Has the World Gone Crazy Again?

If aliens to the Earth have arrived in the last few years gathering intelligence to decide and judge whether the Earth is worth being approached or left to mature, they would likely have some serious questions. Actually, the longer they might have viewed the Earth, they would likely have realized that what is happening is simply an infection which has always led to disastrous results and is flaring once again. This viral infection first showed its ugly hate in Pharaoh’s Egypt, which was soon to have a change in the ruling class. There was the little matter during King David’s rule when the Philistines, when they sacked the sanctuary of Shiloh, captured the Ark of the Covenant. They initially celebrated this great victory only to start to suffer plagues in their capital city. They decided to send the Ark to another city and the ills went with the Ark from city to city until the Philistines returned the Ark to the Israelites along with the proscribed sacrifice for repentance. There was the Purim attempt to murder the Jews of Persia at the crucial point before the decline of Persia before the Greeks. When the Greeks took steps to attempt to destroy the Jewish faith, they were soon destroyed and conquered by the Romans. The Romans probably were the most beneficial in their treatment of the Jews though they did this as a punishment, the scattering of the Jews throughout their empire and even beyond sold as slaves. This was intended to destroy the Jews just as it had the Carthaginians and an unknown number of others who were destroyed and removed from history. But Rome too was doomed to fall just as all who had persecuted their Jews, but Rome’s destruction was slow and painful. More recently there were the two main persecutors, Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia, both presumably gone. The persecution of the Jews has spanned Europe, Africa, Middle East, the Americas, Oceania, and even parts of Asia. For a more accurate view, a survey was performed by the ADL in 2014 with access to a 2015 update showing world antisemitism by continent and links to individual nations (example map below).

Our aforementioned alien would be reporting that apparently the prevailing opinion appears to be that every problem can somehow be traced to Israel eventually. All the violence of the Middle East, Israel is to blame. Worldwide terrorism, Israel is to blame. Even further insanity prevails as anti-Semitism is Israel’s fault as well. Some of the tenuous and strained relationships are used to find some remote reason or historic allegation proves that Israel is at the root of whatever evils are found no matter where they may be in the world, there will be those who blame Israel or possibly just Jews generally. This special virus appears throughout history but there are periods where it starts to spread more deeply and widely throughout large areas of the world. The modern era is the first where this virus can now truly spread worldwide without any limitations, or are there. Were you to ask the average person on the street in any Western nation, they may rate their country as not being particularly anti-Semitic and would probably believe that the United States was amongst the lowest area for anti-Semitism, and that would be a good assessment as the United States had a lower than average at nine-percent, the same as Denmark. But there were others who performed better in the 2014 survey with United Kingdom rating at eight-percent, Vietnam at six-percent, Netherlands at five-percent, Sweden at four-percent, Philippines at three-percent and the lowest rating at next to none is Laos at a mere zero-point-two-percent. We must unfortunately state what many already know, many of these, especially the European nations, have increased drastically in recent years. The reality is that the levels of anti-Semitism worldwide is rising with some regions having unprecedented rise in such hatred since the end of World War II and other regions having lesser increases but still definitively higher levels of anti-Semitism are measured virtually universally. Historically, the rise in anti-Semitism virtually always arises when the world is soon to tip into calamity, violence and rising oppressions. We need to remember that what starts with the Jews, never ends with the Jews. It is as the infamous assessment made by Martin Niemöller, a prominent Lutheran pastor in Germany, who stated the following,

First, they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a socialist.
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out— because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.

 

Despite this truism being well known and that the history of anti-Semitism being on the leading edge of some of the world’s worst periods, the world still has yet to find the means of preventing this malignancy from inflicting the world. Now we see it rearing its ugly head and spreading without much of a care by most of the world where simply ignoring the new version of anti-Semitism, anti-Israelism and anti-Zionism, from spreading throughout our societies.

The most obvious rise of anti-Semitism has been within the Middle East and Europe. There are those who have attempted to blame the influx of refugees from Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, Pakistan and Afghanistan for this rise, but these refugees cannot be blamed for everything. The attempts by numerous nations to outlaw Shechita (Kosher slaughter) and circumcision was performed completely independent from any refugee input. These came strictly from the historic attempts by Christian rulers and governments to attempt to force the Jews residing within their region of control to convert or at least prevent the practice of Judaism. This form of anti-Semitism is so ancient that it can easily be traced to the Romans, ancient Greeks, Persian and Babylonians. There can be no means of describing the laws banning these Torah requirements which all Jews must obey as anything other than anti-Semitism, outright anti-Semitism. Sure, these European countries have modern sounding, politically correct reasons and explanations for these laws, but they are aimed to target the Jews making their lives more problematic or even forcing them to emigrate to a more accepting climate, though the spread of such laws is making less and less nations Jewish friendly.

The latest flurry of anti-Semitic acts and the ensuing refusal of any proper criticism or adverse reactions came from the United States House of Representatives. Ilhan Abdullahi Omar of Minnesota, a Somalian by birth and Rashida Harbi Tlaib of Michigan, of Palestinian descent have made a very big splash than the average freshman Congress-critters. Ms. Omar made the first splash when a history of anti-Semitic tropes of hers were discovered on Twitter and other social media. But her problems did not end there as she doubled down with similar style anti-Semitic comments upon her arrival in the Congress. Not to be outdone, Ms. Tlaib echoed such sentiments with condemnations of Israel as well as the Jewish People. But that is not the worst part of this story, the really pathetic reaction by the Democrat controlled House of Representatives is the story here. And as if that was not enough, there was the pronouncement by the Speaker of the House and leading Democrat, Nancy Pelosi claiming, “I don’t think the congresswoman is anti-Semitic. I wouldn’t even put those in the same category.” And Ms. Pelosi did not leave it there rejecting any allegations of anti-Semitism in the Democratic Party adding when queried, “We have no taint of that.” These worries of signs that anti-Semitism was being normalized began when the Democrats in the House of Representatives were unable to denounce obvious and blatant anti-Semitic comments, statements and positions taken by their two now infamous members who along with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who supports her two fellow freshmen Representatives, have taken the spotlight and appear to be the new face and the future for the Democrat Party. Of course, the Jewish Representatives are all apparently too focused on the evils machinations they portend they will soon unravel from the Trump campaign and the Russia connection which they are so desperate to produce. None of these other events have even made a blip on their radar, though they had to have noticed the debate over whether or not to denounce anti-Semitism, which they did placing anti-Semitism at the tailing end of their list of other forms of hatred including Islamophobia. The refusal to report, sanction or otherwise notice the new Judeophobia (anti-Semitism) within their party is frightening, but not the most frightening of items.

There is one last item concerning the spreading Judeophobia which is positively frightening, and that is the lack of concern amongst the Jews in the Democrat Party. If one were to poll Jewish Democrats as to the Judeophobia sprouting within their party and its turning against Israel making supporting Israel into a partisan political position, you would likely find well over ninety percent would feign or actually honestly claim that they do not know what it is you are referencing. They will claim that they will continue to support the Democrat Party, continue to vote for Democrat candidates, continue to donate to Democrat political candidates and donate to the general Democrat funding. For them, they can see no wrong, hear no wrong and will speak no wrong about their precious Democrat Party. Their defense if one proves that there is a Judeophobic stripe running through their beloved Democrat Party, they will point out that it is not coming from their Representative. Then you also point out that their oh-so-wonderful Representative also made little or no effort to push for a letter actually condemning those who were practicing Judeophobia and instead simply caved to a general statement against hatred. Well, who actually is not against hatred other than those who actually hate, and even these often are unaware that what they repeat is hate or simply stating facts. This is most often the defense the Judeophobe will employ, that they are simply stating well understood facts which they have been told about all their lives. This was definitively the weak apology from Ms. Omar and Tlaib.

The rising levels of Judeophobia have reached epidemic proportions in the Middle East and Northern Africa and threatens to do similarly in many regions within Europe and throughout the Western World. As this pandemic Judeophobia continues unabated, it may have the unintended effect of doubling the Jewish population of Israel as Jews flee the coming persecution. Unfortunately, the most likely result will be about twenty-percent of Jews in afflicted regions making Aliyah or leaving to friendlier climes, which eventually will be Israel as there will be no other friendlier region left, and the remainder wondering what is happening when the Judeophobia reaches its ultimate form. The one positive in this situation is that there is someplace where every Jew will be accepted providing them with a place of last refuge. This is the reason and hope which Israel provides the Jewish People, a safe harbor in a far less than friendly world. We can only pray that all the Jews will find their desire for such refuge long before they have no other choice as it will make their transition more tranquil than coming with thousands of other Jewish refugees who have been stripped of all wealth and left for Israel to come and retrieve them before something unthinkable should be enacted. Israel absorbed closing in on eight-hundred-fifty-thousand Arab Jews evicted from their homes, many of which were hundreds if not thousands of years of their family residing in these lands, across the Arab and Muslim worlds. Israel went and brought the Ethiopian Jews and is in the process of approving more to be brought to Israel and also brought many sects of Jews from India and every corner of the globe. Israel stands ready to accept and provide a home for any Jew in need of rescue. We pray that no Jews are held hostage for ransom, as such would be tragic and set a horrific precedence. Judeophobia is a viral disease which becomes a world plague periodically and almost always is the precedence for some horrible upheavals of human history. Judeophobia is a warning signal that the train is about to leave the tracks if remedial actions are not taken to address the onset of this affliction before it becomes irreversible. The initial signs are that this will be yet another time the warning signs are to be ignored and the world turns itself inside-out all because when they came for the Jews, nobody cared as the Jews are an insignificant group of no concern to those who are not Jewish. History had proven this to be one of the worst positions taken repeatedly and apparently, we have not learned from our past. That brings us to a closing quote from George Santayana, “Progress, far from consisting in change, depends on retentiveness. When change is absolute there remains no being to improve and no direction is set for possible improvement: and when experience is not retained, as among savages, infancy is perpetual. Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”

Beyond the Cusp