What Else Is New?

 A few days ago I viewed the “CAMERA” expose of a flagrantly slanted BBC feature about Israel and the Palestinian Arabs.  The worst part was that when specific complaints were made to the Commission which is supposed to oversee the accuracy of BBC programming, they rejected all of them and unreservedly defended the program.

            So what else is new?

            The BBC is totally anti-Israel and anti-semitic.  So to varying degrees are CNN and the other networks.  We can try to correct them, but we shouldn't hold our breath.  Did you know that the NY Times refused to print Goldstone's op ed, before he offered it to the Washington Post?  So, are you going to cancel your subscription to the Times?  I don't suggest that, just that you take what you read there with a very large grain of salt.

            It is an error to place AIPAC and J Street on the same level.  J Street's support, financial and otherwise, comes from virulently anti-Israel sources.  The fact that there is a veneer of what Lenin called "useful idiots" on its board doesn't alter that.  There have always been Jews who hated Israel, other Jews and probably themselves. We have them in Israel too.  My son Dani just asked for my help in transcribing a tirade of a young, far, far left Israeli who said he would not be restricted in his resistance efforts (code word for terror) by the opinions of antiquated Israeli leftists and progressives.

            There is a French saying: Plus ca change, plus c'est le meme chose.  (The more things change, the more they are the same.) Before and during WW II, the overwhelming majority of countries of the world fell into two categories, those who wanted the Jews dead, and those who didn't want any Jewish refugees in their back yards.  This included Roosevelt's U.S.  For 60 years from 1945, anti-semitism was in bad repute, but now it has made a full recovery.

            So, should we shrivel up and die?  Of course not. G-d forbid we should ever again rely on the tender mercies of the countries of the world, including the U.S.  Golda Meir was once urged by an American President to take risks for peace, and if anything went wrong, the US would rush to Israel's aid.  She answered, "Mr. President, by the time you get there, we may not be there."  We must rely on our own strength.  If the Arabs ever get the chance to do it, they will massacre every last Jewish man, woman, child and baby.  Peace treaties won't matter.  I don't say every Arab will want to do this, but the history of the Arab world in general and the Palestinian Arabs in particular, for the past 100 years or more, shows that the extremists always manage to terrorize the moderates into submission.

            Is the Jewish People worse off now than in the 1930's and 40's.  No, we are better off.  So be optimistic, we will overcome.  In the words of the WW II song, "Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition, and we'll all be free."