Archive
07/02/12
The Threatened People
Once upon a seemingly nonexistent time upon time ago, An idealistic Austrian Zionist by the name of Theodor Herzl Designed a divinely ordained solution For the survival of the nineteenth-century Jews of Eastern Europe. He would send them, as first-aliyah halutzim, pioneers, Not to Uganda or Madagascar But to post-Diaspora Arab- and Ottoman-dominated Palestine, Where they might redeem the swamps and rocks, from desolation, Transform the parched desert into lush green valleys, Learn to farm the intractable land, raise crops, To feed a nation busy building — out of ancient dust, With nothing but hopes, visions, faith in miracles — Kibbutzim, tels, cities, creating a Gan Eden where they, The despised sand dwellers, Christ-killers, Shylocks, kikes, Might blossom, as the Chosen, into peace-knowing people, Fulfill the Biblical prophecies God breathed into Avram's dreams.
But it came to pass, in less than a century, That Eretz Israel, the Promised Land, the Canaan of Moses' wandering, Became a catchall, providing shelter for the dispossessed, Those countless displaced survivors of Hitler's death camps, And found itself, as well, under siege, by the British, Who, acting as acrimoniously as the German murderers, Refused to honor their 1917 Balfour Declaration, By refusing to allow Jews to settle in their Palestinian "mandate," Fearing they would stir up hostilities, among the Arab states, Whose oil supplies the Queen's commonwealth needed, at all costs. And even that, as it turned out, would prove trifling, a gnat's bite, Compared with the argumentative arrogance of the Jews themselves, Who would prove to be their own most disagreeable enemies — Hasidim vying with aliyah-making Reform and secular Jews, Over who is and isn't entitled to "right of return" status, Who should and shouldn't be allowed to pray, Be spit upon or have stones cast at them, at the Wailing Wall, Who should and shouldn't be exempt from bearing arms, In defense against their other enemies (Syria, Egypt, Iraq, Iran, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Especially those in their immediate front and backyards — Hezbollah, Palestinian Fatah and Hamas), And finally, who qualifies to be a Jew and who doesn't, All of which threatens the very existence of sovereign Israel, That ancient birthright seeded, deeded, by God, to His people, So long as they might never lose sight of His overriding commandment: "Thou shalt have no other gods before Me." Today, there seems to be a different god for each and every Israeli.
07/02/12
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