Joe Biden has made it clear that the basis of his presidency will be dedicated to undoing whatever Donald Trump did during his four years in office. Apparently, despite clear evidence that the Iranians didn’t honor the first deal, Biden is dedicated, as the “un-do” president, to concluding (or re-concluding) a deal with Iran.
And so, perhaps the Jewish people should offer Biden, the Europeans who support an Iran deal, and most importantly, to the Iranian leadership the following advice:
We, the Jewish people given the Holy Land of Israel, then exiled and then reunited with our homeland, came to live in peace among our neighbors, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility and security, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity.
That was the plan, anyway.
Throughout a history that is longer than most other nations, we have held to certain great truths that separate us from others. These truths have alienated us, enabled others to turn us into victims of a hatred so strong, it survives and thrives beyond those infected by it. Even, amazingly enough, among those who have never met a Jew, never seen one, never spoken to one.
In the long, long history of the Jewish people, we have stood among our friends, and we have stood alone. As a people, we were founded at that very moment when Abraham spoke of One God to a world that did not know Him. And, as a people, we were liberated from Egypt, from slavery, and in those early days, we learned the value not only of freedom, but of unity.
It was the ancient Israelites who traveled across the wilderness for forty years with one goal in mind. It is the same goal we strive for today in Israel. Their goal, our goal, is to live in our homeland, in the land that God promised to us and to live a life dedicated to the lessons and the laws He taught us.
We stood alone at Mt. Sinai and we are prepared to stand alone again. We stood alone when Amalek attacked us; when Haman plotted against us. We stood alone when the Greeks came, and when the Romans pillaged our land.
Alone during the Crusades, the Inquisitions, the pogroms and finally, we stood almost entirely alone and abandoned during the Holocaust when over a million and a half Jewish children were slaughtered to the deafening sound of silence from Washington, London, Paris, and Rome.
And though the world believed us to be weak, easily persecuted, abandoned, homeless and alone, we nurtured and clung to who we were and what we believed would be our destiny. This was because we know that all those times we appeared to be alone…we were never really alone. That is the greatest truth of the Jewish people. Not for a single instant in time, in no place we wandered, and under any circumstances.
Even in the depths of our sorrow, in exile, in the ghettos and concentration camps of Europe, the distant communities in Yemen, India, Ethiopia, not even in the freezing cold of Siberia. We were never abandoned and never really homeless. Our home was always here in the land of Israel and we were watched and guarded from Above.
We did not stand alone in 1947, when a majority of the nations of the world called for the re-establishment of our ancient, now modern homeland. None of the nations who supported us on November 29th in the United Nations fought with us when five Arab nations invaded a few months later, hours after we announced the re-birth of our home.
Victory came anyway, and immediately we called on Jews from all over to come home. The exile would end and we would live in peace. We fought because we understood, even then, that there would be, could be, should be no other place for us but here in the land God promised to us. And the world watched in astonished wonder, war after war, as we emerged stronger, more determined than ever.
Out of the gas chambers and the flames, came a promise forged with our blood and that of our ancestors. God promised us this land and chose us from among the nations. And we made a promise back to God and to ourselves. Great nations would fall, while we remained. Greece and Rome are no more, Egypt, Assyria, Edom, Philistine, Canaan, Moab, the Ottoman Empire, the Persians and others. We have faced them all, but we remain.
The remarkable reality is not only that we did not perish, not only that we stand today tall and proud. What is amazing is that we have established a firm policy to stand for those who are weak and alone and need help. We stood for the Vietnamese boat people long before anyone else. We stood in Haiti, Turkey, Nepal, Kenya and beyond.
We rescued and saved, and while we gave to the world, while we were the light God commanded us to be, we gathered our people from all over the world. We brought the Jews from Yemen, the former Soviet Union, Ethiopia. And now Jews from India and France and elsewhere are coming home in great numbers.
Today, again, the world stands on the edge of a more frightening tomorrow – for them, and for us. What Hitler did in ten years, Iran could attempt to do in ten minutes. In 1939, it was left to the world to stop evil. In silence, the future of the Jews of Europe was sealed. The plans, the negotiations, the appeasement of the nations was trampled by the Nazi boots that marched across Europe.
A few years ago, as Iran teetered on the edge of nuclear capabilities, Israel was urged not to take action; to trust the world to defuse the Iranian threat. Today, we see that once again, we were betrayed; once again, we are asked to stand alone.
And we will stand, as we have always stood – alone, but never alone. God will not allow; we will not allow the Iranians’ fate to be any different than that of Amalek, Haman, Hitler and the others.
So go ahead, Biden, make your agreement, end the sanctions. Allow the Iranians to rush towards nuclear power and watch as we, the Jewish people rise above this threat as we have all others. Their missiles will miss, their computers will malfunction, and the earth will shake because we the Jewish people make this vow today.
This time, we turn to the world in, not in fear. We lived for 2,000 years in fear, that time is over. We will rescue our people from the hatred that has festered inside of your lands almost since time began. We will bring our people home – from France, from Germany, from England and the United States, and we will stop the Iranians.
We will make our stand here in our land. Strong because we know this is ours. Strong because we have learned that deceit and weakness and corruption is your way, Joe Biden, not ours.
What you do means nothing to us. Our destiny was never yours to guard; we would not be that foolish. You have never stood for the Jewish people; that is not your right. But the Jewish people will not bow before you.
In the memory of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob…and in the name of Sarah and Rebecca, Leah and Rachel…and in the memory of all those who came before us…and for all those who will come after us…we make this promise. We will not be destroyed; we will not be exiled again. This is our land. This is our people. This is our destiny.
We will stand alone always knowing that we, the Jewish people, will never be alone. Blessed is the God of Israel, who neither sleeps nor slumbers.