Maof

Introduction to “The Palestinian Boomerang” 1

Of all the myths created by human imagination “Palestine” is the most outrageous one.
“Palestine” is a myth of such scope that no other fantasy born in people’s minds has ever come anywhere close to it. This myth has transformed the small stretch of land along the Mediterranean coastline into the focus of world-wide attention, and now even nations which have never before heard of the Revelation at Mt. Sinai and the Promised Land know that this is where the fate of the world is being decided.
It’s not at all surprising considering that “Palestine” and Mt. Sinai are located in the same area. Mt. Sinai is actually not a mountain even but a hill, which doesn’t prevent it from being a very special place: the Holy Book tells us that at some future time we will witness “the end of days” when the nations of the world shall all turn to this mound, since it is from Zion that the Teaching of the World’s Creator shall go forth.
That’s exactly what has happened. A teaching universal in its scope is indeed going forth from Zion, confirming the prophecy. It is doubtful that this is the Teaching described in the Holy Book, however, because from the moment Zion was captured by “Palestine” it is the Teaching of Death that emanates from Zion and spreads like wildfire around the planet.
A culture built on the single idea of Death has been cultivated here in “Palestine”. Belts packed with explosives which parents proudly tie around their children’s bodies have become a hallmark of this culture. Characteristically, this is no longer happening on the territory of “Palestine” alone but in different parts of the world. It doesn’t seem accidental: these events appear as a confirmation of the words of the Holy Book about Zion’s significance and its impact on the entire world.
Here, in the “Palestinian” Zion, women whose biological function is to be the mothers of all life have taken on the role of suicide killers whose primary goal is to murder as many human beings as possible.
Here, in this special “Palestinian incubator” an entire generation is being bread which absorbs the idea of Death as life’s main purpose with their mother’s milk.
And this lethal admixture is being spread around the world feeding what we now know as “international terrorism”. As it penetrates people’s souls “Palestine” kindles in them the spark of faith in Death, becoming a rallying cry for those who bring destruction to contemporary civilization.
Not surprisingly, “Palestine” has created a multitude of problems which religious, political and public leaders around the globe are desperately trying to tackle. Experts and concerned individuals get together at scholarly academies, research centers, and political and social institutions in an effort to make their contribution to resolving the “Palestinian problem”.
Alas, all these efforts turn into nothing as they hit against the wall of zombie-like “Palestine”, because “Palestine’s” problems have acquired a categorically irresolvable quality, whereas the Death quest which it radiates not only resists control but is actually gaining momentum.
 

2

Why did we, Jews, have to find ourselves in this quandary – there and now, in that very “Palestine”!?
Wait a minute! Maybe it was the other way around?
Maybe this frightening phantom of “Palestine” appeared precisely because we, Jews, found ourselves there and now?
Was anyone concerned about this stretch of abandoned land between Jordan and the Mediterranean Sea until recently? Did anyone even hear about “the Palestinian people” a hundred years ago? But no sooner did the Jews begin their return to the Promised Land – something predicted by EVERY SINGLE ONE of the Jewish prophets – than the “Palestinian people” suddenly appeared out of nowhere and became recognized by all nations on earth and all world bodies as having the right to “Holy Palestine”.
It is quite obvious that the phenomenon of “Palestine” emerged as a response to the return of the Jews to Zion. “Palestine” was invented for one purpose only: to create an obstacle for the Jews, hindering our return to this plot of land where we are obligated to come back irrespective of our personal desire to do so.
Just like centuries ago, irrespective of our will, we made our escape from Egypt to come to Zion, so now too a mysterious Force is guiding us in the same direction. Honestly, we can’t explain even to ourselves how exactly this is happening.
Just as then, when after the Exodus from Egypt a certain mysterious Amalek, whom the Holy Book declared to be the enemy of the World’s Creator, had tried to bar our passage, so now too our passage is being blocked by “Palestine”. It appeared completely out of nowhere, as a fantasy, but has since struck root, matured and became capable of indoctrinating people and “taking over” their lives. All this is meant to announce to the world: there is no deliverance for the Jews – they have nowhere to return.
Too bad for you, Jews, but your place, your Promised Land, is already taken.
It is now taken over by “Palestine”.
Those who invented “Palestine” have every reason to rejoice.
“Palestine” has turned the lives of the Jews into a gradual catastrophe. Jews are dying daily in never ending wars, clashes, exchanges of fire and terrorist acts. Due to “Palestine” the land of Zion has once again become transformed into the same kind of land which it used to be, according to the Holy Book, before the arrival of the tribes of Israel – a desolate land devoured by strangers. Funeral processions have indeed become a familiar site in the land of “Palestine”: the air is filled with the crying and sobbing of people who are mourning their loved ones.
“Palestine” has “elevated” Jews to the position of the world’s main defendant whom other nations are beginning to see as the cause of all their misfortunes. These nations have inwardly accepted the idea that without the Jews and their “criminal occupation” of Zion the world would definitely be if not a perfect, then certainly a better place to live in, since it wouldn’t have to concern itself with the “Palestinian problem”.
It would seem that the very name “Palestine” should enrage us, Jews. Didn’t all those nations who yelled to us: “Get out!” and tried to banish us from their midst know exactly where they were expelling us? They must have known that the Jews had no other place on earth but Zion which they could call their own. Why are they trying to convince us now that “Palestine” is located in that very place? Why have they invented it? Why does everybody seem to need “Palestine” so badly?
“Palestine” is indeed necessary.
        No matter how offensive it might sound to some, “Palestine” is absolutely indispensable.
 

3

        It is first of all, we, Jews, who need “Palestine”. It is no secret that our destiny has been determined by our special status as “the chosen people”. We were supposed to go off and live separately, not being counted as part of the other world nations.
        But who wants to live separately? We, too, would like to be “like everyone else” and become a part of the community of nations.
        When we went back to the land of our ancestors, this is exactly what we all wished for. Our dream was a very modest one: to have our own piece of land we could call home, to grow fruit, build roads and houses, bring up our children, go to work and, on weekends, go to the movies, to the beech or spend the evening with friends.
        “Can’t you let us be? Leave alone this ‘chosenness’ of ours… We don’t want to be a special nation!” we insisted. “We’re in your way in your wonderful countries, so why don’t you give us a small piece of land so that we can get out and stop bothering you? You’d like to have some peace and so would we. Don’t we too deserve some breathing space?”
        And we did get out.
        So what now? It’s no longer a secret that Jews living in Israel have become associated with the image of the bloodthirsty Jew who is once again in everybody’s way, only this time on a world-wide scale. Once again we have found ourselves on one side of the fence with the rest of the nations being on the other side. They don’t really accept the existence of the Jewish state, even those who publicly claim to recognize it. Even those of them that sincerely believe that they have nothing but friendly feelings toward the Jewish state go out of their way to legitimize “Palestine” in the land of Zion and to help us, Jews, rid the Land of Zion and Jerusalem of our presence.
        They make every effort to clear of the Jewish “occupation” the Promised Land which is the one place on earth where G-d has promised us an eternal kingdom.
        Our new status as “occupiers” of the Promised Land has created a fundamentally new situation which defies any logical explanation.
                When the nations of Europe were exterminating the Jews during WWII to purge their lands of our presence it was possible to present a logical justification for their conduct.
        “…Jewish bankers are robbing our people.”
        “Jews have seized the most prestigious positions in our national home.”
        “Jewish revolutionaries are inciting our people to revolt against the church and the state.”
        It would even be possible to find some justifying arguments in favor of the Holocaust, if one wanted to do that badly enough.
        But not for “Palestine!”
        Never before “Palestine” appeared on the map have we, Jews, felt that we belonged to a people whose death was sought by all nations. We had never felt that way until now, when global efforts have led to the creation of the special “Palestinian people” with whose hands the world intends to eliminate “Jewish occupiers”.
        Even the most skeptical among us are likely to think at this point that the Jews must clearly have been marked out in some way.
        Why are all other nations so preoccupied with us?
        What makes them so intensely concerned about the “Palestinian people”?
        What compels all of them to invest their taxpayer’s money into this particular “people” whose murderous instincts endanger the world?
        Are the “Palestinians” indeed the most disadvantaged people on earth that they deserve such universal attention?
        Just recently, after Jews were expelled from Gaza, some young Egyptian women rushed across the border to get married hastily to the first random “Palestinian”. It turned out that they saw this as a way to get out of poverty and secure a better future for themselves. So where do these sorry souls seek happiness? In poor Gaza that is pitied by the whole world. If things in Egypt are so bad that one is tempted to run away and get married in “Palestine” then perhaps the Egyptians should get ahead of the “Palestinians” in the line of candidates for universal support?
        There are so many of these genuinely poor and disadvantaged nations! But does anyone construct airports and sea ports for them, train their armies and build schools and summer camps for their children? Does anyone give them billions of dollars? Not at all. It is only the special “Palestinian people” who “deserve” this kind of treatment, even though anyone who can put two and two together has to understand that a steady supply of weapons will come poring into these sea ports and airports; training camps will train suicide bombers; the army will prepare militants, and the schools will plant hatred in young Palestinian souls which will stay there forever. It will start as hatred for the Jews, then for the infidels, then for those who Islamic faith is different from theirs, then for members of another militant group, then for their own neighbors and, finally, for the entire human race…
Perhaps one doesn’t know for sure but vaguely suspects that these funds will inevitably lead to a power struggle between corrupt counterparts aiming for their redistribution? Perhaps somebody fails to understand that the constant tumult in “Palestine” will eventually spill through and overflow, serving as a source of inspiration for an expanding number of suicide bombers who see death as the only way to escape the problems of the modern world which they are unable to solve?
        And despite all that everybody continues to nourish “Palestine” in the Promised Land as if under a spell and with one purpose in mind: so that there is no place on earth left for the Jews.
        It must be that we, Jews, are indeed “the chosen people” if the mere fact of our existence can wreak such havoc on people’s minds! Were it not for “Palestine” nobody would believe that except for the Jewish Orthodox? How else could we finally figure out that our “chosenness” is not the work of somebody’s fancy? It is absolutely real.
        Indeed, it was worth inventing “Palestine” if only as a way to prove this to us.
 

4
 
        True, those who invented “Palestine” to replace the Promised Land need that at least as much as we do.
        We, Jews, have given them no peace of mind for over 2,000 years.
        A long, long time ago, when we alone believed in One G-d, they made fun of us and mocked us. They worshipped so many gods and they were all so beautiful!
        But we… Suggesting a deity no one can even see! Isn’t it worth a laugh or two? And they split their sides laughing and came up with fairy tales that described us, Jews, worshipping a donkey’s head and using human blood in ritual sacrifices.
        No sooner did they adopt our faith in the One Whose Image was not accessible to their fervent imagination than they sought out a new and more vicious slander – claiming that we killed G-d.
Never had they experienced the kind of mystical hatred which
they felt for the “God-killers”. They managed to feed this kind of hatred to many other nations, making them repeat day after day in their prayers to our G-d curses addressed to the very nation which G-d Himself had named to be “the chosen people”, vowing never to forsake them.
But these Jew-haters already considered themselves to be “the chosen people” and “the New Israel”. They now perceived Jews as a nation rejected by G-d which, incidentally, did not decrease their intense negative feelings.
On the contrary, we, Jews, aroused their fervent imagination even more. They drew pictures of Jews with horns and tales, portraying us as devious, depraved and bloodthirsty creatures. They once again revived their old myths about human sacrifice, reinventing them and now insisting that Jews were kidnapping their children to sprinkle Passover matzos with innocent Christian blood.
Well, there is a logical explanation even for something like this.
Acceptance of monotheistic faith objectively makes people more intolerant. If G-d is One, then there ought to be a single order for all of His creations. After they usurped the status of “the chosen people” other monotheists had to develop a matching scheme, according to which Jews would be stripped of this status. And they produced a thoroughly devised theory to prove that G-d had renounced the Jews.
One can understand why it was so important for them to see us wallowing in misery. Based on their scheme even our appearance was supposed to scare to death those who didn’t want to accept their new religion. And they made every possible effort to show the rest of the world just how much G-d rejected the Jews. They persecuted us, burdened us with laws that limited our rights, humiliated us and required that we wore distinguishing badges for identification or jester’s hats. They burned our books and forced us to take the Torah oath wearing a crown of thorns.
We, Jews, tried to bring up arguments in defense of our faith. But faith is not something that can be proved. And monotheistic faith is particularly uncompromising. It leads to intolerance because the principle of unity has primary significance for it. Mind you, we are just as uncompromising toward them as they are toward us. Moreover, it is we, Jews, who taught them to be so uncompromising. So it is hard to tell what kind of relations we might have had if we exchanged places and they were forced to live in our midst.
They wouldn’t have it so good, believe me.
Now about their silence during WWII…That also has a valid explanation… They were scared. They were simply afraid because the new order of the Third Reich intended to wipe out those of them who stubbornly continued to believe in the G-d of the Sinai Revelation. There were actually quite a few among them who saved Jewish lives, putting their own lives at stake. And they did it because we share One G-d of the Sinai Revelation. Belief in G-d couldn’t be reconciled with the furnaces of Auschwitz.
Yes, all this has an explanation...
It is possible to understand.
All of it that is, except for “Palestine”, which they have unanimously accepted as a reality.
What is their motivation? Don’t they understand what is going to happen to this land which is sacred to them if the struggle of the “Palestinian people” against the Jews results in the demise of the Jewish state? Do they really expect any of their holy sites to survive in this land? Let them look at Kosovo for the answer. They are now being pushed around even in their own Europe. How can anyone hope for tolerance to prevail here, in the land of “Palestine”, where the Crusaders shed their blood to free the Holy Sepulcher?
It is absolutely clear that despite all the assurances by Muslim extremists to the contrary, the situation in this land will become even more radicalized, and this will be true not only in respect to non-Muslims, the so-called infidels, but between all other religious factions as well. This won’t occur because of somebody’s desire for it to be that way. The point is that the world has changed – it has truly become united and is transformed into one “global village”. And this means that the already fierce battle for a single world order will grow even fiercer. More than anywhere else this will happen in this land, in Zion, from where the Teaching will go forth.
More than anywhere...
But in spite of everything, they are fighting desperately to expel none other than the Jews from this land on behalf of “Palestine”, where there won’t be any place for them either.
It is their fanatical faith in “Palestine” that makes us, Jews, take a new look at the accusations which they have been flinging at us over the past 2,000 years.
Who is this “god” whom we have supposedly killed? Do they really mean Jesus? Or perhaps they have in mind a totally different “god”, or, rather, the “gods” of their ancestors – all these votans, freyrs, svarogs, peruns and the like?
Monotheistic Christianity forced Europeans to forsake the “gods” of their own ancestors in order to acknowledge the G-d of the Jewish forefathers – the G-d of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. But the Europeans never parted entirely with their own “gods”. These “gods” continued to live in their hearts but they now assumed the character of occult forces. The pagan “gods” of their ancestors were giving descendants no peace, tormenting their imagination with images of ghosts and vampires, all kinds of devils and witches, imps, goblins and mermaids who moved from folklore and mythology into literature, and more recently came to life on the blue screen in films like “Harry Potter” and “The Lord of the Rings”. The Internet has expanded their opportunities dramatically. The sheer number and quality of pagan websites provide ample proof of the tremendous interest displayed by former Christians in the “gods” of their ancestors.
But even while the Church was still able to keep Europeans in check their “gods” were rebelling against the Christian faith in satanic sects. At a time when these “gods” didn’t present themselves in any obvious form, during the era of Reason and Enlightenment, their suppressed power already manifested itself but in the most unexpected fashion – Europeans placed on us, Jews, the blame … for Christianity.
When Voltaire cried, “Crush the infamous thing!” no one was quite sure whether he meant the Catholic Church or the Jews, since Judaism is the source of Christianity.
And when Nietzsche’s archetype of the European superman called Christ an idiot there already existed in Europe a number of secret societies that were nurturing the purulent growths of Nazi ideology. The pivotal idea of this new teaching born in Europe was that the Arians must resurrect the spirit of their ancestors and not only get rid of those immediately identified as Jews but also purify Arian blood up to the fourth generation of the blood of those who “contaminated” Arians by forcing on them their own G-d.
The plan to burn all the Jews as a sacrifice to Votan is the heart and soul of Nazi ideology. Unless we understand this it is impossible to comprehend what was really going on during WWII, and why the Germans were acting so “strangely”(!?) when instead of using railways to deliver necessary ammunition to the frontlines, they used them to transport the Jews to extermination camps.
Now let’s get back to the accusations of child murder… If the Jews actually had any such rituals isn’t it true that someone other than Europeans would surely know about it? Before we came into contact with Europeans we lived side by side with Arabs and Persians for many centuries but we were never accused of anything like that. Blood libels were introduced to these peoples through Europeans.
So what prompted the appearance among Europeans of this mystical belief that the Jews were killing Christian children? Maybe it all has to do with them and not at all with the Jews?  Perhaps Europeans shifted on us the blame for their children’s death because European nations made renouncing G-d’s main commandment, the instinct to “be fruitful and multiply”, a condition for their acceptance of the G-d of the Sinai Revelation? Maybe by thrusting the blood libel at us they are really shedding tears over their unborn children who never had a chance to come into this world because so many Europeans locked themselves in monasteries? Could it be that their sexual revolution, the destructive cult of sex which has elevated homosexuality to the highest normative status is also a rebellion against this means of acknowledging our G-d?
If we still have doubts that our mere existence is driving them insane, “Palestine” serves as the most solid proof.
Most importantly, their belief in “Palestine” and the “Palestinian people” is quite sincere!
In this respect militant Islamic extremists compare favorably to Europeans in that they don’t believe in any such thing as the “Palestinian people”. Muslim extremists openly admit that the “Palestinian people” simply constitute that part of the Islamic ummah (community of believers, – Translator’s note) which has the honorable duty to purge the Promised Land of the Jews for the sake of establishing a world caliphate at some point in the future. Once this mission is accomplished there will be no more reason to single out the “Palestinian people” since Muslims do not really accept the notion of separate “nations”. Muslims are joined into ummahs, not nations.
Their position is clear and simple…
But what about the position of Europeans?
There is really not a semblance of logic about it. It reflects something totally different – the ancestral call, a desire to avenge the desecrated beliefs of pagan forefathers and a faith in the idol of freedom from the Revelation at Sinai. And this faith manifests itself in the truly religious zeal with which Europeans pronounce the mantras of “democratic Palestine”, “the struggle of the Palestinian people for freedom” and “the Palestinian people’s legitimate right to establish a Palestinian state”.
This isn’t a na?ve belief of some simple-minded, uneducated or brainwashed people. It is the belief of politicians and scholars, heads of states and leaders of religious confessions, top intellectuals, writers and journalists!
If all this were nothing more than political spin, it wouldn’t be so surprising.
But these people genuinely BELIEVE!.. They BELIEVE in it!
They believe in it with the same passion with which they have always believed in the myth of the Jewish “God-killing” and Jewish “cannibalism”!
It is the depth of this belief that is more frightening than anything else!
It is scary to look into their faces when they use the excuse of “the just solution to the Palestinian question” to substitute, without a shadow of doubt, the invented “Palestinian people” for the eternal Jewish people.
It is frightening to listen to their discourse about the “Palestinian state” – a wild dream for which they demand that the Promised Land become “Judenfrei”.
 It is alarming to ponder the reasons why they think of themselves as righteous heroes who fight for “Palestine” and fervently strive to fulfill a sacred duty, when all they want is to expel the Jews from the Promised Land under the guise of their concern for the “Palestinian people”.
 It is unnerving to think that they are oblivious to the simple truth: this entire “trumped-up Palestinian story” is proof of their total insanity.
 Indeed, “Palestine” was absolutely necessary for them and for us so that we would finally comprehend the depth of the trauma which we, Jews, had caused the Europeans by introducing them to our G-d and His Revelation at Mt. Sinai.
They have been carrying the pain of this trauma deep in their hearts for 2,000 years, and this is how they have avenged themselves – with “Palestine”!
“Palestine” is the poisonous fruit of their hatred for the Jews. It was born out of their passionate desire to avenge themselves for the Revelation at Sinai. This phantom has “risen from the foam” like their Aphrodite.
 

5

The Europeans can comfort themselves with the thought that it is not only they who have lost their minds. We, Jews, have become even more insane. If we weren’t completely aware of this in the past, “Palestine” has shed light on this sad state of affairs, dispelling all our doubts.
“Palestine” has helped us see exactly what we are and how far we have fallen.
   The strange metamorphosis that occurred with “Palestine” has somehow slipped through our fingers: before our very eyes “Palestine” became transformed from a name which the Europeans have given to the Promised Land into a symbol of Islamic resistance to the culture which has matured in the womb of Christian Europe.
 This metamorphosis has turned the situation around: “Palestinians” now fight under the green flag of Islam, and we, Jews, acting as the outpost of Europe, have found ourselves in the role of defenders of the values of the Christian world.
 We have even devised special terminology to go with it – we now speak of the Judeo-Christian civilization opposing the Islamic civilization.
 This is something new!
 Since when did the Jews find themselves siding with Christians against Muslims?
 What exactly did the inventors of this odd blend named “the Judeo-Christian civilization” have in mind?
 If they intended to emphasize the spiritual kinship that exists between monotheists, Christians and Jews, why then did they exclude Muslims from this alliance? If their intention was to emphasize that Christians have built their civilization based on the Monotheistic Idea originally introduced by Jews, then it must be admitted that Muslims built their civilization based on the same idea. And this means that the concept of the Judeo-Muslim civilization could be no less legitimate than reference to the Judeo-Christian civilization.
 If those who introduced the term “Judeo-Christian civilization” wish to prove to us that Jews are much closer to European Christians than to Asian Muslims, they should simply review their history books. I can assure them that they will be unpleasantly surprised because, quite contrary to their beliefs, Asian Muslims are considerably closer to the Jews.
 Let us start with a few simple examples. Here is one: the rabbis have permitted Jews to pray in mosques but never in churches…The reason for this is quite obvious: just like Jews, Muslims categorically prohibit any visual representation of G-d’s image, whereas Christianity is based on such visual images, irrespective of the confession.
 If we were to focus for a minute on issues associated with dietary laws (their integrity, incidentally, is a matter of major significance) we would discover that there, too, the “Judeo-Christian civilization” has no basis in reality. Both Muslims and Jews are prohibited from eating pork as a swine is considered to be ritually unclean. Christian Europeans, on the contrary, love pork.
Nothing, though, can be more ridiculous than the effort to convince us that (since Israel is being presented by us as the only democratic country in the Middle East) Jews and Europeans supposedly have similar norms of social life. Just as Muslims, we, Jews, have never accepted the Christian separation of life into its religious and secular aspects, since religion has always determined all the norms of Jewish life. We have simply copied from the Europeans the entire concept of “democracy” with its emphasis on “human rights” and its “parliamentary institutions”. Nothing of the kind could have been produced within Jewish culture (just as it couldn’t be born within Muslim culture), because Jewish law is founded on the opinions of religious sages, and the individual is tied to the clan and to tradition. Rabbis constantly remind us of these truths.
Therefore, identifying us with Europe is a myth!
If we were to look at it from a different angle and analyze the issue of the relations between Jews, Christians and Muslims – the way these relations have evolved over centuries of mutual coexistence – we would discover that there is even less justification in designating Jews as part of the “Judeo-Christian civilization” opposed to Muslim civilization.
Two major developments have taken place since the time the Jews lost their statehood 2,000 years ago.
First, after they accepted monotheism nations divided the world into two domains, the Muslim and Christian one.
Second, the Jewish nation went into exile and became dispersed among the new monotheists, finding itself dependent on the nations belonging to each of these two domains.
Relying on facts one can state with confidence that if the Muslim domain did not create particularly favorable conditions for the Jews, they would never have been able to develop the remarkable strategy for survival which has allowed them to endure for the following 2,000 years.
Indeed, the Babylonian Center for the Jewish people was created on the territory of present-day Iraq under Muslim rule. It was headed by someone called the “Head of the Diaspora” (Rosh Galut in Hebrew) whose status equaled that of cabinet minister. The Bagdad authorities and caliphate civilians treated him with the recognition and respect commensurate with his status. In this atmosphere some of the greatest Jewish sages moved to Babylon, and Jewish scholarship was able to flourish in the famous yeshivas at Sura and at Pumbedita. It was there that Diaspora Jews sent their questions, and Jewish scholars submitted their authoritative interpretations to all the communities of their dispersed people, forming the fundamentals of Jewish law. These rabbis are known in Jewish scholarship as “explainers” or “interpreters”. Jewish communities from all over the world also sent their bright young people to receive training at the Babylon yeshivas, which eventually created a rabbinical network of scholars who were connected with each other. It is here that the Babylonian Talmud was written, immortalizing the great rabbis of Babylon.
The Jews living in the Christian domain found themselves in totally different circumstances.
The “old Israel,” that is, the Jewish people who were supposed to disappear according to the Christian doctrine could not even hope for any recognition of their significance, like the right to establish self-government or to open academies of learning which would welcome Jews from anywhere in the Diaspora. Jews in Europe were permitted (and that not everywhere) to exist within the boundaries of small communities which were dependent on individual feudal lords. Once in a while individual rabbis within them would rise to greater heights of affirmation, but it happened exclusively due to their personal qualities and not because of any advantageous conditions. That is why nothing like the Babylonian Talmud could ever be created on European soil. Circumstances were quite unfavorable to the Jews even in their own land which languished under European rule before it was conquered by the Arabs. The Jerusalem Talmud, or Talmud Yerushalmi which predated its counterpart, the Babylonian Talmud, by about 200 years has traditionally not been studied as widely in many of the yeshivas.
Don’t forget that already at the time the German tribes first took possession of the Pyrenean peninsula, a series of racial laws were promulgated against the Jews in the country of the Visigoths. The Visigothic King of Spain banned the celebration of the Passover, the Sabbaths and other festivals in the customary manner; he outlawed the solemnization of marriage, after the custom of the Jews, and the circumcision of the children. Since he also prohibited baptized Jews, even conversion could not protect the Jews from their sorry plight. (The Nazis were clearly not original in this respect, since they merely reclaimed their Germanic roots.) But shortly after the Muslims arrived on the territory of Spain, both Jews and Christians were given religious freedom and self-governing communities. The Jewish community thrived under the religious tolerance of the Cordoba Caliphate. Jews prospered and acquired great influence as philosophers, poets and even military leaders. Some rose to the highest positions of power in the caliphate. But as soon as Europeans recaptured these lands the decline of both Arab and Jewish vitality quickly followed. After the expulsion of Muslims, the Jews were presented with the choice of forced conversion or exile, causing the mass flight of the Sephardic Jews from all over the Pyrenean peninsula in 1492.
Here, finally, is the last argument. Auschwitz was built in Europe, not somewhere else, and all Europeans were in one way or another involved in what was happening there, because each of these nations was in a hurry to get rid of “its own” Jews. Muslims didn’t have anything to do with it. It was the “intellectually superior” Europe that “invited” the Muslims to participate in “the final solution of the Jewish question”.
Nobody is trying to say that Jews always had an easy time living under Islam. They were subjected to humiliation, oppressive taxes and forced conversion to Islam. But in this respect they were treated the same way as Christians. Though both Jews and Christians were doomed to remain second-class citizens in Muslim society, they were both under special consideration as “the people of the Book” and held under Muslim protection.
The place of the Jews in the Christian world has always been quite different. Christians fought for centuries against the Muslims but they saw this as a conflict between equals. As for the Jews, Christians viewed them as enemies of the human race, a people cursed by G-d and placed outside the boundaries which separated this nation of outcasts from the rest of the world.
I am not writing this in an effort to curry favors with the Muslims. This is the preferred occupation of politically correct Europe.
The only reason I am writing this is to pose a question that has been tormenting me for a long time: what had to have happened to us, Jews, for these well knows facts to have totally evaporated from our national memory? What prompted us to start talking about a “Judeo-Christian civilization”?
Are we are unwilling to remember our European past because we intend to start our history from scratch so that we can finally do what Christians have hoped to get from us for the past 2,000 years – love of Jesus and repentance for not having acknowledged Jesus Christ 2,000 years ago?..
But that is not the case really. Those Jews whose faith in G-d is sincere and shapes their entire lives do not use this newly invented term “Judeo-Christian civilization”, and they tactfully avoid the topic since they are well aware of the complexities of the problem.
It is those among the Jews that are totally indifferent to Judaism who like to engage in serious discussions about the “Judeo-Christian civilization”. But they do it for one and only reason – to receive “the ticket of admission to European culture”, in the words of the converted German poet Heinrich Heine.
So it is all related to European culture... Everybody now wants desperately to be a part of it.
It is true that now, with the tremendous inflow of new immigrants from all over the world, the Jews, who have lived there for quite some time, suddenly found themselves in the role of hosts in Christian countries.
Good lord! We’ve waited so long for this to happen!
We’ve tried everything to bring about this moment!
We’ve groveled before the Europeans!
We’ve begged them to permit us to settle among any of their peoples who were ready to give us shelter!
We put our arms around them with sentimental admissions of just how much we adored them and with sickening complaints that they did not reciprocate our love!
We went out of our way to be the greatest patriots of their countries!
We beamed with smiles, and when they spat on us we called it rain!
We tried to convince those who tortured us, when these villains were killing and raping members of our own families in the presence of their parents and husbands, of the “natural” right of the local “people” to organize Jewish pogroms as an expression of these “people’s’” anger against society, against the government authorities, the bad weather or simply their ripped old boots!..
And now our lucky star is shining upon us! How fortunate! Christians and Muslims are fighting with each other! The East has announced war against the West, and we, who have emerged as the outpost of European democracy in the Middle East, can take upon ourselves this sweet burden, the burden of “the white man” among the barbarians.
What a stroke of luck! After all this time we have finally been accepted into the league of “white people”!
Our minds are so swollen with pride that we resolved to fully accept the role of Europeans and take upon ourselves the responsibility for our … colonial past. Why not? France used to occupy Algiers; Holland, Belgium and Portugal had also grabbed something; and Great Britain had actually seized control of nearly half the world… What about us? We’re Europeans too after all!
We also want to be colonizers!
We are “occupiers of the Promise Land” who have imposed our own European power on the native “Palestinian people”.
Wait a minute… France and Great Britain, and all those other Europeans had established their overseas empires because they craved for other people’s natural resources and wanted to take away their freedom. So they did it out of greed and a craving for power,
As for us, Jews, we have simply returned to our own Promised Land as G-d had instructed us and as predicted by our prophets.
Isn’t there a difference?
But we don’t feel the difference; we don’t understand it and don’t wish to, because for at least 200 years now our ability to feel and understand has been totally lacking.
If it were just them, just those who are accusing us of “occupying the Promised Land”, we would have somehow coped with it – this isn’t the first time they have accused Jews of various transgressions over the centuries!
But it isn’t about them! It’s all about us, Jews.
Nobody could have permitted the kind of situation that has developed in our own country except for us. There is nothing like it in any other country of the world!
Only we have managed to nurture a power elite that labors day and night to ensure our own demise. Our leaders travel around the world and impress upon “progressive mankind” the idea that the Jews can be considered “occupiers” of the Promised Land. This would never have occurred to the world’s other nations if it hadn’t been for the input of Israeli intellectuals.
Only the people of Israel could allow their own political and public leaders to encourage the governments of other countries to take steps against the government of the “Israeli aggressors”, that is, against our own government.
Only sons of the Jewish people could appeal to other nations, urging them to boycott Israeli manufacturers and institutions in order to punish the “occupiers”, that is, themselves.
Only we could have expelled our own people from the Promised Land, making our own – not somebody else’s land – “Judenfrei.”
Even those gentiles who fully understand that accusing Jews of having “occupied the Promised Land” is sheer nonsense, those who would like to show support for our people, have paused in bewilderment, because no one can find a rational explanation for our actions.
That is the core of the matter. This irrational behavior has become the norm for us from the moment we, Jews, decided to present ourselves as something we never were: as cosmopolitans, as “Englishmen”, “Frenchmen”, “Russians”, etc., depending on who was willing to host us.
And we are now adding to this the role of the European colonizer – “the occupier of the Promised Land”!
In the old times we used to have a more or less clear picture of ourselves: we made a covenant with G-d and accepted certain responsibilities; we then failed to fulfill them and as punishment
G-d dispersed us among 70 nations which bared their wolves’ teeth at the poor Jewish lamb. But never mind that, the time will come and the Redeemer will arrive, taking us back to our homeland.
The scenario may seem quite unsophisticated but it did allow us to persevere for nearly 2,000 years. And when we were being robbed and murdered, when things went from bad to worse, we did not lose heart but encouraged ourselves: “This year we are slaves; next year – free people.  Now we are here – next year in Jerusalem.”
We were able to withstand every misfortune because we had an objective picture of the world and our place in it.
But from the moment we began to imagine ourselves as somebody other than ourselves, our thinking became muddled, our hearts turned into stone and our feelings withered. We completely lost our sense of self-preservation and our gift for predicting future events at least with a measure of clarity. We, the people of History, have allowed our perception of process to shatter to pieces. Things happen to us like a snowstorm on a summer day. Something “unexpected” constantly awaits us behind every corner, even though it was there, right in front of us, asking to be noticed.
 For instance, we could not imagine what Hitler’s intentions might be even though he and his people had laid it out before us long before Auschwitz. We hurried into Stalin’s deadly embrace like moths attracted to the light of a flame, even though it was widely known that this monster had done away with all of our fiery Marxists in his Siberian concentration camps.
Today the same thing is happening with “Palestine” and the “Palestinian people”. We are supplying them with arms and creating all the conditions for the “Palestinians” to be able to do exactly what they are constantly clamoring about – destroy the “Zionist creation”. And once again they are warning us about our future openly and honestly.
 But nothing seems to teach us a lesson. Again and again we walk into the lion’s den of our own free will.
 Who could ever expect that we were going to behave that way in our own land? Remember, it was enough for a sufficient number of Jewish people to have their eyes opened and to realize how abnormal our 2,000 years of homelessness had made us, for the Zionist idea to be transformed into reality. This single fact was far more significant for the Zionist movement than Jewish persecution and pogroms.
The fathers of Zionism cherished the hope that we would come out of our stupor in our land as soon as we began to walk on our native soil, and that this would cure us of all our disorders, be they psychological, moral or emotional.
Perhaps they had underestimated what a sad shape we were in.
We needed something like “Palestine” to have our eyes opened at last and to see ourselves for what we really are.
 

6

  Why did this happen? And did it have to be that way?
 Apparently, it was bound to happen that way because otherwise we would have never found out that our exile was over.
 Jewish legend tells us that conditions for the exodus of the Jews from Egypt were ripe only after the Jews had sunk to the 49th of the 50 mystical gates of impurity. It is impossible to rise after sinking to the 50th gate of impurity since that is synonymous with total degradation. But the 49th gate of impurity is not only one step away for complete human degradation but also the point of maximum tension, since it is at this climax that a fateful choice must be made: either to sink to the 50th gate of impurity or to escape from slavery and be free. Those who have not reached this point and sunk into such depravity can still deceive themselves with the illusory hope that things are not all that bad. But those who have sunk to the 49th gate of impurity no longer have any such illusions.
 “Palestine” has proved to us that we, Jews, have already sunk to this 49th gate of impurity. Will we fall eternally, sinking to the 50th gate or will we escape from slavery?
 Our attitude to “Palestine” is the single most important indicator of our choice.
 It is not about the Arabs. In fact, the Arabs don’t need “Palestine” half as much as everyone else. It is necessary to us, Jews, because in the Hands of the Almighty “Palestine” is our main test.
 We, Jews, have already failed a similar test once before. After our Exodus from Egypt we rejected the Promised Land and were destined to wander in the desert for 40 years as punishment, until all of the generation of slaves was dead. We don’t have the right to fail again, because unlike that other time we are now responsible not only for ourselves.
 This time we are responsible for everyone – our choice determines whether it will be the Teaching of Life or the Teaching of Death that shall go forth from Zion.