A Ukrainian, an Iranian, and a Jew decide to stage a demonstration. This is not the beginning of a joke but of hope.
To this demonstration – we will return shortly.
It was preceded by a tour I conducted last week of the Jewish community in Canada. In fact, for years I have been “hopping” between Jewish communities around the world; for most of my life, I have lived in such communities. After a week, I returned to Israel and I am worried. The current wave of antisemitism that is sweeping the world surpasses its predecessors. The black today has turned even blacker.
Even in an enlightened and conciliatory society like Canada, I met women who are anxious for their personal safety, who feel that now, when the world is pitted good against bad, too many “good” people are choosing the other side, or at best, neutrality.
We gather the evidence of what is happening in Jewish communities around the world with horror. In Great Britain, the rabbi of the community who recommended the removal of mezuzot from front doors; in Armenia, synagogues were set on fire; in almost all Western countries, incited and lynch-ready mobs go on missions of vandalism and terrorism on a daily basis.
Even if the new antisemites of today are called “pro-Palestinians,” and even if they don’t say “Jews” but “Zionists,” and even if the pitchforks of the past have been replaced by keyboards, the main characteristics of antisemitism are present today just as before. Dehumanizing the Jews and blaming them for all the world’s trials and tribulations, and contriving conspiracies about the “control of the Jews in the world,” when as we all know, they are less than 0.2% of the total population.
When old enemies become friends
But if antisemitism was once a response to the human need to hate, today, in the face of the new dangers threatening the West, it is an irresponsible privilege that marks the way to the next great abyss. Because today, the new partner of the Western antisemites is the greatest enemy of their grandchildren: Radical Islam.
Today, Muslims comprise almost a fifth of the world’s population, but only one out of every five Muslims lives in an Arab country. Arab money is flooding the OECD countries, and with it, its demographics are changing before our eyes. Not all Muslims are Jew-haters, but the leaders and activists among them are obliged to take care of “infidels,” that is, anyone who differs from them. From this connection, between extreme religious fanaticism and the traditional antisemites, a big bang was created, which comes in the form of a new trend of hatred toward Israel.
And so, many in the Western world are ready to dance to their tune without listening to the words, ignoring the partner’s identity, and refusing to acknowledge that they are next in line. Those who are willing today to see a terrorist organization as just and moral, in order not to accept the existence of a Jew fully capable of defending himself, will receive on the next front the gospel of radical Islam at his front door.
By then it will already be too late and when those humanitarian refugees demand the application of Islamic rule in those innocent host countries, then we will all be united in longing for the days when the problem of radical Islam was a local matter – far away, somewhere in the Middle East.
However, as the world aligns itself in the front of good versus evil, I also had a moment of hope. There, in Toronto, three very different men stood together, united in one statement against a common enemy – the Axis of Evil: the Ukrainian whose country was taken over by a hostile aggressive state; the Iranian whose country was taken over by an extremist leadership that oppresses its people; and the Jew who is now recovering from a murderous terrorist attack. It was a beautiful demonstration with many participants, in which the flags of Ukraine, Iran, and Israel were waved together. It was a demonstration of good against evil, it was called “pro-Israeli,” but I saw a pro-world, pro-humanity demonstration.
The writer is chairperson of WIZO.