"No Empire Has Ever Defeated the Jewish People, and No Force, However Dark, Ever Will"

Britain's former Chief Rabbi, Lord Sacks, on the longest hatred:

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MIoZvHU3wwg
 

"As we approach Yom HaShoah, the day in the Jewish calendar when we remember the victims of the Holocaust, we tragically continue to see levels of antisemitism and antisemitic attacks rising in countries all over the world. Over the past year or so, working with White Animation, I have produced a mini-series of three short animated videos which seek to explain several aspects of the worrying and dangerous return of antisemitism. 
The first video looks at why antisemitism is a virus, how it has mutated over time and why its return today presents a danger not just for Jews, but for all who care about our common humanity. The second video explains what lies beneath the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign, why it is so dangerous, and why Jews, people of all faiths and of none and all those who value a free society must stand up against it. 
This video explores the connection between Jews as a people, Judaism as a religion, and Israel as a state. It also shows how this connection is intrinsic to the link between antisemitism and anti-Zionism; something too often overlooked or misunderstood. 
You can watch and read the transcripts of these three videos here: https://bit.ly/2VvWZfN. Please help publicise them as widely as possible because these are messages the world needs to hear. Whatever the threats we face, we are, and have always been, proud to be Jewish and to live as Jews. Throughout history, many have tried to attack us or challenge our beliefs and way of life. And yet, throughout the generations, no empire has ever defeated the Jewish people, and no force, however dark, ever will. Am Yisrael Chai. The Jewish people lives."

Bibi: "The Land of Our Common Heritage"

Former Chief Rabbi Lord Sacks on the erosion in Britain (he could be writing of plenty of places elsewhere) of the Judeo-Christian moral code:

'You cannot have a society without a shared moral code....

We have begun a journey down to the road to moral relativism and individualism, which no society in history has survived for long. It was the road taken in Greece in the third pre-Christian century and Rome in the first century CE: two great civilizations that shortly thereafter declined and died. Britain has begun along the same trajectory, and it is bad news for our children, and for our grandchildren worse still.

Some elements of morality are universal: justice-as-fairness and the avoidance of inflicting harm. But others are particular. They are what give a country and culture its colour, its distinctive handwriting in the book of life. The Britain I grew up in had extraordinary values and virtues. It honoured tradition but was open to innovation. It valued family and community but also left space for eccentricity and individuality....

I was a Jew and Britain was a Christian country, but it wore its religion lightly and its embrace was inclusive and warm. Generations of Jews who came here fleeing persecution elsewhere saw these virtues as wondrous, as something deeper and stronger than mere abstract tolerance, and wanted us, their children, to acquire them. For them and for us Britain was not just where we were but a vital part of who we were....'

Here's something the Israel-haters and Chrislam propagandists would rather ignore.

"To understand the severity of the situation, let us recall that in the 1950s about 86 per cent of the population of the Bethlehem area was Christian. Today, we are only 12 per cent. In Israel, by contrast, we have 133,000 Christians and the figure is stable. Of course, I am worried about the future of Christians here.... I fear the day will come when our churches will become museums.  Is my nightmare."

The speaker is Palestinian Christian Samir Qumsieh, quoted in a must-read article on the plight of Palestinian Christians by Khaled Abu Toameh here.

Bibi Netanyahu:

"To all of our Christian friends around the world, Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!I send you these greetings from Jerusalem. I'm standing in the courtyard of this magnificent International Christian Embassy. I'm so proud of our relations with our Christian brothers and sisters. I wonder for many of you if you remember the experience you had when you first visited Israel, when you saw the Church of the Holy Sepulchre or the Via Dolorosa or the Sea of Galilee or Nazareth. I'm sure it moved you deeply.

And it moves us deeply to have this bond with you because we all know that this land of Israel is the land of our common heritage. It changed the story of humanity, it changed civilization. What a magnificent heritage it is. Yet, we also know that it is under attack these days, that the forces of intolerance, of barbarism that attack all religions attack Christians with particular vehemence. We stand with you and I'm proud of the fact that in Israel, this is the one place in the Middle East that the Christian community not only survives but thrives and it's no accident. It’s because of our commitment to religious freedom; it's because of our embrace of our heritage; it's because of our embrace of our common future.So please come to Israel. Come and visit me, I'm waiting for you. It will be a great experience for you.

Merry Christmas, Happy New Year!"

Bibi says:

"Israelis deeply appreciate one of the great pillars of the US-Israel alliance: the willingness over many years of the US to stand up in the UN and veto anti-Israel resolutions.

I hope the US won't abandon this policy; I hope it will abide by the principles set by President Obama himself in his speech in the UN in 2011: That peace will come not through UN resolutions, but only through direct negotiations between the parties.

And that's why this proposed resolution is bad. It's bad for Israel; it's bad for the United States; and it's bad for peace."

Lord Sacks: "Anti-Zionism is the Antisemitism of our Time" (video)

On 26 September former Chief Rabbi Lord Sacks delivered this magnificent keynote address entitled  'The Mutating Virus: Understanding Antisemitism" at the start of a conference on the future of Jewish communities in Europe hosted by Martin Schulz, President of the European Parliament. .

"Antisemitism is not about Jews. It is about antisemites. It is about people who cannot accept responsibility for their own failures and have instead to blame someone else....

The appearance of antisemitism in a culture is the first symptom of a disease, the early warning sign of collective breakdown. If Europe allows antisemitism to flourish, that will be the beginning of the end of Europe. And what I want to do in these brief remarks is simply to analyze a phenomenon full of vagueness and ambiguity, because we need precision and understanding to know what antisemitism is, why it happens, why antisemites are convinced that they are not antisemitic.

First let me define antisemitism. Not liking Jews is not antisemitism. We all have people we don’t like. That’s OK; that’s human; it isn’t dangerous. Second, criticizing Israel is not antisemitism.

 I was recently talking to some schoolchildren and they asked me: is criticizing Israel antisemitism? I said No and I explained the difference. I asked them: Do you believe you have a right to criticize the British government? They all put up their hands.

 Then I asked, Which of you believes that Britain has no right to exist? No one put up their hands. Now you know the difference, I said, and they all did....

 The new antisemitism has mutated so that any practitioner of it can deny that he or she is an antisemite. After all, they’ll say, I’m not a racist. I have no problem with Jews or Judaism. I only have a problem with the State of Israel. But in a world of 56 Muslim nations and 103 Christian ones, there is only one Jewish state, Israel, which constitutes one-quarter of one per cent of the land mass of the Middle East. Israel is the only one of the 193 member nations of the United Nations that has its right to exist regularly challenged, with one state, Iran, and many, many other groups, committed to its destruction.

Antisemitism means denying the right of Jews to exist as Jews with the same rights as everyone else. The form this takes today is anti-Zionism.

 Of course, there is a difference between Zionism and Judaism, and between Jews and Israelis, but this difference does not exist for the new antisemites themselves. It was Jews not Israelis who were murdered in terrorist attacks in Toulouse, Paris, Brussels and Copenhagen.

 Anti-Zionism is the antisemitism of our time. [Emphasis added, here and below]

In the Middle Ages Jews were accused of poisoning wells, spreading the plague, and killing Christian children to use their blood. In Nazi Germany they were accused of controlling both capitalist America and communist Russia.

 Today they are accused of running ISIS as well as America. All the old myths have been recycled, from the Blood Libel to the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. The cartoons that flood the Middle East are clones of those published in Der Sturmer one of the primary vehicles of Nazi propaganda between 1923 and 1945.

The ultimate weapon of the new antisemitism is dazzling in its simplicity. It goes like this.

 The Holocaust must never happen again. But Israelis are the new Nazis; the Palestinians are the new Jews; all Jews are Zionists. Therefore the real antisemites of our time are none other than the Jews themselves.

 And these are not marginal views. They are widespread throughout the Muslim world, including communities in Europe, and they are slowly infecting the far left, the far right, academic circles, unions, and even some churches.

 Having cured itself of the virus of antisemitism, Europe is being reinfected by parts of the world that never went through the self-reckoning that Europe undertook once the facts of the Holocaust became known.

How do such absurdities come to be believed? This is a vast and complex subject, and I have written a book about it, but the simplest explanation is this. When bad things happen to a group, its members can ask one of two questions: “What did we do wrong?” or “Who did this to us?” The entire fate of the group will depend on which it chooses.

If it asks, “What did we do wrong?” it has begun the self-criticism essential to a free society. If it asks, “Who did this to us?” it has defined itself as a victim. It will then seek a scapegoat to blame for all its problems. Classically this has been the Jews.

Antisemitism is a form of cognitive failure, and it happens when groups feel that their world is spinning out of control. It began in the Middle Ages, when Christians saw that Islam had defeated them in places they regarded as their own, especially Jerusalem. That was when, in 1096, on their way to the Holy Land, the Crusaders stopped first to massacre Jewish communities in Northern Europe. It was born in the Middle East in the 1920s with the collapse of the Ottoman Empire. Antisemitism re-emerged in Europe in the 1870s during a period of economic recession and resurgent nationalism.

 And it is re-appearing in Europe now for the same reasons: recession, nationalism, and a backlash against immigrants and other minorities. Antisemitism happens when the politics of hope gives way to the politics of fear, which quickly becomes the politics of hate.

This then reduces complex problems to simplicities. It divides the world into black and white, seeing all the fault on one side and all the victimhood on the other. It singles out one group among a hundred offenders for the blame. The argument is always the same. We are innocent; they are guilty. It follows that if we are to be free, they, the Jews or the state of Israel, must be destroyed. That is how the great crimes begin.

Jews were hated because they were different. They were the most conspicuous non-Christian minority in a Christian Europe. Today they are the most conspicuous non-Muslim presence in an Islamic Middle East. Antisemitism has always been about the inability of a group to make space for difference. No group that adopts it will ever, can ever, create a free society.

So I end where I began. The hate that begins with Jews never ends with Jews. Antisemitism is only secondarily about Jews. Primarily it is about the failure of groups to accept responsibility for their own failures, and to build their own future by their own endeavours. No society that has fostered antisemitism has ever sustained liberty or human rights or religious freedom. Every society driven by hate begins by seeking to destroy its enemies, but ends by destroying itself.

Europe today is not fundamentally antisemitic. But it has allowed antisemitism to enter via the new electronic media. It has failed to recognize that the new antisemitism is different from the old.

 We are not today back in the 1930s. But we are coming close to 1879, when Wilhelm Marr founded the League of Anti-Semites in Germany; to 1886 when Édouard Drumont published La France Juive; and 1897 when Karl Lueger became Mayor of Vienna.

 These were key moments in the spread of antisemitism, and all we have to do today is to remember that what was said then about Jews is being said today about the Jewish State.

The history of Jews in Europe has not always been a happy one. Europe’s treatment of the Jews added certain words to the human vocabulary: disputation, forced conversion, inquisition, expulsion, auto da fe, ghetto, pogrom and Holocaust, words written in Jewish tears and Jewish blood. Yet for all that, Jews loved Europe and contributed to it some of its greatest scientists, writers, academics, musicians, shapers of the modern mind.

If Europe lets itself be dragged down that road again, this will be the story told in times to come. First they came for the Jews. Then for the Christians. Then for the gays. Then for the atheists. Until there was nothing left of Europe’s soul but a distant, fading memory.

Today I have tried to give voice to those who have no voice. I have spoken on behalf of the murdered Roma, Sinti, gays, dissidents, the mentally and physically handicapped, and a million and a half Jewish children murdered because of their grandparents’ religion. In their name, I say to you: You know where the road ends. Don’t go down there again.

You are the leaders of Europe. Its future is in your hands. If you do nothing, Jews will leave, European liberty will die, and there will be a moral stain on Europe’s name that all eternity will not erase.

Stop it now while there is still time."

Read the entire transcript here

Meanwhile, antisemitism at the UN as usual : that dastardly UNESCO resolution of recent days

"Today You Can't Hate [Jews] For Their Race, So You Hate Them For Their Nation State": Lord Sacks on modern antisemitism (video)

This, unusually, is my third post of the day (please don't overlook the other two, the first of which is an article by David Singer on the European Union and the PLO).

In this excerpt from an interview with the BBC's Evan Davis, former Chief Rabbi of Great Britain and the Commonwealth Lord Sacks, having noted why multiculturalism has failed to promote tolerance, maintains that today's anti-Zionism is antisemitism in disguise.

The Menace Of Islamic Hate Speech & Hamas Propaganda Against Israel (videos)

Here are a couple of great videos for a wet Sunday afternoon (as here in parts of Australia at present).

The first is of a recent speech regarding Israel by Britain's former Chief Rabbi, Lord Sacks, in the House of Lords, who inter alia condemns those who would drag humanity back to a dark age of barbarism, and who preach and disseminate hatred against Jews and Israel.

The second (hat tip: Shirlee of the Jews Down Under online magazine) exposes the deeply troubling inroads Islamic propaganda against Israel is making on American campuses.

"'Anti-Zionism Is The New Antisemitism ... Israel Is The Greatest Collective Affirmation Of Life In The Whole Of Jewish History": Chief Rabbi Lord Sacks

Lord Sacks, Chief Rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations of Britain and the Commonwealth, who was born three years after the end of the Second World War and like most British Jews of his generation assumed antisemitism had been all but eradicated, made an impressive, impassioned speech to the recent AIPAC Policy Conference in New York:

'.... [I]n all my life I never experienced a single incident of antisemitism until 11 years ago.

Eleven years ago, our youngest daughter, who was studying at a British university, came home in tears. She had been at an anti-globalization rally which quickly turned into a tirade first against America, then against Israel, then against Jews. And with tears in her eyes she said, Dad, they hate us. That is a terrible situation, but it’s reality in Europe today.

In the last two weeks there have been stories about the rise of anti-Semitic incidents in France by 58 percent in a single year; in Belgium, 30 percent; in Denmark, doubled in the space of three years. In England—in France and Italy, English football supporters were attacked not because they were Jews but because they were supporting a football team many of whose supporters happened to be Jews. And I don’t know whether you read this—I’m sure you did—last Wednesday the Turkish president, Mr. Erdogan, called Zionism a “crime against humanity.”

I have to tell you that what we grew up with, “Never Again,” is beginning to sound like “Ever Again.” And at the heart of it is hostility to Israel. Of course, not all criticism of Israel is antisemitic. But make no mistake what has happened.

 In the Middle Ages Jews were hated because of their religion. In the 19th century and the 20th, they were hated because of their race. Today, when it’s no longer done to hate people for their religion or their race, today they are hated because of their state. The reason changes, but the hate stays the same. Anti-Zionism is the new antisemitism. [Emphasis added here and below]

 .... I’ve come here to tell you that I believe the example of AIPAC must now inform Jewish communities around Europe, because we have to stand up and fight and we have to stand up and win. Friends, anti-Zionism is today rife throughout the world. All our students on campuses know about it. And what is our crime? What is Israel’s crime? It’s that we have chutzpah.

 Let me tell you the chutzpah we have. After all, there are 56 Islamic states, there are 125 nations whose majority is Christian, and now Jews want a state of their own. How dare they? And it’s so big. Friends, you know how big Israel is?

.... Israel is the same size as Kruger National Park. How dare they want something that big? Don’t Jews by now know that their role in history is to be scattered, dispersed, homeless, and defenceless? And now they want a space where they can defend themselves. How dare they? Friends, we dare because we are human. We dare because to be denied the right to self-defense is to be treated as less than human. Mr. Erdogan, it is anti-Zionism that is a crime against humanity.

.... [How] much longer must the Jewish people have to fight for the right to be? Let me tell you, friends, what is Israel. Elaine and I have just come back; just 10 days ago we were on a series of missions in Israel. And let us remind you what we saw, what you saw, what everyone sees but the world does not see.

We saw school after school and youth village after youth village where children at-risk or children from dysfunctional or abusive families are taken and given the care that will give them hope and a future in life. We saw youth villages where Ethiopian children are given the means suddenly to make that leap across centuries and cultures and find their own excellence. We saw the power of love to transform lives.

We saw hospitals. I don’t know if you’ve been recently to the Rambam Hospital in Haifa. In Haifa, the Rambam Hospital is building the world’s largest underground hospital, proof against bombs, missiles, chemical and biological weapons, so that when Israel’s enemies decide to destroy lives, they will continue saving them.

We saw the new Bar-Ilan Medical Center in Safed, set up to bring the finest possible medical treatment. Who to? Only to Jews? No. To Muslims, to Christians, to Druze villages throughout the Galil, because to be a Jew in Israel means you care for every life; every life is sacred.

 We saw the Laniado Hospital in the Netanya, a place I always visit because it moves me almost beyond words. Many of you know the Laniado Hospital was built by the Klausenburger Rebbe, a survivor of Auschwitz who during the Holocaust lost his wife and all 11 children. And there in the camps of death made an oath that if he should ever survive he would dedicate the rest of his life to saving life.

That is what I see in Israel. Every time I visit Israel I find among Israelis, secular or religious, an absolute unswerving dedication to Moshe Rabbenu’s great command Uvacharta Bachayim, “Choose life.” Israel is the sustained defiance of hatred and power in the name of life because we are the people who sanctify life.

 ....Today the struggle against Israel is no longer just against Israel. Today what is at stake in Israel’s survival is the future of freedom itself. Because make no mistake, this will be the defining battle of the 21st century which will prevail: the will to power with its violence, terror, missiles, and bombs; or the will to life with its hospitals, schools, freedoms, and rights. Believe you me, I have the privilege of knowing.

See, Christians, Hindus, Sheiks, moderate Muslims, and I tell you from my experience Israel is a source of inspiration not just to us but to them as well, because it tells every single person on the face of the earth that you don’t have—a nation doesn’t have to be large to be great. A nation doesn’t have to be rich in natural resources to prosper.

 Israel has been surrounded by enemies and yet it has shown that even so you can still be a democracy, still have a free press, still have an independent judiciary. Israel is the only country in the Middle East where a Palestinian can stand up on national television and criticize the government and the next day still be a free human being.

Israel is an inspiration to the world....

 .... How probable is it that this tiny people, the Jewish people, numbering less than one-fifth of 1 percent of the population of the world, should have outlived—as you just heard—the world’s greatest empires—the Egyptians, the Syrians, the Babylonians, the Greeks, the Romans—every empire that ever stood up to destroy us, they are being consigned to history and still we stand and sing “Am Yisrael Chai”?

How likely is it that after 2,000 years of exile our people should have come back to our land and there in—having stood eyeball to eyeball in Auschwitz a mere three years earlier, eyeball to eyeball with the Angel of Death, in 1948 said, despite the worst crime of man against man, lo amut kiechyeh—I will not die but I will live? Israel is the greatest collective affirmation of life in the whole of Jewish history.

Friends, Judaism is the defeat of probability by the power of possibility. And nowhere will you see the power of possibility more than in the state of Israel today. Israel has taken a barren land and made it bloom again. Israel has taken an ancient language, the language of the Bible, and make it speak again. Israel has taken the West’s oldest faith and made it young again. Israel has taken a shattered nation and make it live again...'

 Watch Lord Sacks deliver the speech, and read the full transcript, here

Lord Sacks's Message On Holocaust Memorial Day (video)

Here is Lord Sacks, Chief Rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations of Britain and the Commonwealth, with eloquent reflections on the Shoah:

Hat tip: reader Shirlee

Yet Again, Baroness Tonge Demonises Israel and Hypes Hamas; The Chief Rabbi Responds in Able Fashion

There was a short debate about the Middle East peace process in the House of Lords on 4 May, prompted by a question from notoriously anti-Israel Lib Dem life peer Baroness Tonge (pictured).
Inter alia, the woman widely accused in the past of antisemitism, and whom some dub "Jihad Jenny" observed:

"The wall or security barrier has been built between Israel and the West Bank. Fair enough, I would say. I witnessed during the second intifada the sheer terror of Israeli citizens as they experienced the suicide bombers-the al-Aqsa martyrs as they were then-encouraged and supported by Fatah. Let us remember that Fatah is now Israel's chosen partner for negotiations. The barrier was quite understandable, but what was outrageous was that the course of that barrier grabbed a huge amount of land and water in the West Bank from Palestinian farmers and families."

The rest of her speech was true to form:

"I want to make an appeal that we all remember the Palestinians and the injustice that has been meted out to them since 1948. It is an injustice which lies at the very heart of Arab Muslim angst against the West and which has allowed one country, Israel, supported by the  USA and European Union, consistently to break international law since 1948, when it was decided that the Palestinians would pay the price of the Holocaust even if they had had nothing to do with it....

Palestinians have difficulty accessing healthcare and education, and humiliation continues daily at the check-points. The settlements go on expanding despite exhortations from the international community and repeated criticism from this Government. Farmers are attacked, crops are ruined and children are brutalised and imprisoned. Nowhere is this better demonstrated than at al-Walaja near Bethlehem. The town and its people are being strangled....

In Gaza, little has changed. Food is scarce if you are poor, as most Gazans are. Together with the terror of constant overflying and sonic bombing, and the poor education that the children are getting, the international community, by its inaction, is allowing a whole generation of children to grow up malnourished, undereducated and deeply traumatised by the actions of their neighbour, Israel....

We must not forget, in this overview of the situation, the plight of Israeli Arabs and Palestinians living in Israel, who are subjected to an apartheid-like regime of control and lack of freedom, let alone the 7,000 to 8,000 prisoners languishing in Israeli gaols....

Israel's fear of Hamas is based on the old Hamas charter, which is a relic, and on the fact that neither Israel's leaders nor ours have ever bothered to talk to Hamas leaders. On numerous occasions I and other parliamentarians have been assured by Hamas leaders, in particular Khaled Meshaal, that they will accept a two-state solution based on the 1967 borders, and will maintain a truce. However, things are getting more difficult. The rockets fired recently were from dissident groups in Gaza, which get more numerous and better supported as Hamas is seen not to be able to make progress in its negotiations with Israel.

Finally, Israel has been indulged for too long in the interests of American foreign policy as well as its own. The rights of Palestinians under international law have been ignored, and much suffering and injustice have been endured. International law was not mentioned in the 2003 road map, which was meant to provide a framework for negotiations. The International Court of Justice ruling on the separation barrier was ignored, and President Obama, after he took office, ignored completely international law in his speech in Cairo on Israel and Palestine. Why?

International law is for everyone. It is for Israel, Palestine, Bahrain, Syria, the European Union-and even the United States of America. If we continue to apply it selectively, there will be no future for Israel, and the world order will ultimately collapse. I implore the Minister to tell the House that we will bring pressure to bear on Israel to co-operate with Egypt and the Palestinian negotiators in Cairo. We must not miss the great opportunity of the Arab spring-however difficult it is, and however many road blocks are put in the way-to bring justice also, at last, to the Palestinians."

During the debate, the Chief Rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations of Great Britain, Lord Sacks, reminded fellow occupants of the red benches of some truths that should be self-evident, but unfortunately aren't:

"We, who pray for peace, understand by that word, a state in which I recognise your right to exist, and you recognise mine. That is what peace minimally means.

How then can we be speaking about peace when Hamas remains committed as a matter of principle to the elimination of the state of Israel, when it engages in missile attacks against innocent civilians, and uses its own innocent civilians as human shields; when it propagates some of the most vicious antisemitic myths ever to have inflamed the hatred and anaesthetised the conscience of human beings, and two days ago praised Osama bin Laden as a holy warrior; and when it refuses to agree to the fundamental principles laid down by the Quartet, not least of which is the recognition of Israel’s right to exist?

Until Hamas undergoes fundamental change, there may be a process but there will not be peace. Peace is more than a resting place on the road to war. I cannot make peace with one who denies my right to exist.

My Lords, no one unfamiliar with the history of the Jewish people through its four thousand years of history can fully appreciate how deeply Jews within Israel and outside long for peace, long for the ability to live as other people live, without fear, without hate, without being treated as a pariah, without being blamed for the troubles of the world, without being denied the right to exist. That is why I urge the government to be resolute in its insistence that the path to peace in the Middle East must begin with the unequivocal recognition of the state of Israel’s right to be. "

Read more here: http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld201011/ldhansrd/text/110504-0002.htm#110504106000135