| Senator John McCain's brother on The Jews & Israel.
There is a lot of worry popping up in the media just now -- "Can
Israel Survive?" Don't worry about it. It relates to something that
Palestinians, the Arabs, and perhaps most Americans don't realize --
the Jews are never going quietly again. Never. And if the world
doesn't come to understand that, then millions of Arabs are going to
die. It's as simple as that.
Throughout the history of the world, the most abused, kicked-around
race of people have been the Jews. Not just during the holocaust of
World War II, but for thousands of years. They have truly been "The
Chosen People" in a terrible and tragic sense.
The Bible story of Egypt 's enslavement of the Jews is not just a
story, it is history, if festooned with theological legend and
heroic epics. In 70 A. D. the Romans, which had for a long time
tolerated the Jews -- even admired them as 'superior' to other
vassals -- tired of their truculent demands for independence and
decided on an early "Solution" to the Jewish problem. Jerusalem was
sacked and reduced to near rubble, Jewish resistance was pursued and
crushed by the implacable Roman War Machine -- see ' Masada '. And
thus began The Diaspora, the dispersal of Jews throughout the rest
of the world.
Their homeland destroyed, their culture crushed, they looked
desperately for the few niches in a hostile world where they could
be safe. That safety was fragile, and often subject to the whims of
moody hosts. The words 'pogrom', 'ghetto', and 'anti-Semitism' come
from this treatment of the first mono-theistic people. Throughout
Europe , changing times meant sometimes tolerance, sometimes even
warmth for the Jews, but eventually it meant hostility, then
malevolence. There is not a country in Europe or Western Asia that
at one time or another has not decided to lash out against the
children of Moses, sometimes by whim, sometimes by manipulation.
Winston Churchill calls Edward I one of England 's very greatest
kings. It was under his rule in the late 1200's that Wales and
Cornwall were hammered into the British crown, and Scotland and
Ireland were invaded and occupied. He was also the first European
monarch to set up a really effective administrative bureaucracy,
surveyed and censused his kingdom, established laws and political
divisions. But he also embraced the Jews.
Actually Edward didn't embrace Jews so much as he embraced their
money. For the English Jews had acquired wealth -- understandable,
because this people that could not own land or office, could not
join most of the trades and professions, soon found out that money
was a very good thing to accumulate. Much harder to take away than
land or a store, was a hidden sock of gold and silver coins. Ever
resourceful, Edward found a way -- he borrowed money from the Jews
to finance imperial ambitions in Europe, especially France . The
loans were almost certainly not made gladly, but how do you refuse
your King? Especially when he is 'Edward the Hammer'. Then, rather
than pay back the debt, Edward simply expelled the Jews. Edward was
especially inventive -- he did this twice. After a time, he invited
the Jews back to their English homeland, borrowed more money, then
expelled them again.
Most people do not know that Spain was one of the early entrants
into The Renaissance. People from all over the world came to Spain
in the late medieval period. All were welcome -- Arabs, Jews, other
Europeans. The University of Salamanca was one of the great centers
of learning in the world -- scholars of all nations, all fields came
to Salamanca to share their knowledge and their ideas. But in 1492,
Ferdinand and Isabella, having driven the last of Moors from the
Spanish Shield, were persuaded by the righteous fundamentalists of
the time to announce "The Act of Purification". A series of steps
were taken in which all Jews and Arabs and other non-Christians were
expelled from the country, or would face the tools and the torches
of The Inquisition. From this 'cleansing' come the Sephardic Jews --
as opposed to the Ashkenazis of Eastern Europe . In Eastern Europe ,
the sporadic violence and brutality against Jews are common
knowledge. 'Fiddler' without the music and the folksy humor. At
times of fury, no accommodation by the Jew was good enough, no
profile low enough, no village poor enough or distant enough.
From these come the near-steady flow of Jews to the United States .
And despite the disdain of the Jews by most 'American' Americans,
they came to grab the American Dream with both hands, and
contributed everything from new ideas of enterprise in retail and
entertainment to becoming some of our finest physicians and lawyers.
The modern United States , in spite of itself, IS The United States
in part because of its Jewish blood.
Then the Nazi Holocaust -- the corralling, sorting, orderly
eradication of millions of the people of Moses. Not something that
other realms in other times didn't try to do, by the way, the
Germans were just more organized and had better murder technology.
I stood in the center of Dachau for an entire day, about 15 years
ago, trying to comprehend how this could have happened. I had gone
there on a side trip from Munich , vaguely curious about this Dachau .
I soon became engulfed in the enormity of what had occurred there
nestled in this middle and working class neighborhood.
How could human beings do this to other human beings, hear their
cries, their pleas, their terror, their pain, and continue without
apparently even wincing? I no longer wonder. At some times, some
places, ANY sect of the human race is capable of horrors against
their fellow man, whether a member of the Waffen SS, a Serbian
sniper, a Turkish policeman in 1920's Armenia , a Mississippi
Klansman. Because even in the United States not all was a Rose
Garden. For a long time Jews had quotas in our universities and
graduate schools. Only so many Jews could be in a medical or law
school at one time. Jews were disparaged widely. I remember as a kid
Jewish jokes
told without a wince - "Why do Jews have such big noses?"
Well, now the Jews have a homeland again. A place that is theirs.
And that's the point. It doesn't matter how many times the United
States and European powers try to rein in Israel, if it comes down
to survival of its nation, its people, they will fight like no
lioness has ever fought to save her cubs. They will fight with a
ferocity, a determination, and a skill, that will astound us.
And many will die, mostly their attackers, I believe. If there were
a macabre historical betting parlor, my money would be on the
Israelis to be standing at the end. As we killed the kamikazes and
the Wehrmacht soldaten of World War II, so will the Israelis kill
their suicidal attackers, until there are not enough to torment
them.
The irony goes unnoticed -- while we are hammering away to punish
those who brought the horrors of last September here, we restrain
the Israelis from the same retaliation. Not the same thing, of
course -- We are We, They are They. While we mourn and seethe at
September 11th, we don't notice that Israel has a September 11th
sometimes every day.
We may not notice, but it doesn't make any difference. And it
doesn't make any difference whether you are pro-Israeli or you think
Israel is the bully of the Middle East . If it comes to where a new
holocaust looms -- with or without the concurrence of the United
States and Europe -- Israel will lash out without pause or restraint
at those who would try to annihilate their country.
The Jews will not go quietly again.
Joe McCain |
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