Daphne Anson: A French Oleh on Israel's Miracle & What Europe Might Learn from it

Eretz Israel is our unforgettable historic homeland...The Jews who will it shall achieve their State...And whatever we attempt there for our own benefit will redound mightily and beneficially to the good of all mankind. (Theodor Herzl, DerJudenstaat, 1896)

We offer peace and amity to all the neighbouring states and their peoples, and invite them to cooperate with the independent Jewish nation for the common good of all. The State of Israel is ready to contribute its full share to the peaceful progress and development of the Middle East. (From Proclamation of the State of Israel, 5 Iyar 5708; 14 May 1948)

With a liberal democratic political system operating under the rule of law, a flourishing market economy producing technological innovation to the benefit of the wider world, and a population as educated and cultured as anywhere in Europe or North America, Israel is a normal Western country with a right to be treated as such in the community of nations.... For the global jihad, Israel may be the first objective. But it will not be the last. (Friends of Israel Initiative)

Sunday, 7 May 2017

A French Oleh on Israel's Miracle & What Europe Might Learn from it

Coincidentally yet not inappropriately on the day France goes to the polls, here's a guest blog by French oleh Jean Vercors.

I've added the emphasis (bold font), on his text and below.

Writes Jean Vercors:

'On the evening of Monday, May 1st, we celebrated Yom Ha'atzmaut, the 69th anniversary of the State of Israel. The return of the Jewish people to its ancestral land is a real miracle; it regains its sovereignty in Israel on May 14, 1948, the 5th Iyar of the year 5708 of the Hebrew calendar.

Surprisingly, the month of Iyar is the only month that bears a Hebrew name, the other months being Aramaic.

The Book of Kings calls it ziv (1 Kings 6: 1 and 6:37), or "shine," for it is the moment when the trees shine with all their "splendor" (Rashi and Radaq).

According to Rabbi Yehoshua, the patriarchs Abraham and Jacob were born during the month of Nissan, which brought new light to the world (in Hebrew zohar, ziv in Aramaic). And it was the following month, that of iyar, which first benefited from this new era of light following their coming into the world (Rosh hashana 11a).

The miracle began with the Lovers of Zion (Hebrew: בבובבי ציון, Hovevei Tsion), a popular, social and national Jewish movement that was active between the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century and aimed at renewal from the people of Israel, through the return to Zion and the reconstruction of their homeland.

Then it was successive Aliyot (to ascend) that built the nation and made the new desert become the start-up nation, where 20 per cent of the foreign companies listed at the NASDAQ are Israelis.

Another miracle.

According to the essence and faith, to the people, to the return of its natural state and to the definition of the Maharal of Prague, the normality of a people must meet three conditions:

1-He must live on his land,
2-Free and independent,
3-Together in non-dispersed.

The prophet Ezekiel (chapter 28):

"'This is what the Sovereign Lord says: When I gather the people of Israel from the nations where they have been scattered, I will be proved holy through them in the sight of the nations. Then they will live in their own land, which I gave to my servant Jacob. They will live there in safety, they will build houses and plant vines."

Indeed, there is a great mitzvah to inhabit the land of Israel. According to Rashi and Rambam, this is a mitzvah of the Torah, the Torah is Zionist, and Hashem is Zionist.

Since the end of the 19th century, it has been a series of miracles. Despite a hostile and chaotic neighborhood, Israel continues to grow. It's great to be a free and independent country for 69 years.

The Jewish national calendar of Israel is embellished with new festivals that Israel has placed at the center of its national Jewish consciousness and which define the most important moments of the year of Israeli society.

Yom Hashoah (Holocaust Memorial Day), Yom Hazikaron (Day of Remembrance of Fallen Soldiers and Victims of Terrorism) and Yom Ha'atzmaut (Independence Day) celebrate the celebrations in a single week.

Independence Day is a celebration of the renewal of the Jewish state on the land of Israel, the birthplace of the Jewish people.

In the land, the Jewish people began to develop its distinctive religion and culture some 4,000 years ago, and little is known about it, has retained an unbroken physical presence there, for centuries as a sovereign state, as formerly under domination Foreign exchange.

Throughout its long history, the desire to return to its land has been at the center of Jewish life.

Theodor Herzl, leader and founder of the Zionist movement, kindled international recognition for the need for a Jewish state.

Since its creation, Israel continues to be a homeland for the thousands of people who come to live there each year. All its citizens enjoy the same democratic rights delimited by the Declaration of Independence of the State of Israel.

Despite terrorist attacks and threats of war, Israel creates and innovates every day in every field, whether medical, scientific, or high-tech.

The small agricultural nation that declared its independence 69 years ago is today a superpower, the 8th largest in the world, a world leader in the fields of biotechnology, the environment, and very present in the field of culture And art.

On Yom Ha'atzmaut we express our political independence and our security.

As Rav Kook has stated, Jewish nationalism does not depend on the state; The basis of our nationality is our spiritual holiness. He writes :

"There are righteous people, philosophers, and holy men in the world, but there is no nation whose inherent soul can be fulfilled only by the purpose of the divine plan in the world - other than Israel.

Individuals are everywhere, but an entire nation that represents G-d does not exist. It is our uniqueness.

Since the days of the Hasmoneans (Greek Domination, 32 to -142), for nearly 70 generations, until the liberation of part of the land of our ancestors in our war of independence and the restoration of a Jewish state within its borders, no new holiday has been added to our annual cycle of joyful days.

The return of Israel to the land of his ancestors is predicted in the Bible: 'Hashem Your Lord shall bring you into the land which your fathers have possessed, and ye shall possess it "(Deut. 30: 5).

In other words, on the day of Yom Ha'atzmaut, I must not only remember the past, but I must strengthen my present with the same energy that is renewed in the universe at this precise moment.

That is, to strengthen my roots with my land, my people, my Torah and myself.

This is the true meaning of Yom Ha’atzmaut following Yom Hashoah and Yom Hazikaron. He redefines Israel as a family that weeps together, and by remembering the price we paid to be free Jews, it redefines the meaning of Israel.

A people decimated by the Nazi Final Solution experienced a sovereign regeneration only three years after the Holocaust. A nation facing a war of extinction from the very first day of its creation - and relentlessly thereafter with more wars, waves of terrorism, economic boycotts, incitement to mortal frenzy, its legitimacy - and never gave up or surrendered.

Despite the ever-present threats, the Israelis have embraced life to the fullest, have not succumbed to a siege mentality, nor lost the aspiration for lasting peace and normality.

When we turn to Yom Ha'atzmaout, we do it with a deep sense of responsibility. Our country was not given to us on a silver platter.

Israel must be the one who remembers, and through this memory he constantly commands himself to be worthy of the price we have paid. It is a memory that obliges us to embrace life and challenges us to live it to the fullest, to build lives individually and collectively. This is Israel's task. It is the legacy of our past and the challenge of our future.

Through courage, inspiration, sacrifice and innovation, and the challenge of every chance, the Israelis built a remarkable country in their ancestral home.

Again, the work is incomplete and the challenges are many.

But in 69 years, the Israelis proved strongly that Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion was right when he said: "In Israel, to be realistic, you have to believe in miracles."

Regardless of how you feel about Israel as a nation, or the Arab-Israeli conflict, it is not possible to deny that Europe has much to learn from our successes.

By resisting the cultural Marxism and Islamization that have seized a large part of humanity, Israel has given itself a strong chance of survival. The very young Europe and its young people would do well to imitate what Israel and its very old people do if they hope to survive.

Their fate is in great danger while that of the Jewish people continues its way intact.'

I don't know Monsieur Vercors's views on the current French presidential contest, but I do know that if Emmanuel Macron truly believes in "Open Borders" then he is dooming his country to a bleak future, as indicated in my previous post.

Here's another searing indictment of Macron, in summary.

France: Emmanuel Macron, Useful Idiot of Islamism by Yves Mamou • May 7, 2017 at 1:30 am

Emmanuel Macron, a "Useful Infidel," is not a supporter of terrorism or Islamism. It is worse: he does not even see the threat.

Louizi's article gave names and dates, explaining how Macron's political movement has largely been infiltrated by Muslim Brotherhood militants.

Is Macron an open promoter of Islamism in France? It is more politically correct to say that he is a "globalist" and an "open promoter of multiculturalism". As such, he does not consider Islamism a national threat because the French nation, or, as he has said, French culture, does not really exist.

Read the full article here

And here's an incisive analysis of what ails Europe's leaders today. Not that it's fair to blame Europe's seemingly inexorable plunge into the destructive vortex solely on childless politicians.

There are plenty of childless people, including some of the best and most courageous political pundits (a number of whom are openly gay), who fear as much as any parent worried for their children's future the creeping islamisation of the European continent.

It's not necessary to have children to dread an Islamic future for one's country or continent. What is necessary is to recognise the superiority of Western civilisation and of Judeo-Christian values over benightedness and barbarity, and to see society as a social contract between past, present and future.

The enablers of population replacement and islamisation are not only betraying the next generation and those that come after it; they are betraying their ancestors and themselves.

Europe's Childless Leaders Sleepwalking Us to Disaster by Giulio Meotti • May 6, 2017 at 5:00 am

As Europe's leaders have no children, they seem have no reason to worry about the future of their continent.

"Europe today has little desire to reproduce itself, fight for itself or even take its own side in an argument". — Douglas Murray, The Times.

"Finding ourselves' becomes more important than building a world." — Joshua Mitchell.

Read the full article here

Update:

1 comment:

Empress Trudy8 May 2017 at 08:43
In France the didn't vote for the state sponsored pogrom and chose instead the government that will just stand aside and let others do it. I suspect that France's 'youngest leader since Napoleon' will usher in more or less the same results as Napoleon. But at least Napoleon emancipated the Jews. Macron will simply liberate them out of the country or to the grave.
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'For as long as these antisemites wrap themselves up in the Palestinian flag, too many people are willing to turn a blind eye. Only against Jews is this type of racism openly tolerated. It is flourishing in schools, colleges, universities, unions and in city councils. In fact, so rampant is the disease now, in some settings you can be ostracised if you do not partake in the frenzy yourself. Bashing Jews has becomes a trendy position for the ignorant social justice warrior. "Palestinianism" is a viral "ponzi scheme" and as it spreads, it carries antisemitism in the undergrowth.' David Collier (2017)

'This new rise in antisemitism, which I had thought long dead, was not shaven-headed white imbeciles from the far right. It was Muslims, a large chunk of it.... Suddenly I grasped that the British far left didn’t want people to know about antisemitism because it pointed the finger at people they really, really liked. From that moment on, it all fell into place.... Time and again the same tropes emerged, the same sort of stuff that Streicher and Goebbels would have commended – and uttered.... And from that a whole bunch of other stuff emerged: the old blood libel business (a favourite of the repulsive Jenny Tonge).... Nice, avuncular, Jeremy Corbyn, with his peace badges, happily laying a wreath at the graveside of Palestinian terrorists who murdered innocent Jewish athletes, oh, and much much more.... It is the same antisemitism, exactly the same: the obsession with Israel to the exclusion of everything else, the conspiracy theory paranoias, the derangement.... Here’s the test – if you cannot see the flagrant racism in the BDS movement, and if you are obsessed with the perfidy of the Middle East’s only democracy to the exclusion of all else, you are an antisemite. That means a good proportion of the Labour Party, including the leader, and almost all of Momentum: no brown shirts, no marching bands, but the same old filth, dressed in the clothes of a polytechnic geography lecturer.'
Rod Liddle (2018)

'Before the June 1967 Six Day War, there were no such things as "settlements". Palestinians were trying to destroy and displace Israel anyhow. The core problem is not, and never was, "settlements," but the right of Israel (or any non-Muslim nation) to exist inside any borders in that part of the world.
If you take a stand that is based on a lie, then that stand cannot succeed. If you try to oppose antisemitism but pretend it is the same thing as "Islamophobia," then the structure on which you have made your stand will totter and all your aspirations will fail. If you try to make a stand based on the idea that settlement construction rather than the intransigence of the Palestinians to the existence of a Jewish state is what is holding up a peace deal, then facts will keep on intruding.' Douglas Murray (31 December 2016)
https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/9685/britain-little-lies

'Islamophobia does NOT come from the same wellspring of hatred as antisemitism. Antisemitism is a true prejudice because the hatred and demonisation it promotes derive entirely from lies and a repudiation of rationality itself.
Islamophobia is a false allegation of prejudice which is deployed to silence rational criticism based on actual facts about attitudes and practices within the Islamic world.
[L]ethally compromised even-handedness is to misunderstand, and thus minimise, antisemitic attitudes and behaviour while shutting down legitimate and necessary discussion of the threat from the Islamic world – even to demonise as “Islamophobic” anyone who draws attention to the extent and consequences of Muslim antisemitism.' Melanie Phillips (14 December 2016)

Jews have re-assumed the role of the canary in the mine and are the first to be targeted, but the world would face the same threat if Jews did not exist. Israel has been at the front lines confronting Islamic extremism but has received scant support... For Jews, the writing has been on the wall for a long time. The virulence of the antisemitic hatred closing in on Jews in Europe (and elsewhere) is horrifying...
Europe is today facing a crisis as serious as the confrontation with Nazism. If Western leaders continue behaving like Chamberlain and fail to stand up to this global threat, it could usher in a new Dark Age in which the Judeo-Christian culture is subsumed by primitive barbarism. The writing is on the wall Isi Leibler (12 January 2015)

Expose The Lies!

There is a war of lies and deceit on the internet generating unbelievable hate by denigrating and delegitimising the legal rights conferred on the Jewish people by the League of Nations in 1922 and the United Nations in 1945. The idea that there are two narratives on the Arab-Jewish conflict is rubbish. There is only one – the factual truth that details the return of the Jewish people to reconstitute the Jewish National Home in its ancient biblical, ancestral and historic homeland after 3500 years of dispersion with the unanimous endorsement of the nation states then comprising the League of Nations.... Generals can’t fight a war without soldiers. Jews around the world need to join the fight or vacate the internet to the Jew-haters and their lies that repeated often enough eventually become accepted as truth. David Singer (2016)

The "Apartheid" Slur

The division of Judea and Samaria (West Bank) into three separate areas “A”, “B” and “C” was agreed on by Israel and the PLO pursuant to the Oslo Accords.
95% of the West Bank Arabs live in Areas A and B and their daily lives are under the total administration and control of the PLO since the Palestinian Authority was disbanded by Abbas in January 2013. The PLO has total security control in A and shares security control in B with Israel. Israel has total administrative and security control in C.
Israel is entitled to and will continue to take responsibility for the security of Jews living in the West Bank.
Jews were given the legal right to settle in the West Bank under article 6 of the Mandate for Palestine and article 80 of the UN Charter. They did so for decades until they were driven out in 1947 and not able to return there until 1967.
There are Arab roads only in the West Bank that Jews are not allowed to use. Jews are also forbidden from entering Area “A”. Selling land to Jews is forbidden by the PLO under pain of death. The PLO runs the daily lives of 95% of the West Bank Arabs and Hamas runs the daily lives of 100% of the Gazan Arabs. They have been under occupation – and subjugation – by these two evil groups for the last ten years and given no say in their future or any opportunity to elect others to lead them following the disastrous political decisions of their leaders over the past ten years. Hamas and the PLO do not accept the continued existence of a Jewish State and call for its disappearance.
The narratives did not begin in 1948 – they began in about 1917. How do you make peace with an enemy that has been obsessed with not recognising any Jewish national rights in former Palestine for the last 100 years? David Singer (2016)

The Jews of the Holy Land ... are surrounded by hostile states 650 times their territory and sixty times their population. Yet their last, best hope of ending two millennia of international persecution - the State of Israel - has somehow survived. When, during the Second World War, the island of Malta came through three terrible years of bombardment and destruction, it was rightly awarded the George Cross for bravery. Today, Israel should be awarded a similar decoration for defending democracy, tolerance and Western values against a murderous onslaught that has lasted twenty times as long. Andrew Roberts (historian)

Israel is understandably obsessed with security, but its greatest security lies ultimately not in the Israeli Defence Forces, but in political warfare.... Most of the world is not deeply interested in what happens in Israel, and probably does not want to be deluged with legalistic defences of particular actions. What it wants is a clear, calm, repeated case. It is a case – aimed more at public opinion than at foreign ministries – about freedom, democracy, a Western way of life and the need for the whole of the free world to fight terrorism. Sometimes you hear Israelis say: “It doesn’t matter what we say. The whole world is against us.” You can see why they say it, for they are indeed unfairly treated. But when they say it, they are uttering a self-fulfilling prophecy. If they won’t say what needs saying, no one else will say it for them. Charles Moore (2010)

Once again the armies of the Arab nations are coordinating their military efforts to destroy Israel - whatever they say about wishing merely to regain the lost territories.... [I]f the present Arab offensive had been launched at the pre-1967 frontiers, then the Israelis would indeed have been fighting to avoid annihilation. It seems now that the Israelis were right to maintain the ceasefire lines gained in 1967, and that to do so is the only guarantee of their continued safety.
Alan Sillitoe (The Times, 11 October 1973)

Iran and ISIS are competing for the crown of militant Islam... In this deadly game of thrones, there’s no place for America or for Israel, no place for Christians, Jews or Muslims who don’t share the Islamist medieval creed, no rights for women, no freedom for anyone... [T]he greatest danger facing our world is the marriage of militant Islam with nuclear weapons. To defeat ISIS and let Iran get nuclear weapons would be to win the battle, but lose the war. We can’t let that happen...[T]he days when the Jewish people remained passive in the face of genocidal enemies, those days are over. We are no longer scattered among the nations, powerless to defend ourselves. We restored our sovereignty in our ancient home. And the soldiers who defend our home have boundless courage. For the first time in 100 generations, we, the Jewish people, can defend ourselves....Even if Israel has to stand alone, Israel will stand. But ... I know that America stands with Israel... You stand with Israel, because you know that the story of Israel is not only the story of the Jewish people but of the human spirit that refuses again and again to succumb to history’s horrors. Bibi Netanyahu (12 Adar 5775; 3 March 2015)

The Jews are a peculiar people: things permitted to other nations are forbidden to the Jews. Other nations drive out thousands, even millions, of people, and there is no refugee problem.... [N]o one says a word about refugees. But in the case of Israel displaced Arabs have become eternal refugees.... Other nations - when they are defeated - survive and recover, but should Israel be defeated it would be destroyed.... [A]s it goes with Israel, so it will go with all of us. Should Israel perish the holocaust will be upon us. Eric Hoffer (1968)

Most of the present Arab countries were given their freedom after the 1914-18 War, or after the 1939-45 War.... Yet to listen to Arab spokesmen one might think that they had been cheated ... because they have not also got Israel. Israel is only .2 per cent of the land where Arab States have been established. Surely no fair-minded man can begrudge the Jews their own promised land when it is remembered that for every 2 acres that went to make up Israel, 1,000 acres became Arab.... Why is there an Arab refugee problem? The oil-rich countries have the money. There is no shortage of land, and the Israelis have the technical knowledge to show how it could be developed and made fertile. Bring those things together and the problem could be solved. 3rd Earl of Balfour (1968)

January 7, 2015 has already its place in the history of infamy, but also will be the date when the defenders of freedom and democracy will rise and pay tribute to those who died for their freedom and ours. Therefore, we must not forget on which side we are and who are our allies in the defense of the West and its values. Whether we admit it or not, the West is at war with an enemy who will not stop to destroy us...
The State of Israel boasts a commandment that, in one of the darkest hours in the fight for liberty Winston Churchill taught: "Never give up". Israel has proven to be a key ally in the fight against Islamism and also an example of how a liberal democracy can resist the jihadist stake and thrive as a Western nation ... Not only France but also all the West should look to Israel to defeat Islamism...
friendsofisraelinitiative.org

[I]t’s impossible to believe that an active antisemite wouldn’t – if only opportunistically – seek out somewhere to nestle in the manifold pleats of Israel-bashing, whether in generally diffuse anti-Zionism, or in more specific Boycott and Divestment Campaigns, Israeli Apartheid Weeks, End the Occupation movements and the like....[T]ell me that not a single Jew-hater finds the activity congenial, that criticising Israel can “never” be an expression of Jew-hating, not even when it takes the form of accusing Israeli soldiers of harvesting organs... Howard Jacobson (The Independent, 27 May 2013)

For Western countries to side with those who question Israel's legitimacy, for them to play games in international bodies with Israel's vital security issues, for them to appease those who oppose Western values, rather than robustly to stand up in defence of those values, is not only a grave moral mistake, but a strategic error of the first magnitude. Israel is a fundamental part of the West. The West is what it is thanks to its Judeo-Christian roots. If the Jewish element of those roots is lost and Israel is lost, then we are lost too. Jose Maria Aznar

Israel is, for us, a normal and a special country. A normal country, because it is just like any other democracy. A special country, because the Jewish culture, which eventually became the Judeo-Christian culture of the dignity of man, is the conceptual foundation of liberalism and democracy. This is why attacking Israel is tantamount to attacking Europe and the West. This is also why disputing Israel's legitimacy and its right to existence means questioning democracy. And this is why we are Friends of Israel. By defending Israel, we are defending ourselves. Marcello Pera

Israel ... is beset today by a unique combination of threats. It must defend its people from attack while defending its very right to exist. No other nation in the world faces this dual challenge. To deny Israel's right to confront some of the world's most vicious terrorist groups in order to ensure the safety of its citizens is to corrode international norms from within ... The assault on Israel is one part of a more general assault on the West, on democracy, and on the moral and cultural heritage that grew from the fruitful interaction of Jerusalem, Athens, and Rome ... Should these efforts succeed, similar efforts will certainly be turned against other western democracies. George Weigel

Apart from America itself, Israel still stands as the world's brightest model of national self-liberation based on ideals of individual responsibility and human freedom. Israel's ability to withstand Arab attempts to destroy it in one of the longest and most lop-sided wars ever fought serves as an indelible testimony to the strength of democratic culture.... We know from the past that the West paid dearly for ignoring Hitler's war against the Jews. One can only hope it will not pay as dearly for having ignored or underestimated for so long the Arab war against Israel and the Jews. Ruth Wisse

I am duty-bound to defend freedom, culture, peaceful coexistence, the civic education of children, and all the principles that the Tablets of the Law have rendered universal. Principles which Islamic fundamentalism systematically destroys. This means that, since I am a Gentile, a journalist and a leftist, I have a triple moral commitment to Israel. Because, if Israel were to be vanquished, modernity, culture and freedom would also be crushed. Even though the world has failed to wake up to this fact, Israel's struggle is the world's struggle. Pilar Rahola

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