CAN IT BE?

  Yesterday I had a serious talk with my daughter re the current situation, not only in Israel, or here in the USA, but around the world, the resonating of it through the very bone marrow of every Jew within this world, whether they are aware or believe it or not. It is history repeating itself on a massive scale and frankly, I am more frightened for survival than ever before. So deep is the terror, the risk to survival.

Books, treatises, rants, fake accusations, threats, pogroms, bias, rules and regulations limiting Jewish rights as regular citizens and on and on. Right up to and including death as a recognized and approved technique of dealing with a country's Jewish population and then the world's population of such 'sub-humans'- for so they have been deemed. The frantic attempts to deny this, to deny the reality, the probability rather than the possibility, are for naught, for the truth is evident, right out there for all to see. 

But, as I spoke with her, I explained how it is no longer almost an intellectual discussion: can it be, again, despite all the sloganeering that it will "never again" happen. Well, it can, and it is, already begun. Where, you ask? Well, fly over all the countries of the world. See the asterisks in space denoting all the countries where anti Semitic acts, unto murder and torture have taken place. Then note the numbers over the Arabic and/or Moslem countries, so many, and that is fine, if they were allowing freedom within their countries - but they are not. Now notice that tiny blip of color between Asia and Africa. Yes, that one, that tiny, narrow, endangered country, the only one with a Jewish spine, where all are welcome, where Arabs supposedly under  apartheid rules walk the streets, buy, work everywhere, go to school, live successfully and in peace -if that is what they want.

Now look at the flashes over the country, so many of them, most exploding in the air. Those are rockets, aimed clearly at civilian areas, but luckily, Israel has the Iron Dome, wherein these rockets are mostly intercepted; thus the ones that get through can do limited damage to life and property. But make no mistake about it. Were these rockets to get through, the toll in Israeli lives would be horrendous, unacceptable, but not to the world. Apparently then there might, and I stress might, be proportionate damage? Maybe, for since when has the amount of Jewish blood spilt ever been enough to satisfy the haters and their blood lust, or to get the apathetic to move, to care, to act? The answer is - never; for the most part. Those who did care were the exception, the rare ones, so few.

So what does the world want? That we Jews should go quietly, accept our fate, exhibit our bravery as we walk to the chambers, the killing places, the common graves of Nature, already ready and waiting, and stand there? Should we comfort our young and elderly as we await death, trying to give them ease in their last moments before a violent death? Should we accept the restrictions, ever growing, ever more unlivable, that are placed upon us? Should we accept our untermensch status uncomplainingly, and accept the strictures of this barbaric world placed upon us as we place family above individual survival? Do we walk through a barbaric life singing songs of defiance, even as we fall down dead? What does the world want? Will they be satisfied if we gave a specified number of Israelis or other nationality Jews, every day, to die so 'proportion' can be had? What is the level to be named? Why and why and why is the world like this, for all eternity it seems.

So, yes, I told my daughter, I am frightened. Not so much for me, but for your generation, for the grandchildren and the great grandchildren. Then I stopped. She asked if I thought the situation would improve by then, and my answer was , "No, I simply think there will be no more "Jewish problem" after that to worry about, for we will finally be destroyed, a memory that will fade in time to nothingness". Perhaps G-d will finally desert His people, aiming to restart the world. 

Wherefore has it become okay to kill all Jewish Israelis? When has it become wrong for Israel to defend itself and its citizens, even as they attempt the impossible- to destroy the tunnels of terror, the weapons, the rocket launchers, the stock of arms and ammunition hidden there, all aimed at the Jewish state - trying as best as possible to limit civilian casualties even as the terrorists of Hamas use human shields as their picture to present to the world. The accepting world. The unthinking world. Or perhaps it is the grateful world which loves to see the Jews getting their 'just desserts"! Why and wherefore is Israel to institute a ceasefire of unilateral imposition, then what stand there in  silence as the rockets land, as the casualties mount, as the blood turns the streets red? Are they not allowed to defend themselves? Is the world order to turn over only on the heads and bodies of Jews, of Israel, anywhere they live? Is it to be open season all year, all the time?

Can it be? Can it really be again? No, say the future members of the Judenrat. No, say the unthinking fools of J Street. No, cry out the idiots of Jewish Voices for Peace, the group that sees peace in the elimination of themselves, indeed all Jews, and especially the State of Israel. Perhaps, they inanely think, that they will be accepted, finally, as full and loyal citizens of their respective countries if the State of Israel did not exist? Foolishly dangerous thinking. There are always fools, dangerous fools, who are willing to sell out their people for some reward, some sign of pleasure from those who control their lives, their masters! There are always the turncoats.

Can it be? Oh, yes, it can. Sadly, unfortunately, murderously so. I pray not. I pray that there are enough brave and honest souls out there who will come to their senses, see the truth of it all. I pray that G-d remember His promise, His unending capacity for forgiveness no matter how egregious the offense -or offenses, in plural. In great plurality! But can it be? You think on that, honestly, deeply and then answer. Can it be? Will it be? Do you want it to be?