Time to be resolute

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Viktor Frankl, the renowned Austrian psychiatrist who was a Shoah survivor, wrote: “to suffer unnecessarily is masochistic rather than heroic.”

Michael Kuttner

Surveying the putrid and poisonous swamp called the United Nations and its associated groups, plus assorted Israel bashers, Jewish and non-Jewish, it is not hard to conclude that every day is “a bash a Zionist” occasion.

Just when you might think that the hypocrites gathered in New York at the UN cannot sink any lower, they manage to surprise and fool us all as they pontificate and pass resolutions that are so far removed from reality that they fall into the realm of fake fiction. The UN is only one of a myriad of groups that find it necessary to obsess about Israel. The inevitable fallout these days is the collateral radioactive cloud of Jew hate that radiates forth from every quarter.

The time has come and, in fact, is long overdue when we must pose the question as to what we do about it.

Do we, as in the past, put our heads in the ground and pray that the winds of incitement will harmlessly blow over? We have tried that tactic, and it failed miserably.

Do we, as one progressive rabbi in California suggested recently, embrace the haters with love and thereby hope that they will reciprocate and leave us alone? Unfortunately, this turning the other cheek has also been a spectacular failure and merely spurs the bullies to greater acts of violence.

Do we try to ban the inciters? This will merely drive them underground, where dealing with them is much more difficult.

Do we endeavour to debate the haters by showering them with facts rather than the conspiracy lies they usually tout? The trouble with this is that the spreaders of fables never want to be confused by the truth.

As the nations gathered at the UN and elsewhere continue to propagate the lies fabricated by those lauded as peace partners, it seems to me that something stronger than an impassioned speech by the Israeli Ambassador and his collection of props is needed.

The USA representative’s protestations that Israel is being unfairly targeted fall like a lead balloon as soon as the State Department or White House issues insulting expressions of opposition to the very idea that Jews have the right to live and develop territory, which is theirs by international legal and historical rights.

The US Ambassador’s recent assertion that he “will work for the interests of the Palestinians” makes one wonder where his priorities lie. Is he the US Ambassador to Israel, or in reality, does he support the PA kleptocracy, which pays pensions and stipends to murderers of Israelis? He should be told in no uncertain language to relocate himself to either Ramallah or Gaza if pandering to Palestinian interests is his top priority.

Does the question remain as to how long we must put up with insults, threats, fallacious narratives and resolutions?

Nobody is going to take any serious notice of our discomfort and pain until and unless we actually stop being masochists. I recently read the comments of an American Jewish man who grew up pre-war in the toughest neighbourhoods. He recounts how bullies from other ethnic groups would pick on Jewish high school kids knowing that they were easy targets. This man however, knew how to fight back, and he tells of the day when these tormenters finally decided to leave him alone because “they didn’t know that Jews fought back so effectively.”

In other words, there needs to be consequences that will drive home the futility of Jew bashing.

Imagine if the beleaguered Jews in 1948 had thrown themselves at the mercy of the UN instead of fighting back and thwarting the genocidal agenda of the Arab countries trying to strangle the new country at its very birth. Fancy that, Jews actually fighting back. It came as a great shock to the Arab aggressors and an even bigger shock to an international community conditioned to believe that Jews could be targeted and murdered at will.

This brings me to the latest UN farce which must take the prize for the most brazen piece of hypocrisy of the millennium.

The UN General Assembly, by a vote of 90 in favour and 30 against, has decided to commemorate next year the 75^th anniversary of the Nakba, which according to the Arab rejectionists, is the “catastrophe and crime” of Israel’s re-establishment. In the Alice in Wonderland fantasy world inhabited by the immoral majority, the fact that the UN voted in 1947 to create a Jewish and Arab State and that the Jews accepted this while the Arabs rejected it is totally irrelevant.

Each and every disaster which subsequently afflicted the Arab rejectionists was self-inflicted and a direct result of their desire to not only wipe the Jewish State off the face of the map but also to murder every Jew. The fact that they failed was no thanks to the UN. Now, 75 years later, the latter-day Arabs reborn as Palestinians have managed to successfully peddle the lie that their original rejectionist agenda is the fault of Israel. Having failed to thwart Jewish sovereignty, they have finally succeeded in convincing the UN that it is our entire fault and that seven decades later, they deserve to be given territory they never wanted in the first place.

Shamefully but not surprisingly, the UNGA has gone along with this castration of the truth. Australia at least voted against this travesty of a resolution while New Zealand abstained, no doubt hoping that this would keep both sides happy.

This resolution was, of course, only one in a further series of assaults on Israel, which occurs every time the UN meets. Worthy of mention is the resolution passed 150 to 9 calling for an international conference in Moscow “to resolve the Israel-Palestine conflict.”  Apart from the fact that Moscow is hardly the perfect place to hold such a meeting, the purported reason is even more specious. This so-called conflict could have been resolved in 1947, but everyone except the brain-dead nations represented at the UN have yet to acknowledge that simple fact of history. Like lemmings hurtling towards their doom, the nations represented in New York prefer to pass endless resolutions, each one more detached from reality than the previous ones.

This particular unhinged call for a gathering in Moscow galvanised Australia to abstain instead of voting against. The Australian spokesperson tried to put a positive spin on this retreat from reality, but all it managed to achieve was a sense that Canberra may be edging gradually away from previous voting patterns.

Abbas, in another one of his memorable accusations, declared that “the colonial settlement (i.e. Israel) is spreading like cancer in our land”. This Sermon on the Mount uttered by the internationally anointed apostle of peace came after the Biden Administration appointed a well-known Palestinian Arab cheerleader as a special envoy to the terror-supporting PA in Ramallah. What better “hechsher” (certificate of perfection) do the terrorists need?

What should Israel do in the face of this non-stop assault?

The first step should be the cessation of payment of all UN budget dues. Why should Israel be paying an organisation that amounts to protection money so that it can continually target and condemn it?

The next step should be declaring all UN officials in Israel persona non grata. They can decamp to Ramallah or Gaza, where they will find conditions so much more conducive to Israel bashing.

Next, Israel must take control of all UN real estate, some of it on prime Jerusalem land and for which the UN refuses to pay rates to the Jerusalem City Council.

As a final resort, Israel needs to walk out of the UN and tell them to go and meddle in someone else’s affairs.

Of course, all the politically correct politicians and the entire media and left-wing breast beaters will react in horror at these suggestions.

However, as I mentioned earlier, it is only when Jews fight back that bullies take notice. After seventy-five years, surely it is time to act.

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.