Mideast fantasy
It is distressing for us Jews who support the existence of tiny Israel in a huge hostile region like the Middle East, to read a letter like “Taking the high road” (July 24). The sliver of land called Israel is surrounded by some 22 Arab/Muslim countries containing or supported by over one billion Muslims worldwide. While not all Muslims are violently anti-Israel or anti-Semitic, even if only a small portion is, they would outnumber worldwide Jewry by a factor of at least 10-1 to 50-1.
The “let’s be nice and the world will love us” attitude is a delusion debunked by 2,000 years of history. Jews worldwide have always been docile, downtrodden, and non-confrontational. The reward for this
has been centuries of massacre after massacre. The crusades, the Inquisition, pogroms, blood libel slaughters, the Holocaust, etc. In modern times, every single Arab/Muslim country has already cleansed all Jews from their midst. The only country in the Mideast with any appreciable Jewish population is tiny Israel. And even here it has been constantly and repeatedly attacked in attempts to completely obliterate it. The only thing that keeps it alive is its strength and vigilance.
In the face of this constant onslaught, for anyone to say that Israel should take the high ground and aid the Palestinians (who just tried to kill as many Israelis as possible, and were fortunately thwarted), and then the world will love us and there will be peace on earth is living in a world of fantasy. What can be meant by “helping the Arabs” — help them build more rockets, tunnels, nuclear weapons? In the last 60 years Israel has emerged from the ashes of the Holocaust, absorbed millions of immigrants from Arab countries, and built a world-class economy. During this time the Palestinians, with the help of the rest of the world and fellow Muslim countries, have continued to swell and grow in festering refugee camps and whose only purpose seems to be to plan the destruction of Israel and do nothing to improve their own lot at all.
Clearly, Israel supporters have a lot of work to do, even among fellow
Jews.
Max Wisotsky
Highland Park
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