Confronting anti-semitism

Why should Jews be compelled to conform to a higher moral standard when fighting for survival?

The Straight Goods Cyber Forum
with Larry Solway

Commentary:

  I wanted to write about Ernie Eves winning a closer-than-expected election by backing off Hydro privatization. I wanted to comment on how he let Chris Stockwell (it looks good on him) take the fall and flounder around with no answers.
  I wanted to write about the sub-human murderers of Randall Dooley and about a whole culture of abuse and about how silly the Crown looked saying the conviction "sent a message".
  I couldn't. I find myself obsessed, hurt, angry, puzzled, and frightened by Sharon and Arafat and anti-Semitism writ bigger than ever.
  What I write will not change any minds, but I write it because we Jews need to comfort ourselves and to give ourselves permission to feel abandoned. Nothing I write will change the face of anti-Semitism. The attitude may be overt or covert, it may be blatant or submerged, and it may be latent or dormant, or just waiting for an excuse. I can't change those minds. I won't try. It is fruitless to argue with writers to Straight Goods like the one who insisted that the Jews had no right to land they "seized" from the Palestinians. Of course they don't. No one says they do.

The writer, like thousands of revisionist historians, neglects reality

  But the writer, like thousands of revisionist historians, neglects reality. The "occupied" lands of the West Bank and Gaza were forfeit in a series of wars started by surrounding Arab countries. They invaded Israel. They wanted to overrun the state and send its occupants packing. The land was really the spoils of war - a war that Israel did not start.
  But like I say, I won't change the minds-made-up. What I can perhaps do is make Jews feel better about ourselves; deal with the ambivalence among a people who historically have believed in social justice, in liberty, in freedom, so we can redeem our self esteem among ourselves and not be seduced by anti-Israel propaganda.
  I wrote of knee-jerk lefty opposition to Israel and adoration of the Palestinians. Then I read what Oriana Fallaci said (see this SG) and I felt a little better, a little less marooned on an island surrounded by an ocean of anti-Jewish feeling.
  Why? What have we done this time? I have no time for Sharon and even less for the zealots who stake a Biblical claim to land on the West Bank (believe it or not, many of the settlers are secular Jews who have no Biblical "truth" to guide them. They just want a place to live. They picked the wrong place. But that is another story.
  I mused at the comment a couple of weeks ago from a writer who was trying to be sympathetic who wrote that The Left sided with the Palestinians because The Left traditionally opposes Capitalism and many Jews have done well in a Free Enterprise setting. Except that many Jews were in the forefront of the radical movements of Social Democracy. Does anyone remember David Lewis or his mentor, the quintessential Socialist - Harold Lasky?

So what we have is myth not history. What we have is prejudice not judgment

  So what we have is myth not history. What we have is prejudice not judgment. What we have are people looking for an excuse to ventilate their inner feelings.
  Historically Jews have always been obliged to take the high moral position. We have been since Babylonian Expulsion, Roman Expulsion, Muslim Expulsion, Spanish Expulsion, and Edward II expulsion from England. It has been convenient to see us as victims, as pariahs, as outcasts, as wanderers. But always, we have been compelled to conform to a higher moral standard.
  Historically also, when Jews step outside their assigned role as victims and assert themselves, especially physically and militarily, they step outside their defined role in history.
  As long as they - I should be saying "we" - conform to your perceptions of us, we are granted at least some kind of sufferance.
  Our biggest crime is to try to be like other people: aggressive, defensive of our rights and hopes, adamantly refusing to be the symbol of "turning-the-other-cheek. The issue is not whether or not the devastation of Jenin was justified. The issue is that the forelock-tugging pariah has had enough.
  We need friends in a friendless world. We are on our own. The antis don't understand. They simply don't get it.
  What I said at the start still stands: I will change no minds.

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