Beyond Belief…writes Michael Kuttner
Often there are events or occurrences which defy any sort of logic and are “beyond belief.” This past week provided a bumper crop of such occasions.
Michael Kuttner
The first manifestation of unbelievable yet somehow expected behaviour revolved around the pontifications by the UN Security Council on the unprovoked attack by Hezbollah which resulted in the deaths of two Israeli soldiers. Israel’s response resulted allegedly in the death of a UN observer stationed in Lebanon. Without in any way condemning the initial fire from the Lebanese terrorist group, the Security Council instead focused its entire attention on Israel’s retaliation and decided to set up a committee of inquiry which of course will present its preordained report accusing Israel of unspecified crimes. It seems that New Zealand acquiesced to this farce which of course demonstrates what we can expect over the next two years.
Now to the ISIS threat which for many politicians & media seems to be “much ado about nothing.” We all can see how, following the lead of the US President, others avoid associating ISIS outrages with anything connected to Islam. In fact if you carefully monitor the utterances of these people you will gain the impression that terror and brutality carried out in the name of Islam is of recent origin and in fact has never existed before. Therefore it came as no surprise when President Obama in a speech this week warned that Christians should not condemn ISIS because they themselves are guilty of similar outrages such as crusades and inquisitions. At first glance this would seem to be a fair assertion. As Jews know only too well the genocidal hatred of crusaders & theologians fueled untold murder, mayhem and misery wherever Jewish communities were unfortunate enough to encounter these pogroms. However in his frantic effort to rewrite history and whitewash current outrages, Obama conveniently omitted some salient facts.
Islam, from its earliest beginnings was a militant faith, committed to either converting the infidels or putting them to the sword. Even at the best of times Jews & Christians were treated as second class citizens, forced to wear distinctive clothing, taxed punitively and at the mercy of frequent frenzied mobs. If it was not Christians burning Jews then it was Moslems murdering them, all in the name of their religion.
Now, here is the difference that Obama forgot about. Two thousand years late, but nevertheless better late than never, Christianity has in many cases repented and atoned for its past hatred of Jews & Judaism. Of course it still aspires in many cases to convert Jews but the age of forced conversions, book burnings and inquisitions has ended. Not so, with the followers of Islam. They have neither reformed their theology nor repented for their past actions. In fact ISIS and its associated off shoots make it perfectly clear that Islam provides them with the motivation & inspiration to behave the way they do. Many Moslem clerics may denounce their actions but the fact remains that the majority do not and in fact are conspicuously silent.
Listening to the apologists out there one gets the impression that terror in the name of Islam, if it exists at all, is of recent vintage and as some twisted individuals have asserted is all because Israel is a colonial occupier and oppressor. Well, here are some hard cold facts which prove that Islamic barbarism predates the establishment of the Jewish State. Click on the link below to learn how in the space of just a few years from 1920 onwards, the forerunners of ISIS behaved. Bear in mind this is just a small sample of the terror experienced. It demonstrates that the ISIS phenomenon is neither unique nor unIslamic, as the White House & State Dept. will have you believe.
http://www.camera.org/index.asp?x_context=2&x_outlet=118&x_article=1691
Proving that the above mentioned speech was not an accidental aberration, Barak Obama, in another speech this week, speaking about the massacre at the Kosher Deli in Paris, described the event as “perpetrated by a bunch of violent, vicious zealots” (note the absence of the “I” word) “who randomly shot a bunch of folks in a deli in Paris.” He went on to claim that the threat of global terrorism was overstated by the media.
When it was pointed out by many commentators that the terror attack in Paris was neither random nor that the victims were “a bunch of folks” the White House and State Dept. spokespersons vehemently insisted that they were indeed as the President had described them. It took another 48 hours for these Administration officials to concede that perhaps after all the terror was not random, that the Kosher Deli had been targeted deliberately because it was a Jewish shop and that the victims were Jews, murdered precisely because of their ethnicity and not just a bunch of folks. By then the damage had been done, the warped logic exposed and yet another example of deliberate denial displayed.
To round off another vintage week, J.Street, that group which touts itself as pro Israel yet manages to be anything but, launched a campaign in the USA against the Israeli Prime Minister addressing Congress concerning the rapidly looming Iranian nuclear threat and the developing deceptions being cooked up to facilitate it. Entitled, “Netanyahu does not speak in my name” this extensive demolition job claims that the PM of the Jewish State does not have the right to speak at all because in doing so he purports to represent Jews worldwide and moreover his very act of doing so will engender hate and endanger Jews in the USA.
This reminds me very much of the US Jewish establishment in the 1930’s who refused to openly tackle F.D. Roosevelt on his lackluster efforts in rescuing Jews from the horrors of the Holocaust. When a group of Ultra Orthodox Rabbis, fed up by the cowardice of the establishment, decided to march on the White House in an effort to publicize the desperate situation, they were denigrated in much the same way as today’s campaign.
Likewise in the UK, when East End Jews decided to fight back against the Mosley fascists, the establishment did everything to thwart their efforts. Then, as now, the fear was expressed that warning and acting against those whose only desire was to murder Jews, would generate unwanted publicity. Moreover, a fear of confronting Government policies inhibited and crippled any meaningful establishment campaign to expose the danger facing Jews in Europe. In other words, those trying to alert a hostile and indifferent world to looming threats were ridiculed and told that they were “not speaking in our name.”
Churchill faced the same dismissive skeptics until he was proven right almost when it was too late.
In an ironic and ominous omen, John Kerry has met with the Iranian negotiators this week in Munich of all places. A few days later Iranian media gloated the West has been weakened and that Iran will triumph in its aim to achieve nuclear capabilities. Munich “mark two” is cooking and no doubt we will soon witness another peace in our time moment with Obama and colleagues claiming that peace in our time has arrived.
If all this sounds eerily familiar it definitely is. The tragedy is that some have learnt nothing from past events and continue to tread down the same failed paths again.
It is, to my mind, a case of beyond belief on a grand scale.
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.
