Two pieces I read last night struck me as particularly worthy of passing along to my readers.
First, Phyllis Chesler:
We must understand that anti-Semitism is an illness – a madness – something evil that is not caused by Jews. We may not be able to appease those who are afflicted with it any more than we can please Hamas or al Qaeda, but we must defend ourselves against it – in every way possible.
But we also must shed our illusions – permanently. We cannot expect that conditions will always improve, or that one country or another will always be a safe haven for Jews.
Next, Yaacov Lozowick:
They’re not good days, these ones. Sure, our descendants will dance on the graves of these hate mongers, if they can find them in the dust, unless they’re distracted by the antisemites of their own generation, but knowing your enemies will fail doesn’t make them more palatable.
One of the things I am often asked is how I can keep on writing this blog in the face of such overwhelming anti-Semitism that seems to just grow and grow and grow again. I started writing about Israel and Jewish issues in the spring of 2002. That’s seven years of reading the hate and the bile. Seven years of watching anti-Semitism go from the fringe to the mainstream. Seven years of blogging uphill, both ways. Phyllis and Yaacov and I all have the same thing, however: Faith. We have faith in the survival of the Jewish people. We have faith in God’s promise to us. In a very short time, Jews all over the world will be reading the same words: “In every generation, they rise against us. But the Holy One, Blessed be He, saves us from their hands.”
Am Yisrael chai.
Thank you for the important work you do!
Not all the battles are fought with weapons, countering the lies and propaganda of the left in the cyber age, is very important too!
I have enjoyed the thought that five hundred years the only people who will remember the murderer and thief Arafat are Jews, who will numnber him as merely one on a list of many who rose against us.
I don’t think the Palestinian people will remember because I doubt that there will be a Palestinian people. They didn’t exist a century ago. They do exist now but what do they have as a peoplehood except rage and hate? I doubt that’s enough, even among Arabs.
I often marvel at your stamina and stomach in the face of the hateful bile that you wade through daily to inform and inspire. I couldn’t do it, and I’m most glad you do.