Woeful

After the party is over, the hangover usually kicks in.

Israel’s 75^th birthday party had hardly finished when the usual domestic and foreign crowd surfaced to resume their well-orchestrated campaigns of deceit and denunciations.

In fact, the party was still in full swing as the usual critics, unable to contain their ire burst forth with orchestrated venom.

It is really sad and pathetic that the party poopers feel compelled to denounce and denigrate. Somehow the sight of Israelis celebrating three-quarters of a century of amazing achievements evokes a visceral spasm of bile that cannot be contained.

Woeful is most probably a rather mild expression to describe this phenomenon. Feel free to pick any one of the following synonyms which best explain some of the situations we face:

“appalling; awful; calamitous; deplorable; disastrous; lamentable; lousy; miserable; pathetic, pitiful; shocking; wretched.”

Whichever adjective you might have chosen most probably covers the spectrum of shameful episodes.

For most level-headed and sane Israelis the commemoration of the murder of six million Jews in the Shoah and the ceremonies honouring the enormous sacrifices made by our citizens in the defence of our country are solemn occasions. They are marked with wailing sirens, moments of respectful silence accompanied by tears and grief. Independence Day is one of unrestrained joy and celebration.

For many on the self-loathing extreme left, however, these three days represent everything that is evil about Jews and Israel. Unable to find anything positive to say which might indicate pride, patriotism or solidarity, their volcanic eruptions of negativity take centre stage.

Israel’s flagship leftist newspaper, Ha’Aretz, last week posted an op-ed online from one of its regular contributors (Gideon Levy) which perfectly illustrates the situation. This is how he describes the three Israeli observances:

“this is the essence of the Israeli zeitgeist: first a frenzied wallowing in the cult of mourning and a no less frenzied worshipping of death and the dead on Memorial Day, immediately followed by an ultra-nationalistic and militaristic orgy, with flights of self-adoration and tons of scorched meat on Independence Day.”

 No wonder the international media love this sort of woeful commentary which finds a warm embrace from all Israel haters, post Zionists and breast-beating self loathers.

Denigrating one’s own people and country, unfortunately, is not confined to just these three aforementioned days.

A constant response from those who see Israel as their natural home and who despite difficulties and hardships, intend to remain here is exemplified by the expression, “we have no other country.”  In essence, what this means is that Israel, as the world’s only Jewish nation with a history stretching back millennia, is the only country in the world where Jews constitute a majority. It is the only country where the Jewish calendar is an integral part of the fabric of society, where Hebrew is the official language, and Jews do not need to hide any outward signs of their ethnicity and faith.

It does not mean that Jews are unable to live in any other country. As in any democracy, Israelis are free to emigrate and make their permanent homes anywhere the grass seems greener. They may still have residual attachments of family ties, but those who relocate intending never to return, no matter how “Israeli” they may still feel, will inevitably find after a generation or two that the real Promised Land is no longer part of their children’s identity.

In contrast to all who believe that Israel is something special and that living here is part of a historical miracle, there are those on the secular ultra-left who feel otherwise. That is why the same contributor to Ha’Aretz in yet another display of bitter rhetoric, penned the following pearls:

“The national whine du jour is I have no other country. The French have another country as do the Swedes, Germans, Congolese and Indians. Only the poor Israelis, just them, have no other country, and the heart breaks for them. What a miserable nation it is that has no other country, and this gives it the right to do whatever it wants because after all it has no other country, so hapless it is. The Palestinians don’t even have one country but the Israelis lament that they don’t have a spare country. How terrible.”

As a gift to the Israel haters, this example of woeful “logic” is just the tip of the self-loathing iceberg where Israel‘s rebirth continues to resonate as an original sin.

One couldn’t finish the week without further outbursts of international hypocrisy.

South Africa recently hosted a rugby tournament to which an Israeli team had been invited to participate. As soon as I read about this, I knew that, without a doubt, there would be trouble. As a teeming cesspit of Israel hate where every outlandish accusation of “apartheid” and “colonial oppression” is treated as divine revelation there was never going to be any chance that an Israeli rugby team would be able to compete. As per a preordained script, there was an eruption of rage against allowing Israel to participate and unsurprisingly, the invitation was withdrawn and the Israeli team banned.

The ostensible reason given for this decision was a threat of violence against the Israelis, which the SA rugby authorities maintained would have put the competitors in danger. There is no denying that lawlessness, murder and mayhem are now regular features of the South African scene. If this was the real reason then the tournament should not have been held in the first place, as threats to the lives of all competitors would be paramount. Unbiased observers of the local scene know that this excuse was a transparent smoke screen.

Lo and behold the International Rugby Board which met to discuss the matter only after a complaint was lodged decided after due deliberation that no further action should be taken against the SA rugby authorities. They swallowed hook, line and sinker, the specious reasoning of the SA authorities and declared that there was no hint of discriminatory behaviour. This reminds me of the decision of the International Red Cross, who maintained that the Theresienstadt concentration camp was actually a holiday resort. In both cases, willful bias and deliberate deception won over a moral imperative to act honestly.

I wonder how the New Zealand and Australian representatives on the IRB voted. If they agreed with the majority, then they also are guilty of deliberately ignoring the truth.

In direct contrast to this display of moral cowardice, FIFA showed how to deal with bullies and boycotters of Israel. Indonesia was due to host an international under-20 soccer tournament to which Israel was eligible to compete. As a rabid anti-Israel cheerleader Indonesia announced that the Israeli team was disinvited. To its credit FIFA immediately removed Indonesia as a host and imposed sanctions against its soccer governing board.

It is important to record that the Palestinian Arab sports authorities cheered and applauded the SA rugby boycotts and roundly condemned FIFA’s exclusion of Indonesia. Is it any wonder that most sane and level-headed Israelis are no longer mesmerised by the mirage of a tolerant and peaceful two-state solution?

As I write, southern Israeli communities are being bombarded once again by rockets fired from Gaza. The terror groups claiming responsibility declared that this is in response to the alleged “assassination” of one of their murderous members in an Israeli jail. In actual fact, this prisoner was on a self-imposed hunger strike, refusing every offer of medical treatment that had been available. As is usually the case, truth is a casualty of the false fables spread by the terrorist groups and their enablers. Inevitably Israel’s retaliatory responses will be condemned by the usual suspects.

Welcome to yet another woeful week.