There will always be Jews who help their enemies demonize them in order to gain favour. Anti-Semites have always been good at exploiting this Jewish weakness – indeed the Nazis were experts at this. Now in the twenty-first century the Anti-Semites are at it again.
During a visit by president of the United States of America, Gorge W. Bush to the UK on the campus of University College London, I saw a number of students painting an anti-American banner. I approached one of them to ask why he was demonstrating against Mr Bush. “Well,” he said, “it’s all about his war on Iraq.”
I asked him whether he thought that the president had a responsibility to defend his nation. He did not believe that America had altruistic motives in fighting the war. I told him that militant Islam’s only aim is to spread fundamental Islam across the globe, and they believe that all means justify this end. His reply stunned me: “Zionism also has the same goal,” he said. He accused Israel of being an apartheid state that oppresses its Arab population – the building of the wall being just another example of this.
I explained the errors of his argument adding that the actions of the Israeli government are only taken in order to defend its people and are thus not malicious. To this he responded, “Well, I know a Jew who told me that he feels sorry that he was born into a nation of oppressors. You see,” he added, “Jews themselves agree that they are oppressors!”
During the same week while travelling on the train I spotted a fellow who had a sign on his backpack to the effect that “Israel has 4000 nuclear warheads whereas Iraq, Syria and Iran have none, America should go after Israel not Iraq, Syria and Iran.” He noticed me reading the sign and came and sat next to me.
We began talking. After a long discussion I finally said that Prime Minister Ehud Barak went to great lengths in order to achieve a peace settlement with the Arabs but he saw that Yassir Arafat was not a partner in peace. He responded that Alan Dershowitz – a Jewish Law professor at Harvard and author of “The Case for Israel” – said in an interview on TV that because the present Israeli government has invested so much in the territories, it does not want peace. “See,” he said to me, “even a Jew who wrote a book supporting Israel does not believe that Israel truly wants peace.” The irony of this is that when the President of The United States – a non -Jewish supporter of Israel and the Jews – was asked by David Frost (BBC), whether he believed Ariel Sharon wanted peace he unhesitatingly responded yes.
We Jews all have our opinions which we are entitled to – as they say, if there are two Jews there will be three opinions. However, we should realize that if we make our critical views known in a public forum or to the wrong person they will be used by our enemies as a pretext to hate us, to attack us, and by some to murder our innocent men, women and children. They will say, “Even Jews admit that Israel is a nation of oppressors.”
A well-known Jewish liberal writer, who is also a friend of mine, recently wrote that the Jews’ greatest gift to the anti – Semite is Ariel Sharon. Ironically, this is incorrect. The truth is that the Jews greatest gifts to the anti-Semite are the Liberals and the apologetics who feel they have to say something critical of Israel in order to be legitimate. More then half a decade after the Holocaust we should know better.