Never again. To Jews it means a refusal to give genocidal bigots another go at them. To Obama, it means refusing to ever again have to listen to an Israeli leader explain why his country cannot commit territorial suicide in order to appease a gang of genocidal bigots.
When the Jews who fought among the crumbling walls of the Warsaw Ghetto finally made it to Israel, they came just in time to load up their guns and fight once again for their people's survival. The survivors of one genocidal ideology bent on making someone pay for its sense of humiliation came just in time to fight off another version of the same thing.
After 2000 years of running, an indigenous minority that had been kicked around by emperors and caliphs finally made its stand around a handful of farming towns and in alleyways lined by the golden stone of Jerusalem. Men and women who only a few years earlier hid in their homes from Muslim pogroms, covering their children's ears at the cries of "Ibtach Al Yahood", "Kill the Jews", took up arms. They stood alongside the settlers who had drained the swamps, the refugees fleeing Muslim terror in Egypt and Syria and the remains of the original indigenous Jewish population which had survived the conquests of seven empires. They stood and fought for their lives against an ideology that said they had no right to be free because of their religion and the blood in their veins.
Like their Nazi allies, Muslim violence was driven by a need to reverse the humiliations of World War I which dismantled the Ottoman Empire and gave regional minorities like the Jews a chance at rebuilding their own independent countries. But going back to 1914 was only the beginning. Some wanted to go back to 1492 and the fall of Granada. Others in the Saudi desert were dreaming of a return to the 6th century. But what they all had in common was a refusal to tolerate an independent non-Muslim state in their midst.
And even though Allied troops were still within sight of the rubble, ruined tanks and barbed wire camps remaining behind from the last time that their countries had chosen to appease this sort of thing with a slice of Czechoslovakia, they still chose appeasement. Again.
President Wilson had idealistically envisioned turning over portions of the territories of the Ottoman Empire to peoples like the Jews and Armenians who had struggled for so long under Muslim dominion. But the European willingness to tolerate and appease Muslim violence nearly put an end to both dreams. Turkish armies swarmed over Armenia at the first opportunity and Arab armies did the same in Israel. The lesson was the same. If you wanted to be free to practice your religion, to live under your own laws, not those of the Koran which dictate the inferiority of minorities, you had to stand up and fight for it without counting on the support of the West.
Wilsonian idealism was no match for British empire building, and that was no match for Postmodern globalism. Both British and Globalist empire building desired stability at all costs.
President Wilson had wanted to give the peoples oppressed by Islam a chance to breathe the fresh air of freedom. But the British Empire turned over the largest part of Israel to a Saudi monarchy to rule over as the newly created nation of Jordan. Then the UN partitioned the remainder into a stump with indefensible borders in an attempt to appease the gathering Muslim armies. But the armies of Islam rejected even that partition and chose war instead. Now Barack Hussein Obama and a coterie of European leaders would like Israel to go back to those indefensible borders. Not because it will bring peace, but for the same reason that he retasked NASA from studying stars, to pander to the genocidal fragility of Muslim self-esteem.
The West has sold out Israel, the way that it once sold out Czechoslovakia, and with the same results. Muslims are no more satiated with the prospect of an ethnically cleansed Palestine, than Nazi Germany was with a Volksdeutsche Sudetenland. Their vision of a "Pure Arab-Muslim Palestine" inevitably swallows Israel, as it already does on their maps, and then aspires to join with a Pan-Islamic state stretching from Cairo to Damascus and beyond.
Just as the Sudetenland was only the first bite out of Czechoslovakia, then Eastern Europe and then Europe... and then the world. So too Palestine is the first bite, followed by the overthrow of secular regimes in Egypt, Algeria and Turkey, the conquest of multi-religious African states, like Nigeria and Cote d'Ivoire, and then Drang Nach Osten, into Europe, and finally civil war in Thailand, India and China. This is what World War III looks like. And it is happening before our very eyes.
Never Again has become an empty phrase. Something that angry world leaders shout when the victims aren't eager enough to appease the Third Reich or the Seventh Caliphate. Leaders who are committed to the false narrative that the violence in the Middle-East is caused by insufficient territorial concessions by the region's only Non-Muslim minority to its Sunni Muslim majority, rather than the unwillingness of the Sunni Muslim majority to practice tolerance in their own countries, throughout the region or the world.
Jews cannot allow Never Again to become an empty catchphrase or a universalized call for tolerance that fails to hold Islam accountable for its promotion of bigotry, violence and genocide. While Jewish leaders occupy themselves with empty calls for interfaith brotherhood, Jewish farms and villages once again fall under siege. Farmers sleep with guns by their beds, children are taught to race to bomb shelters and Jewish store windows are smashed in the cities of Europe. Armies of soldiers, terrorists and diplomats gather once again to carve up Jerusalem. To ethnically cleanse half the city of Jews and turn it into a platform for terror.
This is what going back to 1948 means. It means going back to a religious civil war and a stump state with indefensible borders. This is the vision of international diplomats who hope that feeding a big enough piece of Israel to the crocodile will put it to sleep. It is also the vision of a leftist elite in Israel which wants to turn the Gush Dan region into a cramped tech-happy Singapore, and let Jerusalem and the farmlands fall into enemy hands, in the hope that they will be left alone to sip coffee in their cafes and launch their IPO's in peace. But it is nothing more than the Warsaw Ghetto with an internet cafe. And even they are only a few years away from discovering that.
Shimon Peres' vision of Tel Aviv as the Warsaw Ghetto with an internet cafe and a nanotech research lab, is colliding with the Muslim vision of the fall of Israel as the first of many victories over the Kufar, and the vision of world leaders of Israel dissolving away to make room for a Muslim Middle-East. Only one of those visions can survive or none of them. Either Israel falls to the first wave of a Jihad that will engulf the world, or it once again makes a stand.
The Europeans and Obama competing to offer Israel the best 'alternative' before the UN recognizes Palestine is nothing but empty theater. There is no compromise that will settle the issue. Nor can Israel ever convince the world compromisers of that. So long as the world community accepts the inevitability of Islamic dominance, then Israel will always be the goat. The sacrifice to appease the beast.
If Never Again means anything at all, it is a refusal to be the sacrifice, to be placed on the altar of appeasement for a Holocaust, a burnt offering, to the Muslim Moloch of insatiable rage and genocidal fanaticism.
Jews say, "Never Again" for the same reason that rape victims say, "No, Means No." We have been there. We are not going to allow it to happen again. No matter what words are used to justify it. No matter how the perpetrators turn the world around so that they are right and we are wrong, so that their violence is just and our self-defense isn't. No matter how many ways they find to blame us for their actions. World leaders may try to carve us up, but we will never consent to it. Not orally and not silently. We will resist.
We have said Never Again so many times that we have forgotten what the words mean. They have lost their edge. Worse, they have lost their purpose. It's time to stop just saying , "Never Again". It's time to mean it.
(Spanish Language Translation at Reflexiones Medio Sobre Y Oriente)
After 2000 years of running, an indigenous minority that had been kicked around by emperors and caliphs finally made its stand around a handful of farming towns and in alleyways lined by the golden stone of Jerusalem. Men and women who only a few years earlier hid in their homes from Muslim pogroms, covering their children's ears at the cries of "Ibtach Al Yahood", "Kill the Jews", took up arms. They stood alongside the settlers who had drained the swamps, the refugees fleeing Muslim terror in Egypt and Syria and the remains of the original indigenous Jewish population which had survived the conquests of seven empires. They stood and fought for their lives against an ideology that said they had no right to be free because of their religion and the blood in their veins.
Like their Nazi allies, Muslim violence was driven by a need to reverse the humiliations of World War I which dismantled the Ottoman Empire and gave regional minorities like the Jews a chance at rebuilding their own independent countries. But going back to 1914 was only the beginning. Some wanted to go back to 1492 and the fall of Granada. Others in the Saudi desert were dreaming of a return to the 6th century. But what they all had in common was a refusal to tolerate an independent non-Muslim state in their midst.
And even though Allied troops were still within sight of the rubble, ruined tanks and barbed wire camps remaining behind from the last time that their countries had chosen to appease this sort of thing with a slice of Czechoslovakia, they still chose appeasement. Again.
President Wilson had idealistically envisioned turning over portions of the territories of the Ottoman Empire to peoples like the Jews and Armenians who had struggled for so long under Muslim dominion. But the European willingness to tolerate and appease Muslim violence nearly put an end to both dreams. Turkish armies swarmed over Armenia at the first opportunity and Arab armies did the same in Israel. The lesson was the same. If you wanted to be free to practice your religion, to live under your own laws, not those of the Koran which dictate the inferiority of minorities, you had to stand up and fight for it without counting on the support of the West.
Wilsonian idealism was no match for British empire building, and that was no match for Postmodern globalism. Both British and Globalist empire building desired stability at all costs.
President Wilson had wanted to give the peoples oppressed by Islam a chance to breathe the fresh air of freedom. But the British Empire turned over the largest part of Israel to a Saudi monarchy to rule over as the newly created nation of Jordan. Then the UN partitioned the remainder into a stump with indefensible borders in an attempt to appease the gathering Muslim armies. But the armies of Islam rejected even that partition and chose war instead. Now Barack Hussein Obama and a coterie of European leaders would like Israel to go back to those indefensible borders. Not because it will bring peace, but for the same reason that he retasked NASA from studying stars, to pander to the genocidal fragility of Muslim self-esteem.
Just as the Sudetenland was only the first bite out of Czechoslovakia, then Eastern Europe and then Europe... and then the world. So too Palestine is the first bite, followed by the overthrow of secular regimes in Egypt, Algeria and Turkey, the conquest of multi-religious African states, like Nigeria and Cote d'Ivoire, and then Drang Nach Osten, into Europe, and finally civil war in Thailand, India and China. This is what World War III looks like. And it is happening before our very eyes.
Never Again has become an empty phrase. Something that angry world leaders shout when the victims aren't eager enough to appease the Third Reich or the Seventh Caliphate. Leaders who are committed to the false narrative that the violence in the Middle-East is caused by insufficient territorial concessions by the region's only Non-Muslim minority to its Sunni Muslim majority, rather than the unwillingness of the Sunni Muslim majority to practice tolerance in their own countries, throughout the region or the world.
Jews cannot allow Never Again to become an empty catchphrase or a universalized call for tolerance that fails to hold Islam accountable for its promotion of bigotry, violence and genocide. While Jewish leaders occupy themselves with empty calls for interfaith brotherhood, Jewish farms and villages once again fall under siege. Farmers sleep with guns by their beds, children are taught to race to bomb shelters and Jewish store windows are smashed in the cities of Europe. Armies of soldiers, terrorists and diplomats gather once again to carve up Jerusalem. To ethnically cleanse half the city of Jews and turn it into a platform for terror.
This is what going back to 1948 means. It means going back to a religious civil war and a stump state with indefensible borders. This is the vision of international diplomats who hope that feeding a big enough piece of Israel to the crocodile will put it to sleep. It is also the vision of a leftist elite in Israel which wants to turn the Gush Dan region into a cramped tech-happy Singapore, and let Jerusalem and the farmlands fall into enemy hands, in the hope that they will be left alone to sip coffee in their cafes and launch their IPO's in peace. But it is nothing more than the Warsaw Ghetto with an internet cafe. And even they are only a few years away from discovering that.
Shimon Peres' vision of Tel Aviv as the Warsaw Ghetto with an internet cafe and a nanotech research lab, is colliding with the Muslim vision of the fall of Israel as the first of many victories over the Kufar, and the vision of world leaders of Israel dissolving away to make room for a Muslim Middle-East. Only one of those visions can survive or none of them. Either Israel falls to the first wave of a Jihad that will engulf the world, or it once again makes a stand.
If Never Again means anything at all, it is a refusal to be the sacrifice, to be placed on the altar of appeasement for a Holocaust, a burnt offering, to the Muslim Moloch of insatiable rage and genocidal fanaticism.
Jews say, "Never Again" for the same reason that rape victims say, "No, Means No." We have been there. We are not going to allow it to happen again. No matter what words are used to justify it. No matter how the perpetrators turn the world around so that they are right and we are wrong, so that their violence is just and our self-defense isn't. No matter how many ways they find to blame us for their actions. World leaders may try to carve us up, but we will never consent to it. Not orally and not silently. We will resist.
We have said Never Again so many times that we have forgotten what the words mean. They have lost their edge. Worse, they have lost their purpose. It's time to stop just saying , "Never Again". It's time to mean it.
(Spanish Language Translation at Reflexiones Medio Sobre Y Oriente)
Comments
What prose! You words and testament could fill another volume in the Old Testament. I being not facetious nor speaking as slander, I have never heard such eloquence before...what you say and how you say it are truly sublime. G_d, I wish i could speak and emote as though.
ReplyDeleteIsrael has been playing the game of survival poorly since the 1973 Yom Kippur war. It has maneuvered itself in the bad position of being pressured by it's dependence on American financial and political support to direct it's moves in the game on the international stage. The core values of Torah & Talmud should be what Jews depend on, all the rest should be considered fluid and changeable and accepted as such. History has proven time on time again that reacting defensively on the moves of the enemy, be they militarily or be they politically, at best keep you standing, always losing some ground and never gaining the upper hand. Only pre-empting on both accounts shall ever lead to victory and recognition.
ReplyDeleteI think that the message is getting lost because for thousands of years Jews have been a ethnic minority scapegoated for the failings of various societies and told to go home. With the dawn of the 21st century however, the Western world has turned that narrative on its head. Now that the Jews have come home after all this time, they're now ignorantly lumped with those still practising Christians as purely a religion by the Western Intelligentsia and told by the same to go quietly die in the corners of their "Modern" history pages. To this end, a homeland reborn is disgustingly turned into a colony of Slav religious fanatics in their narratives. A narrative that many in the Diaspora are all to maddeningly eager to believe. This turnabout in the pages of history has sparked a conflict within the Jewish community, where the meaning of the words and their lessons are infuriatingly lost.
ReplyDeleteMakes me glad I'm old so I don't have to survive too long the nuclear wars that are coming.
ReplyDeleteThis is another brilliant article written by a brilliant man. Daniel speaks from the heart and always connects his feelings with his vast knowledge of the people, their history and the issues that matter. I wish that American elites, European elites, the OIC, Putin, the Japanese and Chinese would stop pretending that they are safe when they unleash Islamism upon Israel and make Israel the universal target of the world. No, they too will be engulfed by disaster if the forces they now attempt to appease by feeding the anti-Semitic dog turns its rabid bite on them as well. Israel is prepared but most others will cowardly fold without a fight.
ReplyDeletePhilip, thank you, though I wouldn't go that far
ReplyDeletemindRider, indeed
Ronin, your comment is quite apt and accurately describes the situation
Anon, thank you
Great piece again! Another part of the problem is that too manyJews and Israelis are far to worried about "world opinion." Now as in the past the much of the world hates the Jews and will only shed crocodile tears over dead Jews. Until the left undermined the US, the Jews were the only ethnic group that had a sizable portion of its members feeling guilty for living and promoting their own interests.
ReplyDeleteAmen, well said. I still can't understand the appeasement mentality of the West towards the bloodthirsty and hate-filled religion of Islam. It's completely irrational.
ReplyDeleteI'm almost ready to say that an International Socialist or "Internazi" group is forming - they espouse socialist ideals, and instead of elevating their own race or ethnicity above all others and trying to kill others, they elevate everyone else and call for the demise of Western society and its people, albeit in a slower manner.
ReplyDeleteThe conundrum that Israel faces is the same conundrum that the Christian states of the Middle East faced after the rise of Islam in the 630's. Periodically the rulers tried to coexist, and - at least in the case of the mini-State of Tripoli - thought that the mutual benefits of trade and commerce would outweigh the injunction to slay or subdue the kufar. But these beliefs were a delusion, and Antioch, Tripoli and Acre fell because Baibars intended to destroy the Christian states of the area - and - in a number of instances - to slay their inhabitants.
ReplyDeleteThe idea that you can coexist with a culture that demonizes non-Muslims as less than fully human, and calls for their destruction is beyond folly. Further, a culture that denies individual freedom is antithetical to freedom.
The question non-Muslims should ask is: "Do I prefer to live for a moment as a slave bereft of all dignity, or do I wish to resist and live (and perhaps die) as a free man so that I can convey a better world to my children."
The question is simple... but its realization is made more difficult by the Grima Wormtongues that inhabit the media and public office.
You're truly a breath of fresh air with all the insanity in the media. Shared, and G-d bless Daniel Greenfield!
ReplyDeleteI don't know if you remember me, but I told you a while ago you saved me from years of brainwashing with one article, and since then I've made teshuva with Chabad, and am trying to move with my family to Israel. You've never met me, but you've affected my life more than some I've known half of it. Keep up the fight Mr. Greenfield, your words are greater than any weapon.
112, I'm really glad to hear that. Please stay in touch.
ReplyDeleteJeremiah 31: 35Thus saith the LORD, which giveth the sun for a light by day, and the ordinances of the moon and of the stars for a light by night, which divideth the sea when the waves thereof roar; The LORD of hosts is his name: 36If those ordinances depart from before me, saith the LORD, then the seed of Israel also shall cease from being a nation before me for ever. 37Thus saith the LORD; If heaven above can be measured, and the foundations of the earth searched out beneath, I will also cast off all the seed of Israel for all that they have done, saith the LORD
ReplyDelete...in context
ReplyDelete32 But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, saith the LORD, I will put My law in their inward parts, and in their heart will I write it; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people;
33 and they shall teach no more every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying: 'Know the LORD'; for they shall all know Me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them, saith the LORD; for I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin will I remember no more.
34 Thus saith the LORD, Who giveth the sun for a light by day, and the ordinances of the moon and of the stars for a light by night, who stirreth up the sea, that the waves there of roar, the LORD of hosts is His name:
35 If these ordinances depart from before Me, saith the LORD, then the seed of Israel also shall cease from being a nation before Me for ever.
36 Thus saith the LORD: If heaven above can be measured, and the foundations of the earth searched out beneath, then will I also cast off all the seed of Israel for all that they have done, saith the LORD.
37 Behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that the city shall be built to the LORD from the tower of Hananel unto the gate of the corner.
38 And the measuring line shall yet go out straight forward unto the hill Gareb, and shall turn about unto Goah.
39 And the whole valley of the dead bodies, and of the ashes, and all the fields unto the brook Kidron, unto the corner of the horse gate toward the east, shall be holy unto the LORD; it shall not be plucked up, nor thrown down any more for ever.
The Lord will never cast off Israel according to the above scripture.
ReplyDeleteYes. Some people might have misunderstood so I added a little context.
ReplyDeleteWhat has frustrated me over the years is to see Israel faced with such existential threats, win lands by war against aggressor nations, literally ganged up upon, and then turn around and give up such wealth as acts of appeasement to the US or the world community. Trying to win favor in such ways has always appeared foolhardy to me. In such matters, strength is the best course, especially when dealing with the kind of enemy you know so well, and others might not, or at least pretend they don't if only for their own benefit.
ReplyDeleteKeep writing well Daniel. Shalom!
Another brilliant & insightful piece of work, Daniel. Have been following you for a while & you never cease to amaze me..
ReplyDeleteSharing another emotional laden speech by an equally amazing Brit Conservative - Douglas Murray on how Israel has been thrown to the wolves by European Islamo-fascist appeasers in the past
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3dBzslDdQ_g
If you are in or near Los Angeles: http://www.cjhsla.org/2014/04/20/special-event-firearm-instruction-may-12-2014/
ReplyDeleteJoan @ April 29, the West has allowed itself to become eaten up with PC and multi culturalism. Loosing the Cold War damaged the Left's psyche so badly that it needed other outlets. Thus the suicidal foolishness of PC and MC as a substitute. The Left is so destructive that it can look at evil and call it benign. They look at themselves and call themselves just.
ReplyDelete
ReplyDeleteIt is also the vision of a leftist elite in Israel which wants to turn the Gush Dan region into a cramped tech-happy Singapore
It's worth mentioning that historically, the "Gush Dan" coastal area was possessed by Jews for less time than the inland Judah and Samaria. Most of the Jewish Bible takes place inland, and the Second Temple Jewish kingdom was also centered in Judea. Besides being based on a fantasy concerning the Arabs' willingness to accept it, the idea that Tel Aviv is the most Jewish part of Israel is quite ahistorical.
Ephraim (of Jerusalem)
I do agree with Philip. A prophetic voice does not always foretell, but it does always forth-tell. You are speaking God's truth.
ReplyDelete"But it is nothing more than the Warsaw Ghetto with an internet cafe. And even they are only a few years away from discovering that." That's just brilliant writing!
ReplyDeleteThe only thing t Left hates more than being called anti-Semitic is ......Jews.
ReplyDeleteWilliam H, you have just made the comment of the year in my opinion. I hope you don't mind if I use it at every opportunity.
DeleteDaniel, I think that this is your best article yet and you have written some cracking articles so far.
ReplyDeleteWell said Daniel. You are most articulate.
ReplyDeletePost a Comment