The Golden Age
Reader comment on item: Anti-Semitism Evolves

Submitted by Arlinda DeAngelis (United States), Feb 16, 2005 at 06:10

One of the most startling commentaries I have ever read and a very frightening one, indeed:

I could not help but wonder at the beginning of the 1990s why the left turned against Israel so virulently. What was a mild protest against Israel, to be expected in a country such as ours, became an insanity. I also found it astonishing that the once Christian rightist fundamentalists were so pro-Israeli. It seemed to happen overnight. And, Israel allied itself with the Christian fundamentalists in this country. I just didn't understand what was happening. That the left had abandoned Israel did not occur to me. That even some American Jews were against Israel in the terrorist war with the Arabs in Palestine.

What was at the bottom of this odd connection? As a one time leftist of the 1960s, Israel was neither a right nor leftist issue. It was an ally of the United States. It was everything to everyone. Brave, courageous and warlike when it came to its survival ... never asking, never demanding, never pleading for United States intervention in its wars of survival against overwhelming odds ... the oil rich powerful Arab states. I remember an Israeli leader saying during the "Six-Day War" we don't want American blood spilt on Israeli soil. Any red blooded right winger had to love the pugnacity and incredible courage of the Israelis against what appeared to be insurmountable odds. Visions of America's beginnings were everywhere. This was no victim state. Israel was just like us. Moishe Dayan was as heroic and stately as was Eisenhower and just as photogenic.

This tiny state even stood against the imperial Soviet Union that created the mess in the Suez while every Arab state caved to imperial Soviet Union. Perhaps Osama and the rest of the Jihadists forgot about that. In an act of incredible speed and courage Israel probably saved the world when they took out the nuclear reactors in Osirek in a raid that was so lightening fast that the planes were gone before Saddam's regime knew what hit them ... what courage for such a small country. Israel claimed no responsibility and the incredibly corrupt United Nations condemned them.

It was also a liberal democracy with a socialist bent ... its citizens enjoying the same personal rights as those in the United States. Its socialist and liberal democratic government had, nipping at its heels, a real live peace movement pleading for co-existence with the Arabs, decrying the settlements in the West Bank and looking for peace with Missy Arafat. They even had Gold Mier, mother of modern Israel and role model for every feminist worth her salt. This country also appealled to every red blooded leftist.

What was there not to like about Israel?!

I remember when I worked for an organization that shared a space with an organization of a displaced Synagogue that had closed for lack of enough Jews in the neighborhood to support its existence. We were all liberals but for the war of existence between the Arabs in Palestine supported by the theocratic surrounding Arab states and Israel's defense against the Arab war.

Most of the people for whom and with whom I worked were Jews. A startling moment occurred while I worked for this organization. It happened when Hillary Clinton kissed Arafat's wife after Suha made an incredible anti-Israel speech ... accusing them of the wanton killing of Arab babies! I was devastated, appalled and stunned. I voted for Hillary's opponent after working like crazy to get her to run for the Senate in New York. I had but one ally ... the Rabbi of the displaced synagogue. We'd speak in private. I would rail. He would counsel. We shared a belief that the Arabs in Palestine were programmed, brain washed and insane ... hellbent on annihilating Israel. The left and the liberals in this country cheered them on. It was insane.

I am not a Jew but I am a Zionist ... absolutely and unconditionally. What else would I be as an American with a brain.

It was a slow and insidious evolvement of the left aligning itself with the theocratic Islamic Arab states that had once aligned themselves with imperial fascist Nazis and the imperial communists of the Soviet Union. The Israel that once appealed to every American of every persuasion became the target of the liberals and the left. It was an unspeakable thing for a movement that screamed about war crimes, atrocities and fascism to align itself with a movement that defined every one of the aforementioned, the Islamic Jihadists. The left that dispised the Christian fundamentalists seemed to have found a new home among the poor oppressed Islamic fundamentalists forgiving them everything including the enslavement of women. Go figure this disconnect!

Then came September 11th and I knew in my heart and soul what it was like to be an Israeli ... what it was like to live under siege ... what it was like to wonder if tomorrow there would not be another terrorist attack ... what it was like to have to worry if some lunatic would blow us and our children to smithereens for nothing but a vague imperialist religious notion.

What was once an intellectual ideology should have become a physical passion without bounds. What happens to Israel happens to us ... the debate, the argument, the discussion was over. If that event did not open the eyes of every single American and of every Euro of every ideological and/or religious persuasion, I am afraid that nothing in the universe will change their hateful minds.

The left has gone over the edge of the rational, the thoughtful and the sane. I could understand the great debates of communism vs. democracy, of socialism vs. capitalism. But those days have long since gone.

France's Le Monde stated that on September 11th everyone everywhere became an American. That was incorrect. On September 11th we all became Israelis. So what the hell is there left to debate? Life and death is not a debate?!

---

Note: Opinions expressed in comments are those of the authors alone and not necessarily those of Daniel Pipes. Original writing only, please. Comments are screened for relevance, substance, and tone, and in some cases edited before posting. Reasoned disagreement is welcome, but comments are rejected if scurrilous, off-topic, vulgar, ad hominem, or otherwise viewed as inappropriate. For complete regulations, see the Guidelines for Comments. For informational purposes, we identify countries from which comments are sent.