A nechtiker tog

 Email this story

Print

3 Comments

This exquisite Yiddish expression loosely translated means “whom are you trying to fool?”

Michael Kuttner

After two thousand years of being abused, kicked around, targeted, slandered and accused of a myriad array of theological and political crimes, one would think that those dark days were well and truly a relic of the past.

The original Zionist vision of a world purged of its Jewish phobias and replaced with a love for the return of Jews to their ancestral homeland is, unfortunately, still a dream. We may will it but it won’t become a reality in a hurry, if at all.

We are in a much better condition these days to combat Judeophobia articulated and enacted by those whose hostility is openly and unabashedly displayed. The real and major challenge, however, revolves around those individuals and nations which profess to “love” us but, in actual fact, are working assiduously to undermine us both as a nation-state and as members of the world’s original monotheistic faith.

I wish that all our detractors, Jewish and non-Jewish, would listen to the words of the Hebrew prophet Jeremiah, which we read on the second day of Rosh Hashanah.

“You will be rebuilt. You will yet plant vineyards in the mountains of Samaria. The planters will plant and redeem. Behold, I will bring them from the northern land and gather them from the ends of the earth. Among them will be the blind, the lame, pregnant and birthing mothers together. A great congregation will return here. Hear the word of the Lord oh nations and relate it in distant islands (NZ?): He shall gather them in and guard them as a shepherd guards his flock.”

As I looked around our local minyan, the words of Jeremiah resonated loud and clear. Here was truly an ingathering of exiles from distant lands. From New Zealand and Australia, Canada and the USA, the UK, Sweden and Russia and most interesting of all from Brazil, where generations after the inquisition sought to extinguish any vestige of Judaism increasing numbers are returning to the faith of their ancestors. As the entire assembled multitude, including native born Israelis whose families several generations back escaped from the horrors of Europe, listened to the Prophet’s words one could not escape the miraculous fact that here we are settled in the very places our Patriarchs and Matriarchs lived.

Switching on the media after the Chag hurled us straight back into the surreal and bizarre reality of most of the rest of the world convulsing over the fact that Jews were defending themselves against terror.

From the White House, State Department and the US Ambassador to Israel (he who refuses to visit the very places Jeremiah talks about) came a stream of crocodile tears over terrorists eliminated either before or after murdering Israelis. Nides (the ambassador) condemned the heinous crime of “settlement growth.” Obviously he is deliberately oblivious to our ancient and legal claim to this land and prefers as so many Jewish genetic Democrats do, to believe that if only we would fold up our tents and surrender to the falsifiers of history, all will be well in the world.

Our touted “best friends” feel sufficiently emboldened to interfere in a most blatant manner in how we govern Israel. “Leaks” from “well informed” US Government sources and expressions of horror from Democratic members of Congress and the Senate, warned Israeli politicians against including members of a right-wing nationalist party in any future coalition. The unmitigated gall behind this gross and blatant interference in Israel’s electoral process demonstrates yet again the double standards prevailing in Washington.

Any Israeli political party or aspiring Knesset member failing to meet the democratic standards set by the Supreme Court is banned from taking part in the elections. One may not like the politics of a particular party or the views of a candidate but at the end of the day it is up to the Israeli electorate to decide in free and fair balloting. The fact that, no doubt after a series of “wink, wink, nudge, nudge” gestures behind the scenes, American officials feel emboldened to demand who should be or not be included in our next coalition speaks volumes about actual “friendship.”

At the same time our local self proclaimed liberals and defenders of their version of democracy are up in arms because anyone who does not conform to their leftist dogma must be by default a “fascist” and therefore beyond the pale.

Just imagine the uproar if Israeli politicians demanded that AOC and her squad plus all the “progressives” who obsess about Israel be banned from the US political process. Yet these same individuals feel no shame and compunction in interfering in our domestic affairs.

Whom are they trying to fool with their false and hypocritical, hysterical posturing?

There are two leading contenders for the “nechtiker tog” award of the year.

The first is the new and beleaguered Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Liz Truss. Whether her economic policies will fatally wreck the country’s finances or create an economic miracle remains to be seen. The polls don’t look good but then anything could happen between now and when elections are due in 2024.

Prior to her elevation to Downing Street and in an effort to round up the Jewish vote she declared that if chosen she would investigate the possibility of moving the UK Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. She reiterated this pledge again when she subsequently met Israel’s PM.

Anyone with even only a smattering of previous and current British policies towards Israel knows that Truss’s declarations are just hot air. Trump may have been successful in squashing the anti-Israel State Dept but Truss has no show whatsoever of doing the same with the Foreign Office whose track record since Balfour and San Remo has been consistently hostile. Already the howls of outrage have emanated forth from Arab nations, Islamic spokespersons, Corbyn groupies and of course media outlets such as the Guardian.

As usual, gullible UK Jewish and Israeli “machers” were quick to applaud Liz Truss. The fact that not one of them managed to decipher the real meaning behind the word “investigate” and instead cheered a non-existent event speaks volumes.

The second contender for the “nechtiker tog” award must surely go to the wackiest “peace” plan ever promoted in recent times if not ever.

At first glance I thought the Hashemite Kingdom of Palestine was a new spoof from John Cleese and Fawlty Towers or a new episode of the Life of Brian. Instead, it turns out that a Saudi author and commentator has discovered a solution to the seemingly unsolvable problem of Israel’s place in the Middle East.

He suggests that Jordan merge with Gaza and part of Judea and Samaria in order to create this weird creature called the Hashemite Kingdom of Palestine.

The proponents of this plan are frustrated that neither Israelis nor the Hashemites let alone the Ramallah and Gaza based Palestinian Arabs have embraced his vision of peace on earth and goodwill to all. The reasons are very simple and as those concerned still cannot understand the refusal to embrace it I will try to clarify.

• This is not an official Saudi offer. The Saudi authorities have been strikingly silent.
• The Hashemite Monarch is hardly likely to commit hari kari by dissolving his country and getting into bed with the likes of the PLO and Hamas.
• Israelis have no intention of handing large parts of Judea and Samaria over to a terror sponsoring entity, no matter what exotic name it adopts.
• Joining the terror territory of Gaza with Israeli sovereign territory is an exercise in lunacy.
• Can anyone in their right mind imagine that the Palestinian Arabs, having been brainwashed for generations, will willingly renounce their intention to destroy the Jewish State and settle for Amman as their Capital?
• As reported by PMW, Abbas has described the creation of Israel as “a disgrace to humanity.”

These are just a few of the fatal flaws which doom this plan from ever being implemented. Like others of its ilk, peddled by the UN and a pathetically inept American Administration, if implemented the intended cure would prove fatal as far as Israeli Jews are concerned.

What the promoters of such schemes still fail to internalize is the fundamental fact that it is the refusal to acknowledge any legitimate Jewish presence in this Land by Islamic extremists which is the sole core of the problem. Unlike some of the Gulf States the current Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan and the PLO/Hamas/Hezbollah terrorists only envisage a land ethnically cleansed of Jews.

The ever expanding numbers of “refugees” in UNRWA camps where they are brainwashed to believe in a Judenrein Palestine constitute yet another challenge. Unfortunately, thanks to increased funding by nations such as New Zealand and Australia, UNRWA will continue to contribute to the absence of any sort of peace.

Unless and until all these realities are tackled and dealt with our response to hallucinatory mirages must be “a nechtiker tog.”

Michael Kuttner is a Jewish New Zealander who for many years was actively involved with various communal organisations connected to Judaism and Israel. He now lives in Israel and is J-Wire’s correspondent in the region.