Our Strength Is Not In Numbers
After reading the article in The Jewish Press, “Any Safe Havens For Jews?” (December 6), I could not help but be reminded of my visit to Auschwitz, Poland. In 1939, Jews made up 10% of Poland, with a history of 1,000 years. In 1945, 90% of the Jews in Poland had been exterminated. How could that happen, and in such a short time?
Jews make up 2% of the United States and less than 1% of the world today. There are about 15 million Jews in the world. They are the majority in just one country today. Thus, our vulnerability to antisemitism should be rather obvious. And that would include Dubai, Europe, Iran, and any other country in the world. All it takes is a ruler who is willing to tolerate or advocate discrimination in any dimension.
How difficult it is to trust any ruler who is given the right to make up his own rules? When Hitler took over Germany, he pledged to eliminate those inferior Germans and other inferiors who did not fit the super-race, and that included handicapped people of any country. When I visited Auschwitz, I saw the prosthetic devices of the handicapped who were killed. Hitler’s minister of propaganda, Joseph Goebbels, had polio and a club foot. By any definition, he was handicapped. It was no secret, yet he was the voice of Nazi Germany, an autocratic country, and Hitler made him an exception.
Could exceptions be tolerated in a democracy? Could Jews really be safe in America where they are such a small portion of the population, and with the only Jews in power, like Schumer and Sanders, reluctant to relinquish any power they have to protect Israel and, in essence, to protect Jews? Biden can make an exception for his son. Trump can make an exception for himself. And Alvin Bragg can play politics with those he wants to prosecute.
What really upsets the antisemites is that the Jews are not acting like “lambs led to the slaughter,” but are fighting back. Remember, no country went into World War II to save Jews. Right now Europe is in disarray, outlawing IDF soldiers but allowing Hamas supporters. France and Germany are without leadership. America is in transition. Right now, the Jews are being attacked with the newest version of the same old virus, with different variations of antisemitism. The idea that Jews have their own country to protect must be because of “occupation,” “apartheid,” and “genocide.” Even if only 10% of the world’s Moslem population wanted to kill Jews, that number would be more than a 100 million Jihadists.
What enables us to fight back is faith, determination, and a country that has a majority of Jews. We cannot rely on Jews in high places in countries other than Israel to determine our survival. Nor can we rely on the fickleness of some unpredictable leaders. With the help of Hashem, we can hope that Jews need not once again become the sacrificial lambs of powerful but evil people. It is the power of righteous people who can save not only the Jews but mankind itself. In the meantime, all Jews of all levels of commitment to Judaism should not be silent.
Joel M. Glazer
Elizabeth, N.J.
Amnesty’s Travesty
From the people who brought you “Israeli apartheid” comes another trendy smear: “Israeli genocide.” With a new report Wednesday night, Amnesty International assures its good standing in the anti-Israel herd (“Antisemites at Amnesty Intl Claim Israel Commits Genocide,” December 5). The price is to swallow an inversion of reality.
Amnesty poses as a fair-minded critic of Israeli policies, but it tipped its hand in its 2022 report that tried to claim “this system of apartheid originated with the creation of Israel in May 1948.” That’s well before any “occupation,” but it reflects the ideological obsession that treats the Jewish state’s existence, in any borders, as a crime.
Amnesty’s headline-grabbing apartheid report quietly conceded it wasn’t arguing Israel’s laws are analogous to South Africa’s. This new report uses a similar sleight of hand by redefining genocide. The case law at the International Court of Justice requires a finding that “intent to destroy the group, in whole or in part, must be the only reasonable inference which can be drawn from the pattern of conduct.” Amnesty says that’s too high a bar and looks at the “broader picture” and “context.”
By context it means apartheid and all its previous slanders of Israel. What about Hamas’s October 7 massacre, which was genocidal in character? Here’s the report’s opening line: “On 7 October 2023, Israel embarked on a military offensive on the occupied Gaza Strip (Gaza) of unprecedented magnitude, scale, and duration.”
Gaza wasn’t occupied, and Hamas, not Israel, embarked on a military offensive. But Amnesty says it will get to the Hamas mass murder later. Here it uses the Oct. 7 massacre to pathologize the Israeli “state of mind resulting from the attacks.”
While Amnesty uses the casualty figures of the “Gaza-based Ministry of Health,” a.k.a. Hamas, it never mentions that Israel says 17,000 dead Hamas fighters are among them. It omits the crucial civilian-to-combatant ratio, which would suggest Israel has done better than most in urban warfare.
The report essentially blesses Hamas’s strategy of using human shields. It suggests Israel has no right to attack in civilian areas even if Hamas is using them, just as it wouldn’t if some enemy soldiers had gone home on leave. As if that’s equivalent to terrorist headquarters in hospitals and a 400-mile, terrorist-only tunnel system beneath cities.
Amnesty even criticizes Israel for evacuating civilians from active war zones. This, too, becomes evidence of “genocidal intent” because it displaces the civilians. But Amnesty also criticizes Israel as genocidal in cases where it didn’t evacuate civilians. The game is to twist international law until Israel – or the U.S. – has no way to fight against terrorists.
Not one of the groups yelling “genocide” calls on Egypt to let women and children escape to safety by opening its border with Gaza. Uniquely in this conflict, they insist that civilians be penned in the war zone. They do so because they know there isn’t an Israeli genocide but rather unintended civilian casualties, which can be used against Israel.
Brian Goldenfeld
Thousand Oaks, Calif.
