terrorism preceded 1967 in fact it has been continuous for centuries, dating back to the massacre of the Jews of Medina by the prophet Mohammed. Israel has tried repeatedly to give land back in exchange for security within her rightful borders. Every time Israel has given up land the result has been more terrorism closer to home.
Accusation: “The Jews are the cause of the Palestinian refugee problem.”
Answer: Arab aggression brought about the refugee problem; Arab regimes are intentionally perpetuating the suffering. Not one Palestinian refugee would exist today if the Arab countries hadn’t launched a war of extermination in 1948 and the corrupt, despotic regimes in the Arab World have isolated the Palestinians in the camps in order to maintain a hostile presence on her border and a perpetual casus belli so that they will have an excuse to pursue their rejection of Israel’s existence.
Let’s look at
Blaming Israel
Accusation:
The “Occupation” is the cause of the conflict.
Answer: The root cause of the conflict is that, for a variety of reasons, the Arabs and the Islamic world in general refuse to accept the existence of Israel. The Arabs fought a war of annihilation against Israel in 1948 twenty-one years before the occupation.. Israel’s presence in the territories is a result of ongoing Arab aggression. Arab terrorism preceded 1967 in fact it has been continuous for centuries, dating back to the massacre of the Jews of Medina by the prophet Mohammed. Israel has tried repeatedly to give land back in exchange for security within her rightful borders. Every time Israel has given up land the result has been more terrorism closer to home.
Accusation: “The Jews are the cause of the Palestinian refugee problem.”
Answer: Arab aggression brought about the refugee problem; Arab regimes are intentionally perpetuating the suffering. Not one Palestinian refugee would exist today if the Arab countries hadn’t launched a war of extermination in 1948 and the corrupt, despotic regimes in the Arab World have isolated the Palestinians in the camps in order to maintain a hostile presence on her border and a perpetual casus belli so that they will have an excuse to pursue their rejection of Israel’s existence.
Monday, January 8, 2007
Erica's Encounter
Erica's Blog has exactly the kind of story I am talking about. There is no better way for us to learn what we are up against than well told stories like this one Erica's Encounter with The Beast.
Thank's to Erica for sharing this with the world and thanks to God she only felt The Breath. I am the father of two young Jewish women See (My First Encounter) about her age and of all my nightmares this is the worst.
Isn't it ironic that the Islamofascists target our young womwen while they beat, cloister and murder their own-
SEND ME MORE STORIES- THEY ARE ALL IMPORTANT
Thank's to Erica for sharing this with the world and thanks to God she only felt The Breath. I am the father of two young Jewish women See (My First Encounter) about her age and of all my nightmares this is the worst.
Isn't it ironic that the Islamofascists target our young womwen while they beat, cloister and murder their own-
SEND ME MORE STORIES- THEY ARE ALL IMPORTANT
You Can Speak Up!
The Beast wants us to believe the worst about ourselves. It hopes to sap our energy and resolve by weakening our self esteem and confidence. Israel is the frontline of the clash and the breath of the beast is felt there the most immediately. As a result the calumny and pressure that falls on Israel every day is unremitting. The lies and condemnations are insidious. They range from the ancient blood libels to the most recent accusations of war crimes.
I am contemplating producing a series of posts designed to share some of our best ways of answering the most common accusations and distortions that we hear about Israel. Whether they come from a well-intentioned but uninformed person or from a malicious toady of The Beast, it is helpful for us to have a solid, truthful and informed answer ready. Each post in this series would present a common misconception about Israel and one or more alternative answers to it.
I will start with the one below because it is a very basic one that appeals not only to the inherent sense of fairness of many, especially those on the political left but also conjures up echoes of the dispossession of the Native Americans and the Colonial past of Europe.
Please let me know if you find these helpful. As always suggestions and corrections are welcome!
Accusation: The Jews colonized the land and stole it from the indigenous population.
Answer 1) To say that 'the Jews colonized the land' is incorrect. In fact the only time when the land of Israel has not been a colony has been when the Jews have had sovereignty. This self-determination paved the way for unprecedented economic growth, agricultural development and modern resources. The economic opportunity and higher standard of living attracted and continues to attract mass immigration by Jews and Non-Jews alike turning a barren desert into a land of milk and honey offering a high standard of living for all up to this day.
Answer 2) This is a misconception: Jews were the only people who did not colonize the land. The Jewish people have been a continuous presence in the area for thousands of years, and those who did immigrate purchased land legally. The Jews who returned in the early years of the twentieth century were not just Zionists; most of them were fleeing from persecution and intolerance. They invested in infrastructure and changed the barren landscape, attracting mass Arab migration to the region. Most modern day Palestinians are immigrants to the region who were attracted by and benefited from those economic and agricultural improvements.
Answer 3) There has been a continuous Jewish presence in the land from biblical times. Escaping from persecution in Europe and throughout the Islamic world, Jews began to return to a barren and sparsely populated area that could only loosely be termed “Palestine”, as it was never an independent country. The arriving Jews purchased and cultivated land, attracted mass Arab immigration, and improved the living conditions of Jews and Arabs.
I am contemplating producing a series of posts designed to share some of our best ways of answering the most common accusations and distortions that we hear about Israel. Whether they come from a well-intentioned but uninformed person or from a malicious toady of The Beast, it is helpful for us to have a solid, truthful and informed answer ready. Each post in this series would present a common misconception about Israel and one or more alternative answers to it.
I will start with the one below because it is a very basic one that appeals not only to the inherent sense of fairness of many, especially those on the political left but also conjures up echoes of the dispossession of the Native Americans and the Colonial past of Europe.
Please let me know if you find these helpful. As always suggestions and corrections are welcome!
Accusation: The Jews colonized the land and stole it from the indigenous population.
Answer 1) To say that 'the Jews colonized the land' is incorrect. In fact the only time when the land of Israel has not been a colony has been when the Jews have had sovereignty. This self-determination paved the way for unprecedented economic growth, agricultural development and modern resources. The economic opportunity and higher standard of living attracted and continues to attract mass immigration by Jews and Non-Jews alike turning a barren desert into a land of milk and honey offering a high standard of living for all up to this day.
Answer 2) This is a misconception: Jews were the only people who did not colonize the land. The Jewish people have been a continuous presence in the area for thousands of years, and those who did immigrate purchased land legally. The Jews who returned in the early years of the twentieth century were not just Zionists; most of them were fleeing from persecution and intolerance. They invested in infrastructure and changed the barren landscape, attracting mass Arab migration to the region. Most modern day Palestinians are immigrants to the region who were attracted by and benefited from those economic and agricultural improvements.
Answer 3) There has been a continuous Jewish presence in the land from biblical times. Escaping from persecution in Europe and throughout the Islamic world, Jews began to return to a barren and sparsely populated area that could only loosely be termed “Palestine”, as it was never an independent country. The arriving Jews purchased and cultivated land, attracted mass Arab immigration, and improved the living conditions of Jews and Arabs.
Wednesday, January 3, 2007
The Beast is not Right Handed or Left Handed- Its The Beast
I have had an email question that presumes a great deal more about The Beast than I am willing to assume. It reads in part:
I respect and identify with your experience. I'm glad you are mounting a personal campaign to warn all the complacent people. It's badly needed, and I wish you all the success in the world.
However, don't think you are EXPLAINING why the Left doesn't reject its violent past. The most obvious one seems to be that the Left is simply allowed by the media to evade and rationalize it. People who care about historical accuracy haven't rubbed their noses in reality, because they have been shut out of the MSM.
So the only answer in sight is the New Media, including your blog. Just as we haven't stopped asking, "What about Hitler?" we should ALSO keep asking, "What about Stalin, Pol Pot, Saddam, the Sudan regime, Ahmadinejad, and all their enablers in the intellectual elites?"
"Never Forget" should apply to all genocides and all genocidal fantasists.
I answered him that I have not set out to explain why the left does not renounce its past (and present) barbarity because I despair of getting any ideology to take responsibility for the totalitarianism committed in its name. Perhaps its just an artifact of my being a Jew, but as a member of a religious group that has been subject to uninterrupted centuries of condescending tolerance, implacable hatred and occasional outbursts of savage genocide at the hands of nearly every political party, religious group, chowder society and social club on the planet, I am less concerned with the ideological orientation of the perpetrator than I am with the fearful mechanism by which intelligent people who kiss their babies goodnight and pat their dogs lovingly become capable of lining other human beings up beside trenches and shooting them in the head (the Nazis) or hacking them with machetes (the Hutus, the Khmer Rouge and the TonTon Macoute)or putting explosive jackets on their children and setting them loose on innocent civilians (Palestinians) or flying airliners loaded with passengers into skyscrapers filled with white collar workers(Al Quaeda). The perpetrators of these and so many other horrors are blind not simply because of the ideology they profess. Of course, their beliefs are idiotic, but that’s not the point, all totalitarian systems are based on nonsensical ideas. Approached ideologically, there is only a tautology- they don’t see because of their blindness; they are blind because they are convinced of something that is impossible and they are so committed to that idiocy that anyone who is not part of their system, especially one who that sees the stupidity of what they believe, is a threat to their entire universe of denial.
That is what Totalitarianism is.
I have always been haunted by a conversation I had with a co-worker at a Cambridge think-tank back in the seventies. John was a communist. I had become friendly with him on the basketball court where conversations ran to jump shots not politics. He had a fine jumper and he was a good team mate we never talked politics at work. My wife and I joined him and his wife for dinner one night and the after dinner conversation got quite bizarre. I asked the basic question one always asks of someone who advocates forcible redistribution of wealth- What about resistance from high producers? How do you convince them to give up what they have and continue producing at a high level when what they produce will go into the communal pot? His answer was chilling. “They have to be forced to do it. It’s for their own good.” Then I pointed out the great wave of starvation set off by Lenin’s NEP and the totalitarian regime that had followed. His answer was that some blood would always have to be spilled for the common good. He added for good measure that Russia had strayed from the path and that it was not working out there because that wasn’t “true” communism.
I think this pretty well sums up the easy way in which the left avoid responsibility for The Gulag and the killing fields. “Oh, that’s not what we mean by Communism (or Socialism or Baathism etc…),” they will chuckle. “Stalin was a power hungry thug (or Pol Pot was a savage aberration). Force and blood would only be necessary to get the process started if the ideas a re applied correctly…,” In a perverse way they are right. By virtue of the merciful fact that they themselves have never actually attained the power to persuade, cajole, intimidate and, finally, forces the ungrateful masses to conform to their ridiculous ideas, they are innocent.
I do not think it is possible to defeat the mistaken thugs on either end of the political spectrum by appeal to the failures of history. I only hope to expose The Beast of Totalitarianism and Terror and to help thwart its aims.
I am not an ideologue, part of me wishes that the theory behind communism could work- even though I know it is totally out of sync with human nature. My opinion is that, deprived of its weapons of terror, isolation, force and coercion, the national socialist states, Islamist sheikdoms, personality cults, fascist states and communist systems would dry up and blow away of their own accord. In the final analysis, the only ideology that I have reliance in, outside of my Jewish faith, is the great constellation of principals on which the United States Constitution is founded, Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness. I believe in it not blindly but because it has given rise (even with all its human flaws) to the finest, freest, most prosperous nation in the history of mankind.
The Soviet Union is a case in point. We didn’t win that one through argument, President Reagan simply increased our defense spending to the point that their bungling, broken-down jalopy of an economy just fell to pieces on the road while trying to keep up. Thus, I think we can only win by either defeating them on the battlefield as with the Nazis and Imperial Japan or by so disrupting their isolated incompetent system of internal terror and brainwashing that it falls of its own weight. So to, me, totalitarianism is not just the real enemy; it is the most vulnerable weakness of the enemy too. It must be exposed, recognized and defeated- not because it follows Marx or Hitler or the mullahs but because its seeds are in all of us and the power to destroy it is in knowledge and courage that we all possess.
Islamofascism by the way is a tough one only because we are funding it with our Oil Addiction. We are going to be hard put to finish it altogether until we solve the energy problem. The largely unacknowledged truth is that the Arab world is sitting on a vast supply of easy money that creates the idle useless lives that are so easily turned to Jihad. It is an inexhaustible supply of lucre, which does not have the value of having been earned. It is wealth totally without a comprehensible purpose. It has created a class of parasitic plutocratic rulers whose sole concern is to maintain the control of that stupendous river of capital. It is a double edged sword. When you are that rich, everyone wants what you have. As they sit on their caliphate thrones looking down on the turbulent Arab Street. Their thoughts are not on improving the conditions there but on diverting the turbulence and rage outward from their kingdoms and despotisms. From the Himalayas to the Mediterranean there stretches a belt of terror, misogyny and repression interrupted only by one tiny island of sanity. Those sheiks of petrodollars have made it their entire career to blame the west and especially that little thorn in their side, Israel, for the misery and turmoil in the street. The measures they take to secure their own position they project outward on the Israelis and the U.S...
We have to realize that every time we fill up the car or turn on the air-conditioner we are paying our subscription fee to a kind of Terrorist Attack-of-the-Month-Club. It is a nightmare scenario where our money goes to Gaza and the West bank to be lobbed into Israel as Qassams or comes back here in suitcases, and cargo containers to plan more mass assaults.
Send me your stories- encounters with The Beast are the best way to teach each other to defeat it!
I respect and identify with your experience. I'm glad you are mounting a personal campaign to warn all the complacent people. It's badly needed, and I wish you all the success in the world.
However, don't think you are EXPLAINING why the Left doesn't reject its violent past. The most obvious one seems to be that the Left is simply allowed by the media to evade and rationalize it. People who care about historical accuracy haven't rubbed their noses in reality, because they have been shut out of the MSM.
So the only answer in sight is the New Media, including your blog. Just as we haven't stopped asking, "What about Hitler?" we should ALSO keep asking, "What about Stalin, Pol Pot, Saddam, the Sudan regime, Ahmadinejad, and all their enablers in the intellectual elites?"
"Never Forget" should apply to all genocides and all genocidal fantasists.
I answered him that I have not set out to explain why the left does not renounce its past (and present) barbarity because I despair of getting any ideology to take responsibility for the totalitarianism committed in its name. Perhaps its just an artifact of my being a Jew, but as a member of a religious group that has been subject to uninterrupted centuries of condescending tolerance, implacable hatred and occasional outbursts of savage genocide at the hands of nearly every political party, religious group, chowder society and social club on the planet, I am less concerned with the ideological orientation of the perpetrator than I am with the fearful mechanism by which intelligent people who kiss their babies goodnight and pat their dogs lovingly become capable of lining other human beings up beside trenches and shooting them in the head (the Nazis) or hacking them with machetes (the Hutus, the Khmer Rouge and the TonTon Macoute)or putting explosive jackets on their children and setting them loose on innocent civilians (Palestinians) or flying airliners loaded with passengers into skyscrapers filled with white collar workers(Al Quaeda). The perpetrators of these and so many other horrors are blind not simply because of the ideology they profess. Of course, their beliefs are idiotic, but that’s not the point, all totalitarian systems are based on nonsensical ideas. Approached ideologically, there is only a tautology- they don’t see because of their blindness; they are blind because they are convinced of something that is impossible and they are so committed to that idiocy that anyone who is not part of their system, especially one who that sees the stupidity of what they believe, is a threat to their entire universe of denial.
That is what Totalitarianism is.
I have always been haunted by a conversation I had with a co-worker at a Cambridge think-tank back in the seventies. John was a communist. I had become friendly with him on the basketball court where conversations ran to jump shots not politics. He had a fine jumper and he was a good team mate we never talked politics at work. My wife and I joined him and his wife for dinner one night and the after dinner conversation got quite bizarre. I asked the basic question one always asks of someone who advocates forcible redistribution of wealth- What about resistance from high producers? How do you convince them to give up what they have and continue producing at a high level when what they produce will go into the communal pot? His answer was chilling. “They have to be forced to do it. It’s for their own good.” Then I pointed out the great wave of starvation set off by Lenin’s NEP and the totalitarian regime that had followed. His answer was that some blood would always have to be spilled for the common good. He added for good measure that Russia had strayed from the path and that it was not working out there because that wasn’t “true” communism.
I think this pretty well sums up the easy way in which the left avoid responsibility for The Gulag and the killing fields. “Oh, that’s not what we mean by Communism (or Socialism or Baathism etc…),” they will chuckle. “Stalin was a power hungry thug (or Pol Pot was a savage aberration). Force and blood would only be necessary to get the process started if the ideas a re applied correctly…,” In a perverse way they are right. By virtue of the merciful fact that they themselves have never actually attained the power to persuade, cajole, intimidate and, finally, forces the ungrateful masses to conform to their ridiculous ideas, they are innocent.
I do not think it is possible to defeat the mistaken thugs on either end of the political spectrum by appeal to the failures of history. I only hope to expose The Beast of Totalitarianism and Terror and to help thwart its aims.
I am not an ideologue, part of me wishes that the theory behind communism could work- even though I know it is totally out of sync with human nature. My opinion is that, deprived of its weapons of terror, isolation, force and coercion, the national socialist states, Islamist sheikdoms, personality cults, fascist states and communist systems would dry up and blow away of their own accord. In the final analysis, the only ideology that I have reliance in, outside of my Jewish faith, is the great constellation of principals on which the United States Constitution is founded, Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness. I believe in it not blindly but because it has given rise (even with all its human flaws) to the finest, freest, most prosperous nation in the history of mankind.
The Soviet Union is a case in point. We didn’t win that one through argument, President Reagan simply increased our defense spending to the point that their bungling, broken-down jalopy of an economy just fell to pieces on the road while trying to keep up. Thus, I think we can only win by either defeating them on the battlefield as with the Nazis and Imperial Japan or by so disrupting their isolated incompetent system of internal terror and brainwashing that it falls of its own weight. So to, me, totalitarianism is not just the real enemy; it is the most vulnerable weakness of the enemy too. It must be exposed, recognized and defeated- not because it follows Marx or Hitler or the mullahs but because its seeds are in all of us and the power to destroy it is in knowledge and courage that we all possess.
Islamofascism by the way is a tough one only because we are funding it with our Oil Addiction. We are going to be hard put to finish it altogether until we solve the energy problem. The largely unacknowledged truth is that the Arab world is sitting on a vast supply of easy money that creates the idle useless lives that are so easily turned to Jihad. It is an inexhaustible supply of lucre, which does not have the value of having been earned. It is wealth totally without a comprehensible purpose. It has created a class of parasitic plutocratic rulers whose sole concern is to maintain the control of that stupendous river of capital. It is a double edged sword. When you are that rich, everyone wants what you have. As they sit on their caliphate thrones looking down on the turbulent Arab Street. Their thoughts are not on improving the conditions there but on diverting the turbulence and rage outward from their kingdoms and despotisms. From the Himalayas to the Mediterranean there stretches a belt of terror, misogyny and repression interrupted only by one tiny island of sanity. Those sheiks of petrodollars have made it their entire career to blame the west and especially that little thorn in their side, Israel, for the misery and turmoil in the street. The measures they take to secure their own position they project outward on the Israelis and the U.S...
We have to realize that every time we fill up the car or turn on the air-conditioner we are paying our subscription fee to a kind of Terrorist Attack-of-the-Month-Club. It is a nightmare scenario where our money goes to Gaza and the West bank to be lobbed into Israel as Qassams or comes back here in suitcases, and cargo containers to plan more mass assaults.
Send me your stories- encounters with The Beast are the best way to teach each other to defeat it!
Saturday, December 30, 2006
In The Beast's Face
First, I want to thank everyone who has made the first three days of Breath of the Beast such a rocket sled ride. It is so reassuring that there are so many intelligent, open minded and articulate people raising the alarm at the approach of The Beast.
Before I get into the meat of this post here is some clarification about the first post and the blog in general- I have had questions about a couple of things:
1. How is my daughter? My daughter is now an accomplished young woman of intelligence and spirit she is fine and not, thank God, a victim of any kind.
2. Am I referring to Islamist totalitarianism as The Beast? Yes, I am talking mostly about what we often call “Islamofascism” but The Beast has many forms and can be found at the heart of many other kinds of systems as well. I am referring to all of the totalitarianisms and fascist states large and small that have ever existed. This includes social systems as small and limited as the family of an abusive alcoholic to that exemplar of totalitarian madness, Nazi Germany, the old Soviet Union, Iraq as it was under Saddam Hussein (let’s not forget that he was a Baathist not an Islamist), The Palestinian Authority (which has some secularist elements and some Islamist ones) and Present day North Korea. They all take common cause against us (The U.S., Israel, The U.K. and other western democracies that still have the stomach to stand up for Western Civilization and our ideals. We have to stand up to the Beast of Totalitarianism in all its forms because whatever its, ideological or religious pretext, it recognizes us as its natural enemy. We don’t even have to actively oppose it, you see, the simple fact that we value the free exchange of ideas in a context where we honor the past and accept the change of a free and better future, is an insult and a danger to the stagnant repression inside it. We see it as a detached and insular reality while it sees us as a constant danger. It must vilify and try to destroy us at all costs and at any opportunity. Unless we understand this, it will get us before we even realize it wants to.
It is our responsibility, each and every one of us, to share our knowledge of the Beast so that we can prevent it from sneaking up on us. In my first post I shared with you my first encounter – Here is my second one.
For some years my wife had told me that I was the oldest Jewish man in my home town who had never visited Israel. Although I doubted that this was really the case, let's just grant it for the purpose of the story I am about to tell you.
If it was true, it is no longer, because I finally went for a visit a few years ago- at the height of the first intifada. Before I left, because of the previous year and a half's terror and confusion, many of my friends and family asked me the same question – "Why now?" I had no ready answer except that I felt that it was the right time. I have given a lot of thought to this question during my week there. I went as one of the two hundred and eighty people in a Solidarity Mission sent by the Greater Boston Jewish Community. I wondered if I would find a clearer answer in Israel.
We had organized visits with and heard speeches from many prominent Israelis from government, media and academia and we managed a fair amount of sightseeing as well. The holy sites and antiquities would have been enough reason to go. The dignitaries were all impressive and many were absolutely inspiring. There were also genuinely touching ceremonial occasions. One of these had us visiting a kindergarten where black children from Ethiopia, dark Asiatic Azerbaijani and blond, blue-eyed Uzbeki children played and learned Hebrew and Jewish traditions together. Another took us to a hospital where we met doctors and nurses who worked to save lives on both sides of the conflict with equal zeal and bravery. The most emotional ceremony brought us into contact with the simple courage and modesty of the soldiers; many of them still nursing wounds, to whom the CJP contributed scholarships. The scholarships were intended to compensate in some way for the time that these student-soldiers lost when they were taken from their universities during the last call-up of the reserves.
Any one of those experiences would have more than justified the tiny risk involved in a visit to Israel; but they didn’t really address that original question “Why now?” It was in serendipitous one-on-one conversations with regular Israelis though, that I found the most compelling reason that now is the time to visit.
I had the good fortune to visit with two Israeli families in their homes while I was there. The first visit was as part of the CJP-sponsored tour. Four Americans from the tour were assigned to each of dozens of volunteer families who invited us into their homes for an evening. The Boston CJP arranged for these visits so that we could be part of the ongoing “sister city” program of personal and organizational contact between Boston and Haifa. My other home visit in Israel was with old friends who live on the border with Lebanon. Many of us on the trip spent some time with family, friends, acquaintances or friends of friends who were so happy to have visitors that the only question of personal safety that any of us experienced on this trip was that we might have been in danger of being killed with kindness or forced to eat ourselves to death on the wonderful and unbelievably abundant hospitality of our hosts.
I know Rikki and Shimon because they had been close friends of my wife when she lived in Israel years ago. Cathy lived in Israel for twelve years and since she came back to the states has lost touch with many of her friends from those days, but Rikki and Shimon have been good and constant friends. They have accepted me as a friend too and they have stayed with us a couple of times on visits to the US. They live on the Kibbutz of Rosh HaNikra which is set on the side of a mountain. The top of this mountain is the place where the border of Lebanon comes across the crest of a ridgeline and plunges down the western side to meet the Mediterranean Sea. That last precipitous drop-off is actually a blazing white chalk cliff.
That dazzling white cliff, the flat sweeping curve of the beach that runs away toward the south and the ancient port of Akko, the shimmering sea to the west and the craggy mountains and hills to the north and east, make Rosh HaNikra a startlingly beautiful place. Right there, where all of this natural beauty comes together, the kibbutz community nestles into the flank of the mountain with a view that rivals anything else in the world.
Unfortunately, you are never the only one enjoying the view. At the summit of the mountain, two observation towers stand cheek-to-cheek bellied right up against the border. One on either side, they are positioned slightly offset to each other so that each can see beyond the other into the territory behind it. One tower is manned by Israeli soldiers and the other by Hizbollah terrorists. Although, back then, things were relatively quiet along that border, an occasional rocket attack would find it’s way across from the Lebanon side. Just that past March, a pair of Hizbollah terrorists had infiltrated across the border dressed in Israel Defense Force uniforms. They set themselves up on a hill that commands a clear view of a road intersection that all of the civilian (and none of the military) traffic uses to get to and from the kibbutzim in the area. They waited until mid-day when they could be sure that military patrols and most men would be out of the area and then began shooting at cars traveling along the road. Before the real Israel Defense Force arrived, they murdered two women, two men and a fifteen-year-old girl who lived on a nearby kibbutz.
Gal is Shimon and Rikki's daughter. She is a lovely fifteen-year-old with a sweet smile and a wonderful command of English. If you ran into her on any street in the US, at first glance, she would be indistinguishable from any other smart, well-brought-up youngster over here. She gave up her bedroom for me to sleep in for the night – graciously insisting over my objections. She was just as welcoming and generous as her parents and all of the other Israelis I met over there. As I bent down to put my bags on the bed in her room, I glanced out the window and saw those two towers silhouetted against the darkening evening sky. Just a few hundred yards up the slope, the Hizbollah Tower seemed to be craning its neck past the Israeli tower to get a better look at me.
At one point during our dinner together, Rikki and Shimon got up to get (even more) food while Gal and I kept chatting. At one point she looked at me very seriously and said, "You were not afraid to come?" I smiled. Here was a young woman who woke up every morning literally under the guns of a group who, if not for the Israelis in the other tower, would gladly murder her just for the sake of the political statement. I suddenly felt like laughing. I truthfully hadn't given the dangers much of a thought until I had seen the tower through her bedroom window. Now she watched me as I framed my answer and I could see that she had a maturity and judgment impossible (and, thankfully, unnecessary) for most American teens.
"No," I said quietly, but with a conviction and confidence that surprised me a little. "I wasn't. Besides,” I said, hoping that the bravado was understated enough, “statistically, the most dangerous time in this whole trip was the plane ride." Gal gave a solemn little nod of the head to this.
I wondered why she didn’t ask the obvious next question – "So why don’t more come?” Tourism was down 85% in Israel compared to two years before. This is a devastating blow to a country that is also suffering economically from the same recession that has affected the U.S. She didn’t ask though. It seemed enough for her to know that I was there and that I didn’t feel it was any big deal.
The memory of her beautiful, serious face stays with me. As does the visit that I had had the night before that with my randomly selected family in Haifa. Yaacov and Miri Broder, like my friends Rikki and Shimon, are hard-working people who are devoted to their family first of all. They have four children who are obviously the center of their lives. The kids go to private school from the slightly cramped but beautifully kept apartment that Miri says a little defensively is "all we can afford because the school is so expensive." Only a total ignoramus could miss the richness of the life they give their kids and the warmth of their devotion to them. It came up that Yaacov is the son of, as he says, "a Schindler Jew." Once again, in a trip of constant wonders, the whole focus of the world seemed to shift. Here we were having dinner with a family that, but for the righteousness of an odd but courageous man a half a century in the past, would not have existed- not that solid, friendly Yaacov nor his vibrant, children. Without Schindler it is certain none of them would have ever existed.
Yaacov had also spoken of the time that Schindler visited his classroom when he was a child in school. At the end of his visit, one of the other children asked him why he did what he did and risked his life to save those 1200 Jews. Yaacov tells with a matter-of-fact smile how Schindler did not hesitate, but said “This is not a good question. The real question is why so many others did not do anything to save anyone.”
I understood then that I needed that trip and these revelations more than the Israelis needed me. Oh yes, it was a good thing for them to have me there; and the money I spent there helped the economy in some small way. The real change that was made, however, was in me. The miracle of that trip to Israel is that I went with the self-important view that I was doing something important for the Israelis first and getting a trip to Israel in the bargain. As it turned out I got far more out of it than Israel did. I got to take part in something important and beautiful. I got to see myself in a new way; and I also got just a fleeting glimpse into what it is like to live gracefully with courage and with memory. I would never have seen the people that Iran, Syria and their toadies in Hizbollah and Hamas have sworn to exterminate.
But most of all, I would not have been able to do that that infinitesimal but critical act of “being there” for Gal and Yaacov and all of the other Israelis I met. In being there for them I was also, in my small way, tweaking that Beast on the other side of the wire. The Israelis hold it at bay but it is up to the rest of the world to bury the beast in our myriad of tiny acts of being there. The Beast knows we are there and our very presence weakens it just a little with each act of freedom.
So, now, while Ahmadinejad prepares his Nuclear weapons and Iran replenishes Hizbollah’s stockpiles of missiles, now is a good time to go to Israel and let our friends, families and our heroes see our faces. Now is the best and most important time to go there and let this beautiful generous country throw its arms around you with gratitude. Now is the essential time for Christians, Jews and anyone else who would make themselves just a little bigger and better by standing up to The Beast to take a trip to Israel. It is more important now than it has ever been to go to Israel and be renewed by returning to the holy land where the Judeo-Christian tradition was born.
Then, when your friends and family ask you, “why now?” I want you to tell them this: “This is not a good question!” and then you should ask them “Why aren’t you going?”
Reminder: Send Me Your Stories! Let's start a community of awareness!
Before I get into the meat of this post here is some clarification about the first post and the blog in general- I have had questions about a couple of things:
1. How is my daughter? My daughter is now an accomplished young woman of intelligence and spirit she is fine and not, thank God, a victim of any kind.
2. Am I referring to Islamist totalitarianism as The Beast? Yes, I am talking mostly about what we often call “Islamofascism” but The Beast has many forms and can be found at the heart of many other kinds of systems as well. I am referring to all of the totalitarianisms and fascist states large and small that have ever existed. This includes social systems as small and limited as the family of an abusive alcoholic to that exemplar of totalitarian madness, Nazi Germany, the old Soviet Union, Iraq as it was under Saddam Hussein (let’s not forget that he was a Baathist not an Islamist), The Palestinian Authority (which has some secularist elements and some Islamist ones) and Present day North Korea. They all take common cause against us (The U.S., Israel, The U.K. and other western democracies that still have the stomach to stand up for Western Civilization and our ideals. We have to stand up to the Beast of Totalitarianism in all its forms because whatever its, ideological or religious pretext, it recognizes us as its natural enemy. We don’t even have to actively oppose it, you see, the simple fact that we value the free exchange of ideas in a context where we honor the past and accept the change of a free and better future, is an insult and a danger to the stagnant repression inside it. We see it as a detached and insular reality while it sees us as a constant danger. It must vilify and try to destroy us at all costs and at any opportunity. Unless we understand this, it will get us before we even realize it wants to.
It is our responsibility, each and every one of us, to share our knowledge of the Beast so that we can prevent it from sneaking up on us. In my first post I shared with you my first encounter – Here is my second one.
For some years my wife had told me that I was the oldest Jewish man in my home town who had never visited Israel. Although I doubted that this was really the case, let's just grant it for the purpose of the story I am about to tell you.
If it was true, it is no longer, because I finally went for a visit a few years ago- at the height of the first intifada. Before I left, because of the previous year and a half's terror and confusion, many of my friends and family asked me the same question – "Why now?" I had no ready answer except that I felt that it was the right time. I have given a lot of thought to this question during my week there. I went as one of the two hundred and eighty people in a Solidarity Mission sent by the Greater Boston Jewish Community. I wondered if I would find a clearer answer in Israel.
We had organized visits with and heard speeches from many prominent Israelis from government, media and academia and we managed a fair amount of sightseeing as well. The holy sites and antiquities would have been enough reason to go. The dignitaries were all impressive and many were absolutely inspiring. There were also genuinely touching ceremonial occasions. One of these had us visiting a kindergarten where black children from Ethiopia, dark Asiatic Azerbaijani and blond, blue-eyed Uzbeki children played and learned Hebrew and Jewish traditions together. Another took us to a hospital where we met doctors and nurses who worked to save lives on both sides of the conflict with equal zeal and bravery. The most emotional ceremony brought us into contact with the simple courage and modesty of the soldiers; many of them still nursing wounds, to whom the CJP contributed scholarships. The scholarships were intended to compensate in some way for the time that these student-soldiers lost when they were taken from their universities during the last call-up of the reserves.
Any one of those experiences would have more than justified the tiny risk involved in a visit to Israel; but they didn’t really address that original question “Why now?” It was in serendipitous one-on-one conversations with regular Israelis though, that I found the most compelling reason that now is the time to visit.
I had the good fortune to visit with two Israeli families in their homes while I was there. The first visit was as part of the CJP-sponsored tour. Four Americans from the tour were assigned to each of dozens of volunteer families who invited us into their homes for an evening. The Boston CJP arranged for these visits so that we could be part of the ongoing “sister city” program of personal and organizational contact between Boston and Haifa. My other home visit in Israel was with old friends who live on the border with Lebanon. Many of us on the trip spent some time with family, friends, acquaintances or friends of friends who were so happy to have visitors that the only question of personal safety that any of us experienced on this trip was that we might have been in danger of being killed with kindness or forced to eat ourselves to death on the wonderful and unbelievably abundant hospitality of our hosts.
I know Rikki and Shimon because they had been close friends of my wife when she lived in Israel years ago. Cathy lived in Israel for twelve years and since she came back to the states has lost touch with many of her friends from those days, but Rikki and Shimon have been good and constant friends. They have accepted me as a friend too and they have stayed with us a couple of times on visits to the US. They live on the Kibbutz of Rosh HaNikra which is set on the side of a mountain. The top of this mountain is the place where the border of Lebanon comes across the crest of a ridgeline and plunges down the western side to meet the Mediterranean Sea. That last precipitous drop-off is actually a blazing white chalk cliff.
That dazzling white cliff, the flat sweeping curve of the beach that runs away toward the south and the ancient port of Akko, the shimmering sea to the west and the craggy mountains and hills to the north and east, make Rosh HaNikra a startlingly beautiful place. Right there, where all of this natural beauty comes together, the kibbutz community nestles into the flank of the mountain with a view that rivals anything else in the world.
Unfortunately, you are never the only one enjoying the view. At the summit of the mountain, two observation towers stand cheek-to-cheek bellied right up against the border. One on either side, they are positioned slightly offset to each other so that each can see beyond the other into the territory behind it. One tower is manned by Israeli soldiers and the other by Hizbollah terrorists. Although, back then, things were relatively quiet along that border, an occasional rocket attack would find it’s way across from the Lebanon side. Just that past March, a pair of Hizbollah terrorists had infiltrated across the border dressed in Israel Defense Force uniforms. They set themselves up on a hill that commands a clear view of a road intersection that all of the civilian (and none of the military) traffic uses to get to and from the kibbutzim in the area. They waited until mid-day when they could be sure that military patrols and most men would be out of the area and then began shooting at cars traveling along the road. Before the real Israel Defense Force arrived, they murdered two women, two men and a fifteen-year-old girl who lived on a nearby kibbutz.
Gal is Shimon and Rikki's daughter. She is a lovely fifteen-year-old with a sweet smile and a wonderful command of English. If you ran into her on any street in the US, at first glance, she would be indistinguishable from any other smart, well-brought-up youngster over here. She gave up her bedroom for me to sleep in for the night – graciously insisting over my objections. She was just as welcoming and generous as her parents and all of the other Israelis I met over there. As I bent down to put my bags on the bed in her room, I glanced out the window and saw those two towers silhouetted against the darkening evening sky. Just a few hundred yards up the slope, the Hizbollah Tower seemed to be craning its neck past the Israeli tower to get a better look at me.
At one point during our dinner together, Rikki and Shimon got up to get (even more) food while Gal and I kept chatting. At one point she looked at me very seriously and said, "You were not afraid to come?" I smiled. Here was a young woman who woke up every morning literally under the guns of a group who, if not for the Israelis in the other tower, would gladly murder her just for the sake of the political statement. I suddenly felt like laughing. I truthfully hadn't given the dangers much of a thought until I had seen the tower through her bedroom window. Now she watched me as I framed my answer and I could see that she had a maturity and judgment impossible (and, thankfully, unnecessary) for most American teens.
"No," I said quietly, but with a conviction and confidence that surprised me a little. "I wasn't. Besides,” I said, hoping that the bravado was understated enough, “statistically, the most dangerous time in this whole trip was the plane ride." Gal gave a solemn little nod of the head to this.
I wondered why she didn’t ask the obvious next question – "So why don’t more come?” Tourism was down 85% in Israel compared to two years before. This is a devastating blow to a country that is also suffering economically from the same recession that has affected the U.S. She didn’t ask though. It seemed enough for her to know that I was there and that I didn’t feel it was any big deal.
The memory of her beautiful, serious face stays with me. As does the visit that I had had the night before that with my randomly selected family in Haifa. Yaacov and Miri Broder, like my friends Rikki and Shimon, are hard-working people who are devoted to their family first of all. They have four children who are obviously the center of their lives. The kids go to private school from the slightly cramped but beautifully kept apartment that Miri says a little defensively is "all we can afford because the school is so expensive." Only a total ignoramus could miss the richness of the life they give their kids and the warmth of their devotion to them. It came up that Yaacov is the son of, as he says, "a Schindler Jew." Once again, in a trip of constant wonders, the whole focus of the world seemed to shift. Here we were having dinner with a family that, but for the righteousness of an odd but courageous man a half a century in the past, would not have existed- not that solid, friendly Yaacov nor his vibrant, children. Without Schindler it is certain none of them would have ever existed.
Yaacov had also spoken of the time that Schindler visited his classroom when he was a child in school. At the end of his visit, one of the other children asked him why he did what he did and risked his life to save those 1200 Jews. Yaacov tells with a matter-of-fact smile how Schindler did not hesitate, but said “This is not a good question. The real question is why so many others did not do anything to save anyone.”
I understood then that I needed that trip and these revelations more than the Israelis needed me. Oh yes, it was a good thing for them to have me there; and the money I spent there helped the economy in some small way. The real change that was made, however, was in me. The miracle of that trip to Israel is that I went with the self-important view that I was doing something important for the Israelis first and getting a trip to Israel in the bargain. As it turned out I got far more out of it than Israel did. I got to take part in something important and beautiful. I got to see myself in a new way; and I also got just a fleeting glimpse into what it is like to live gracefully with courage and with memory. I would never have seen the people that Iran, Syria and their toadies in Hizbollah and Hamas have sworn to exterminate.
But most of all, I would not have been able to do that that infinitesimal but critical act of “being there” for Gal and Yaacov and all of the other Israelis I met. In being there for them I was also, in my small way, tweaking that Beast on the other side of the wire. The Israelis hold it at bay but it is up to the rest of the world to bury the beast in our myriad of tiny acts of being there. The Beast knows we are there and our very presence weakens it just a little with each act of freedom.
So, now, while Ahmadinejad prepares his Nuclear weapons and Iran replenishes Hizbollah’s stockpiles of missiles, now is a good time to go to Israel and let our friends, families and our heroes see our faces. Now is the best and most important time to go there and let this beautiful generous country throw its arms around you with gratitude. Now is the essential time for Christians, Jews and anyone else who would make themselves just a little bigger and better by standing up to The Beast to take a trip to Israel. It is more important now than it has ever been to go to Israel and be renewed by returning to the holy land where the Judeo-Christian tradition was born.
Then, when your friends and family ask you, “why now?” I want you to tell them this: “This is not a good question!” and then you should ask them “Why aren’t you going?”
Reminder: Send Me Your Stories! Let's start a community of awareness!
Thursday, December 28, 2006
My First Encounter With The Beast
We always get a warning that is clear and unequivocal when evil is stalking us. It is up to us to notice. Warnings are all too easy to dismiss. It is a grave responsibility to pay heed to real warnings. It seems so much easier to convince yourself that the warning is not for you, or that the danger is remote and small.
When Hitler, for example, wrote Mein Kampf, in 1925. He left no doubt as to his intentions. The world dismissed the book as the ravings of a mad man. When he got his opportunity to reach power ten years later, much of the world was surprised that he actually did what he said he would. If they had believed him in the first place and acted on that knowledge with resolution and intelligence millions of lives could have been saved.
The good news is that all you have to do is pay attention, believe what you see and hear and have the strength not to deny it. Evil will almost always inform you of its presence and intentions. I was given a very personal warning twenty-five years ago by a particularly profound form of evil. That evil presence has grown and prospered in the world since then. It has grown and become powerful and menacing and yet, even today, in spite of incontrovertible evidence of its existence many people find it altogether too easy to deny.
Back in the early eighties my young family and I lived next door to an Iranian family. They were nice, friendly people. Hamid (not his real name) was a physician who was just starting out in his own practice. His wife, Haideh was also Iranian born. She was a mathematician. She taught at a local college. We moved in to brand new houses just months apart and shared the rigors of nurturing lawns where there had been only bulldozer tracks. We cooperated in the planting of trees and shrubs to define the empty expanses between our new homes. We borrowed tools from each other. Hamid and I played tennis often and even discussed the possibility of building a tennis court in the flat spot where our lots met. Our children played together and his son, Amir and my daughter Amy became very close friends. The two of them were barely more than toddlers when they first met but were soon talking about getting married the way little ones sometimes do when they find a close companion of the opposite sex.
The next summer, they went back to Iran to visit with their families. We were afraid for our friends. We knew the country was in turmoil. They were gone for several weeks. For much of the time my Amy’s days were occupied with day camp but she still missed her friend. They finally returned a week before school. The two seemed to pick up right where they had left off.
It was a sunny Sunday morning and Amy went out right after breakfast and met Amir in his backyard. We watched as they began to play and turned away to read the Sunday paper. We were surprised when Amy came back inside a short while later. She walked by us with her head down and started up the stairs to her room. We had expected to have to call her in for lunch so it was odd that she came back so early. I called after her and asked her what was wrong. She told me how little 5-year-old Amir had matter-of-factly informed my innocent 5-year-old daughter that because she is a Jew it is his duty to kill her.
I went right over to talk with my friend and neighbor. Hamid was deeply embarrassed. He hastened to explain that: “Over there, the radio and TV were full of that kind of thing - you simply couldn’t avoid it. He assumed that Amir had heard this kind of thing on the radio or TV because no one in his family believed such things. He was sure, he told me, that now that Amir was back here he would soon forget it. He assured me that he would talk with Amir and was sure that the boy didn’t even understand what he was saying.
I could see how distressed he was and told him that I understood and that I appreciated his concern. We looked at each other and shook hands and patted each other on the shoulder. I was sure that it would not change things between our families.
Remember that this was twenty years before September 11, 2001. It was a few years after the fall of the Shah so, before they had left, I had actually wondered if his kids were going to be exposed to anti-American rhetoric and how that would sit with them. It had never entered my mind though to expect the anti-Semitic to be the dominant theme. Back then many of us believed the myth of the benevolent caliphate and the benign toleration of “Dhimmis” under Muslim rule. After all, I mused, Iran was at war with Iraq. And Israel had recently bombed the Osirac reactor thereby preventing Iraq from developing nuclear weapons.
In the light of everything that has transpired since then, it now seems hopelessly naïve of me but in the dim light of that historical moment I was amazed that what had surfaced first from this child’s sojourn in his homeland was genocidal anti-Semitism. As I lay awake in bed that night I found I couldn’t get the event out of my mind. The idea that a child could have such an idea in his head was staggering by itself. What kind of madness had he been exposed too? What infernal clatter of hatred and fear was there in the streets and media over there that could make it possible for a five year old say such a thing?
I recalled the pictures from the nightly news reports on the recently ended hostage ordeal that always seemed to show dense, agitated crowds of shirt-sleeved young men with posters and bullhorns. For all that it was fascinating, the violent rhetoric and the frenetic seemed somehow so unconnected to me – motivated by such an alien animus that I had watched them with the detachment of one who had every confidence that it had nothing to do with him. Now, as I lay awake, I could see- it was very personal.
It was frightening, it was unfamiliar, it was hateful and I had no idea how big or how close it was.
Was the family back in Iran so very different from Hamid? What kind of people thought nothing of exposing a child to this? What, I wondered, could have been the state of mind of Hamid and his wife that they did not think to talk to their son about this stuff- to “deprogram” him on the way home. The more I thought about it the more it bothered me. I lay awake thinking picturing not the house next door and the people in it, but the sweating, rioting crowds back in Iran and all of their squawking radios and televisions. The morning before, I had thought that all I had to do was talk to my neighbor about this thing. Now I saw clearly that this was very big and very ugly- beyond reach of a friendly neighborhood talk. I got out of bed and looked out the window toward their house, bathed in pale moonlight. The calm fall night was filled with a new shadow- the specter of an evil that had once been faraway and theoretical and was suddenly present and breathing quietly in the dark recesses of this soft night. Just then, it felt close enough that I thought I could feel its hot, humid breath on the back of my neck.
In my innocent, pre-9/11 American way I remember wondering how close we might have actually come to tragedy. A little boy of five might have kept harboring that thought and without comprehending what he was really doing, hurt or even murdered my little girl. God forbid that he might have gotten access to a gun with that in his mind. What kind of horror might have been averted because he spoke instead of acting? I walked down the hall and looked into Amy’s room. Her soft brown curls shone in the moonlight and she stirred and sighed.
I wandered back to my bed and lay down. What kind of society, I wondered, puts ideas like this into the mind of a (rather charming) little boys like Amir? How was it, with even parents like my friends Hamid and Haideh the racket and stink of genocidal hatred could so easily stick to him and be carried so quietly and so deep into the heart of our safe little suburban neighborhood.
Now that the images of Iran I had found it easy to view and dismiss were personal and immediate, I could never again feel quite so secure that all the “Death to America” and “Kill the Jews” rhetoric was empty and rhetoric or that it didn’t pertain to me. If it is said and sanctioned, how far away is it really from execution?
Over the next few years, the war with between Iran and Iraq dragged on; reports were heard in the west of human wave assaults organized by the Islamic army of Iran. Boys as young as fourteen were roped together to prevent desertion and sent out unarmed to try to overwhelm Iraqi positions by shear weight of expendable numbers. Sometimes I would catch sight of Amir in the street and shake my head – grateful that he was here but filled with dread for all of us.
Hamid and his family moved away after a few years. Since then, there have been so many experiences and images that have reminded me of that night when I realized how close the beast is.
I have stood in one of the great central squares of Kiev where there stands a huge statue of the national hero Bogdan Chemielniki who, before Hitler, was history’s greatest slaughterer of Jews. A few miles away I visited the memorial at Babi Yar. To stand at that monument I had to walk there over the half-mile long mound that is the mass grave of more than one hundred thousand Jews.
I have also been to Israel and visited the sites of three of the most infamous suicide bombings. I watched the airplane on which the wife of a friend perished smash into the North Tower of The World Trade Center. Then, I watched the towers crumble. I have downloaded and viewed the video of the slaughter of Daniel Pearl, which is still available on the Internet. I recognized them all as footprints of the same beast. Having lived with its shadow for so long, I am often shocked when I meet people who don’t believe that it is real that it is stalking us even as you read this.
What will it take for you to understand that what they are saying and doing is personal and you need to do something about it?
When Hitler, for example, wrote Mein Kampf, in 1925. He left no doubt as to his intentions. The world dismissed the book as the ravings of a mad man. When he got his opportunity to reach power ten years later, much of the world was surprised that he actually did what he said he would. If they had believed him in the first place and acted on that knowledge with resolution and intelligence millions of lives could have been saved.
The good news is that all you have to do is pay attention, believe what you see and hear and have the strength not to deny it. Evil will almost always inform you of its presence and intentions. I was given a very personal warning twenty-five years ago by a particularly profound form of evil. That evil presence has grown and prospered in the world since then. It has grown and become powerful and menacing and yet, even today, in spite of incontrovertible evidence of its existence many people find it altogether too easy to deny.
Back in the early eighties my young family and I lived next door to an Iranian family. They were nice, friendly people. Hamid (not his real name) was a physician who was just starting out in his own practice. His wife, Haideh was also Iranian born. She was a mathematician. She taught at a local college. We moved in to brand new houses just months apart and shared the rigors of nurturing lawns where there had been only bulldozer tracks. We cooperated in the planting of trees and shrubs to define the empty expanses between our new homes. We borrowed tools from each other. Hamid and I played tennis often and even discussed the possibility of building a tennis court in the flat spot where our lots met. Our children played together and his son, Amir and my daughter Amy became very close friends. The two of them were barely more than toddlers when they first met but were soon talking about getting married the way little ones sometimes do when they find a close companion of the opposite sex.
The next summer, they went back to Iran to visit with their families. We were afraid for our friends. We knew the country was in turmoil. They were gone for several weeks. For much of the time my Amy’s days were occupied with day camp but she still missed her friend. They finally returned a week before school. The two seemed to pick up right where they had left off.
It was a sunny Sunday morning and Amy went out right after breakfast and met Amir in his backyard. We watched as they began to play and turned away to read the Sunday paper. We were surprised when Amy came back inside a short while later. She walked by us with her head down and started up the stairs to her room. We had expected to have to call her in for lunch so it was odd that she came back so early. I called after her and asked her what was wrong. She told me how little 5-year-old Amir had matter-of-factly informed my innocent 5-year-old daughter that because she is a Jew it is his duty to kill her.
I went right over to talk with my friend and neighbor. Hamid was deeply embarrassed. He hastened to explain that: “Over there, the radio and TV were full of that kind of thing - you simply couldn’t avoid it. He assumed that Amir had heard this kind of thing on the radio or TV because no one in his family believed such things. He was sure, he told me, that now that Amir was back here he would soon forget it. He assured me that he would talk with Amir and was sure that the boy didn’t even understand what he was saying.
I could see how distressed he was and told him that I understood and that I appreciated his concern. We looked at each other and shook hands and patted each other on the shoulder. I was sure that it would not change things between our families.
Remember that this was twenty years before September 11, 2001. It was a few years after the fall of the Shah so, before they had left, I had actually wondered if his kids were going to be exposed to anti-American rhetoric and how that would sit with them. It had never entered my mind though to expect the anti-Semitic to be the dominant theme. Back then many of us believed the myth of the benevolent caliphate and the benign toleration of “Dhimmis” under Muslim rule. After all, I mused, Iran was at war with Iraq. And Israel had recently bombed the Osirac reactor thereby preventing Iraq from developing nuclear weapons.
In the light of everything that has transpired since then, it now seems hopelessly naïve of me but in the dim light of that historical moment I was amazed that what had surfaced first from this child’s sojourn in his homeland was genocidal anti-Semitism. As I lay awake in bed that night I found I couldn’t get the event out of my mind. The idea that a child could have such an idea in his head was staggering by itself. What kind of madness had he been exposed too? What infernal clatter of hatred and fear was there in the streets and media over there that could make it possible for a five year old say such a thing?
I recalled the pictures from the nightly news reports on the recently ended hostage ordeal that always seemed to show dense, agitated crowds of shirt-sleeved young men with posters and bullhorns. For all that it was fascinating, the violent rhetoric and the frenetic seemed somehow so unconnected to me – motivated by such an alien animus that I had watched them with the detachment of one who had every confidence that it had nothing to do with him. Now, as I lay awake, I could see- it was very personal.
It was frightening, it was unfamiliar, it was hateful and I had no idea how big or how close it was.
Was the family back in Iran so very different from Hamid? What kind of people thought nothing of exposing a child to this? What, I wondered, could have been the state of mind of Hamid and his wife that they did not think to talk to their son about this stuff- to “deprogram” him on the way home. The more I thought about it the more it bothered me. I lay awake thinking picturing not the house next door and the people in it, but the sweating, rioting crowds back in Iran and all of their squawking radios and televisions. The morning before, I had thought that all I had to do was talk to my neighbor about this thing. Now I saw clearly that this was very big and very ugly- beyond reach of a friendly neighborhood talk. I got out of bed and looked out the window toward their house, bathed in pale moonlight. The calm fall night was filled with a new shadow- the specter of an evil that had once been faraway and theoretical and was suddenly present and breathing quietly in the dark recesses of this soft night. Just then, it felt close enough that I thought I could feel its hot, humid breath on the back of my neck.
In my innocent, pre-9/11 American way I remember wondering how close we might have actually come to tragedy. A little boy of five might have kept harboring that thought and without comprehending what he was really doing, hurt or even murdered my little girl. God forbid that he might have gotten access to a gun with that in his mind. What kind of horror might have been averted because he spoke instead of acting? I walked down the hall and looked into Amy’s room. Her soft brown curls shone in the moonlight and she stirred and sighed.
I wandered back to my bed and lay down. What kind of society, I wondered, puts ideas like this into the mind of a (rather charming) little boys like Amir? How was it, with even parents like my friends Hamid and Haideh the racket and stink of genocidal hatred could so easily stick to him and be carried so quietly and so deep into the heart of our safe little suburban neighborhood.
Now that the images of Iran I had found it easy to view and dismiss were personal and immediate, I could never again feel quite so secure that all the “Death to America” and “Kill the Jews” rhetoric was empty and rhetoric or that it didn’t pertain to me. If it is said and sanctioned, how far away is it really from execution?
Over the next few years, the war with between Iran and Iraq dragged on; reports were heard in the west of human wave assaults organized by the Islamic army of Iran. Boys as young as fourteen were roped together to prevent desertion and sent out unarmed to try to overwhelm Iraqi positions by shear weight of expendable numbers. Sometimes I would catch sight of Amir in the street and shake my head – grateful that he was here but filled with dread for all of us.
Hamid and his family moved away after a few years. Since then, there have been so many experiences and images that have reminded me of that night when I realized how close the beast is.
I have stood in one of the great central squares of Kiev where there stands a huge statue of the national hero Bogdan Chemielniki who, before Hitler, was history’s greatest slaughterer of Jews. A few miles away I visited the memorial at Babi Yar. To stand at that monument I had to walk there over the half-mile long mound that is the mass grave of more than one hundred thousand Jews.
I have also been to Israel and visited the sites of three of the most infamous suicide bombings. I watched the airplane on which the wife of a friend perished smash into the North Tower of The World Trade Center. Then, I watched the towers crumble. I have downloaded and viewed the video of the slaughter of Daniel Pearl, which is still available on the Internet. I recognized them all as footprints of the same beast. Having lived with its shadow for so long, I am often shocked when I meet people who don’t believe that it is real that it is stalking us even as you read this.
What will it take for you to understand that what they are saying and doing is personal and you need to do something about it?
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