For anyone following Israel-related events, the year 2010 would be remembered by one word: Delegitimization.
Just half a year ago, no one knew the meaning of this word or how to pronounce it. As the year comes to an end, people use it freely. They have a very little understanding about what it means in action and how to combat this process. It sounds good, as much as “Israel is Apartheid” became a commonplace statement with Israel’s haters.
In Israel “Delegitimization” became a magic word. It seems all the ills of the world are directed at “delegitimizing Israel.” Her enemies though do not use the word. They act and undermine the very existence of the Jewish nation.
First, allow me to define “Delegitimization,” so that we are on the very same page. This is a process on multiple fronts that denies the right of Israel to exist as a Jewish nation. It blames anything bad on Jews and Israelis often calling them Zionists and Occupiers. It plants in our minds the notion that ridding the world of Jews is beneficial for they only bring evil to the world.
Delegitimazation is the new code word for anti-Semitism. It has replaced the word “restricted” in polite conversations and belies little of its dangerous and frightening implications or very purpose: to destroy the Jewish people.
Its clever effect of attacking a nation in lieu of the individual Jew is clearly the new secret weapon of the hoards of Jew haters that populate today’s world.
In many ways, by dehumanizing the Jews, it becomes acceptable and thinkable to harm them. Homicide bombings in weddings and other gatherings, missiles directed at civilian populations.
Most cannot understand how the Germans acquiesced to hundreds of thousands of people being burned, shot dead or gathered to perish in ghettos and concentration camps. While life just a few blocks away continued. People went to restaurants and the opera or for weekend excursions to the country where their children played and completely ignored what they did not want to see, smell or experience.
Is anything different today? No, we are nearing a point of eruption, and then all the hatred will surface, having no bounds, no stops. Will Israel, the designated shelter and safe haven of some eight million Jews living outside of Israel, be able to protect her six million Jewish residents and fulfill her role and obligation toward world Jewry?
As it stands now, Israel will be unable to carry out her obligations. New leadership must rise to lead Israel from the darkness that will engulf her and the world into light.
“Delegitimization” is today’s most valuable commodity in politics. Then the person in charge of the Ministry that is supposed to combat it must be not only influential, but also detrimental to the successful accomplishment of that destruction mission.
As one graduates to a higher level, one realizes that Israel is not the main figure in this little pretend play. She only has a supporting role to highlight the plight of the Palestinians.
The only image that was implanted in our collective minds is the understanding that Israel as one of the strongest militaries in the world that is preventing the Palestinian refugees from returning to their rightful homes, land and capital.
The desert and the camels are part of the picture in which Israelis are bad and the Palestinian-David is the underdog. Understand this, fight this, and you will start understanding what “Delegitimization” is all about.
The following can and should all take place in Israel: fundraising, legislation to combat anti-Israeli actions stemming from within Israel and the flow of funds supporting these activities and other defensive and offensive measures. Instead, Israeli officials come here to the U.S. and ask for help.
Israel will continue suffering greatly until Israelis, as one, start fighting back.
Israel and the Jewish people need someone to lead by example. Somebody who can take the helm and move us to a safe harbor. At the moment, we are sailing deeper and deeper into the freezing waters of the iceberg-dotted arctic waters while music plays on board our Titanic.
On the upper decks, empty words provide a false sense of protection, a false pretense of action that is either meaningless or nonexistent and a false promise of hope for a future that is becoming darker by the minute.
The picture painted is depressing and hopeless, so let us all join one of the celebratory events for the foreign guests. Between the handshakes and photo opportunities, the wine and hors d’oeuvres, the main course and desserts with Cognac sipping, we will undoubtedly feel relaxed and at ease. Perhaps that will be the time to speak up and take aim at the madness.
