Israel National News

New English Review

Here goes.

At this time in history, I really do not want to "J'Accuse" Americans, Jews, Israelis, "progressives," or "conservatives"--and yet, what else can a thinking person do?

And no, I am not forgetting Russia's Putin, Iran's Khomeini, North Korea's Kim Jong Il, China's Xi Jinping, or Turkey's Erdogan. Evil Empires, one and all, but not my primary focus here. I will say: None of them will stop. All of them can only be stopped.

A brief introduction.

Right after 9/11, I am the one who wrote "Now We Are All Israelis." I saw what was coming, certainly in terms of future airport security measures, ongoing Islamist/Jihadist terrorist attacks, and the entire world's being overrun by keffiyeh-clad, Jihadist-like mobs swarming civil order.

I understood that our Western intelligentsia, our elitists, our Nobel Prize winners, our celebrities, heads of state, those who lead human rights organizations were all, in reality, the Brownshirts of our time, whose anti-Western, anti-American, and anti-Israel views had been bought and paid for over many decades by billions of dollars, which came from both left-wing and Muslim-Islamist sources.

The fact that few Americans seemed to remember Ramzi Yousef's and Abdul Rahman Yasin's attempts to blow up the World Trade Center in 1993 or Rashid Baz's murder of Jewish religious student Ari Halberstam in 1994--well, their amnesia kept me on edge.

My edge only got sharper, more endangering, as American diplomats, sailors and soldiers were blown up by Al-Qaeda in 2000 in Africa (Kenya, Tanzania) and in the Arab Middle East (the U.S.S. Cole). By 2002, when Wall Street journalist Daniel Pearl, a Jewish-American civilian, was beheaded on video in Pakistan, once again by Al-Qaeda, I had tumbled off my edge into freefall. For me, the handwriting was already on the sky but people refused to see it or to connect the dots.

In The New Antisemitism, which I published in 2003, I was the very one who wrote that anti-Zionism is the new antisemitism--that, and the lies about Israel steadily coming our way from the Islamic world. Even my own editor hotly challenged me on this. I stood fast and reaped--an enormous silence. As well as the need for police protection when I spoke on certain college campuses. An honor of sorts.

But most of all, I especially mourned the fact that feminists, my people (turned faux-feminists) did little beyond self-serving lip service in terms of rescuing the women of Iran, Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan etc.--the women of the entire Muslim world--who were forcibly veiled, forcibly married, forbicly shut up into women-only quarters, sometimes genitally mutilated (although that is more of an African custom) and--oh yes--being honor murdered by their own families.

Actually, many faux-feminists soon viewed any critique of honor killing/femicide as "Islamophobic" and "racist." Also, in their eyes, Jihadists were heroic freedom fighters against Western and Israeli-only imperialism and colonialism. They--and all the other Brownshirts--absolutely refused to acknowledge that Islamic countries were also colonialists, imperialists, who had long histories of slave-keeping and of gender and religious apartheid and, what's more, that Israeli Jews are the only genuinely indigenous people in the Holy Land. Doubt that?

Just read one book: Doron Spielman's extraordinary and thrilling new book titled: When the Stones Speak. The Remarkable Discovery of the City of David and What Israel's Enemies Don't Want You To Know.

What I’ve just written is considered High Heresy by the Brownshirts. In fact, all that is demonstrably true is seen as an act of treachery, to be silenced, banned, mocked, outlawed, its perpetrators exiled, jailed, or killed. I am not exaggerating.

Now that we have a wee bit of context--here are some of my criticisms.

J'Accuse: America's and Europe's refusal to deal with Iran--even after the mullahs held American diplomats hostage for 444 days in 1979, but rather chose to enable Iran's building of nuclear weapons. This was done under Presidents Clinton, Bush, Obama, and Biden.

And by the way, although political life is complicated, how dare President Bush have allowed all the Saudis to fly safely back home right after Al-Qaeda (most of whom were Saudis) flew planes into the World Trade Center. Just wondering.

J'Accuse: Every single American president who tied Israel's hands behind its back, who refused to properly arm Israel militarily at all, or in a timely way--even when Israel was paying for the arms. And exactly who forced Prime Minister Netanyahu to "mow the grass," which allowed Iran/Qatar/Hamas to build an enormous underground military base in Gaza? Was it perhaps both Europe and America?

J'Accuse: Every single Western and Eastern media outlet for continuing to publish the most lethal lies about Jews and Israel and to do so continuously, around the clock, 24/7, in every language on earth.

J'Accuse: Every single anti-Israel/anti-Zionist international body, beginning with the United Nations, for demonizing only Israel and for failing to deal with real human rights abuses, and real genocides elsewhere, everywhere, all over the world. These groups have failed the cause of both women and minorities globally, voted in only tyrannies, destroyed democracies. They should be disbanded and defunded. Back to the drawing board with them.

And now, for my most painful accusations.

J'Accuse: The haredi leaders in Israel who refuse to allow all but a small number of their youth to join the IDF during a time of existential war. Selfish, heartless, outrageous, at best, sadly misguided. I respect Torah study with all my soul. Their followers are not all Torah geniuses. There is precious little excuse for them to remain idle.

J'Accuse: The Kaplan Group et al. who have been agitating against the Israeli government and especially against Prime Minister Netanyahu in the midst of that same existential war. Are they utterly mad? Are they as selfish, or as foolish, as the haredim?

J'Accuse: All the anti-Zionist Jews and anti-Zionist rabbis in America who sign letters and organize both groups and protests against Israel--but never against Iran or Qatar or Hamas. This is beyond passing strange. This is true heresy in my opinion, or at best, a tragic and heartbreaking farce.

Finally, in an attempt to be even-handed: J'Accuse: The entire Israeli government, including Prime Minister Netanyahu--but for what? Doing the best they can with the bad hand they've been dealt? Doing brilliantly, heroically, in fact, despite corruption, imperfection, and for exercising enormous moral and military restraint, true grace under monstrous pressure? Can I accuse them of excellence? Indeed, in our times, excellence is under fire. It is seen as an enemy of DEI and all things holy.

I deeply mourn all the very young Israeli lives lost in battle (895 as of yesterday), wounded forever, traumatized for a long, long time. The suffering of the Israelis still held hostage and of their families is unimaginable. I think of them always. I cannot stop thinking about them.

However, I have the deepest and most profound admiration for the resilience and courage of the entire Israeli nation. They--we--are an unbelievable people, truly, a blessing to all humanity.

Please allow me to humbly note that we are now all--all of us, but in vastly different ways--the hostages of Islamist/Jihadist terror.