Posted on 04/24/2002 1:31:46 AM PDT by JohnHuang2
Never again
BY JOE MCCAIN Special to the Jewish Star Times
There is a lot of worry popping up in the media just now -- ``Can Israel Survive?''
Don't worry about it.
It relates to something that Palestinians, the Arabs and perhaps most Americans don't realize -- the Jews are never going quietly again. Never.
And if the world doesn't come to understand that, millions of Arabs are going to die. It's as simple as that.
Throughout the history of the world, the most abused, kicked-around race of people has been the Jews. Not just in the Holocaust of World War II, but for thousands of years. They have truly been ''The Chosen People'' in a terrible and tragic sense.
The Bible story of Egypt's enslavement of the Jews is not just a story, it is history, if festooned with theological legend and heroic epics.
In 70 A.D., the Romans, who had for a long time tolerated the Jews -- even admired them as ''superior'' to other vassals -- tired of their truculent demands for independence and decided on an early ''solution'' to the Jewish problem. Jerusalem was sacked and reduced to near rubble; Jewish resistance was pursued and crushed by the implacable Roman War Machine (see Masada). And thus began The Diaspora, the dispersal of Jews throughout the rest of the world. Their homeland destroyed, their culture crushed, they looked desperately for the few niches in a hostile world where they could be safe.
That safety was fragile, and often subject to the whims of moody hosts. The words pogrom, ghetto and anti-Semitism come from this treatment of the first monotheistic people.
Throughout Europe, changing times meant sometimes tolerance, sometimes even warmth for the Jews, but eventually it meant hostility, then malevolence.
There is not a country in Europe or Western Asia that at one time or another has not decided to lash out against the children of Moses, sometimes by whim, sometimes by manipulation.
Winston Churchill calls Edward I one of England's very greatest kings. Edward embraced the Jews. Actually, Edward didn't embrace Jews so much as he embraced their money.
For the English Jews had acquired wealth -- understandable, because this people who could not own land or office, could not join most of the trades and professions, soon found out that money was a very good thing to accumulate. Much harder to take away than land or a store was a hidden sock of gold and silver coins.
Ever resourceful, Edward found a way -- he borrowed money from the Jews to finance imperial ambitions in Europe, especially France. The loans were almost certainly not made gladly, but how do you refuse your king? Especially when he is ``Edward the Hammer.''
Then, rather than pay back the debt, Edward simply expelled the Jews.
Edward was especially inventive -- he did this twice. After a time, he invited the Jews back to their English homeland, borrowed more money, then expelled them again.
Most people do not know that Spain was one of the early entrants into the Renaissance. People from all over the world came to Spain in the late medieval period. All were welcome -- Arabs, Jews, other Europeans.
But in 1492, Ferdinand and Isabella, having driven the last of Moors from the Spanish Shield, were persuaded by the righteous fundamentalists of the time to announce ''The Act of Purification.'' A series of steps were taken in which all Jews and Arabs and other non-Christians were expelled from the country, or would face the tools and the torches of the Inquisition. From this ''cleansing'' come the Sephardic Jews -- as opposed to the Ashkenazis or Eastern Europe.
In Eastern Europe, the sporadic violence and brutality against Jews are common knowledge, Fiddler without the music and the folksy humor. At times of fury, no accommodation by the Jew was good enough, no profile low enough, no village poor enough or distant enough.
From these come the near-steady flow of Jews to the United States. And despite the disdain of the Jews by most ''American'' Americans, they came to grab the American Dream with both hands, and contributed everything from new ideas of enterprise in retail and entertainment to becoming some of our finest physicians and lawyers. The modern United States, in spite of itself, is the United States in part because of its Jewish blood.
Then the Nazi Holocaust -- the corralling, sorting, orderly eradication of millions of the people of Moses. Not something that other realms in other times didn't try to do, by the way, the Germans were just more organized and had better murder technology.
I stood in the center of Dachau for an entire day, about 15 years ago, trying to comprehend how this could have happened. I had gone there on a side trip from Munich, vaguely curious about this Dachau. I soon became engulfed in the enormity of what had occurred there, nestled in this middle- and working-class neighborhood.
How could human beings do this to other human beings, hear their cries, their pleas, their terror, their pain, and continue without apparently even wincing?
I no longer wonder. At some times, some places, any sect of the human race is capable of horrors against its fellow man, whether a member of the Waffen SS, a Serbian sniper, a Turkish policeman in 1920s Armenia, a Mississippi Klansman.
Because even in the United States not all was a Rose Garden. For a long time, Jews had quotas in our universities and graduate schools. Only so many Jews could be in a medical or law school at one time. Jews were disparaged widely. I remember as a kid Jewish jokes told without a wince -- ``Why do Jews have such big noses?''
Well, now the Jews have a homeland again. A place that is theirs.
And that's the point. It doesn't matter how many times the United States and European powers try to rein in Israel, if it comes down to survival of its nation, its people, the people will fight like no lioness has ever fought to save her cubs. They will fight with a ferocity, a determination, and a skill that will astound us.
And many will die, mostly their attackers, I believe. If there were a macabre historical betting parlor, my money would be on the Israelis to be standing at the end. As we killed the kamikazes and the Wehrmacht soldaten of World War II, so will the Israelis kill their suicidal attackers, until there are not enough to torment them.
The irony goes unnoticed -- while we are hammering away to punish those who brought the horrors of last September here, we restrain the Israelis from the same retaliation. Not the same thing, of course -- We are We . . . they are they.
While we mourn and seethe at Sept. 11, we don't notice that Israel has a Sept. 11 sometimes every day.
If it comes to where a new holocaust looms -- with or without the concurrence of the United States and Europe -- Israel will lash out without pause or restraint at those who would try to annihilate the country.
The Jews will not go quietly again.
Joe McCain is brother of U.S. Sen. John McCain of Arizona.
is he related to....
Imagine Bush or some other President saying:
For all people, for all nations, for all time, NEVER AGAIN
When it is all said and done, I too expect to see Israel still standing among the glowing ruins of the Arab nations. Several other nations will still be standing as well - the US, Russia, Turkey, England, and India for instance. Some will join the Arabs in the history books: China, Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Cuba, Indonesia, Sudan, and much of sub-Saharan Africa.
I agree. Great article by McInsane's brother.
How can several million Arabs be incinerated without making the entire middle East so radioactive it is uninhabitable?Do you imagine that in such a holocaust deadly radioactive fallout will be confined only to ones foe??Or does this even bother you?
If the Arabs ever push the Israelis over the edge the Jews will carve out a huge Arab free area in which they can live in security. And they will police the ME to ensure that the Arab rabble cannot again cause trouble to anyone.
From your fear of nukes I assume that you are a product of the government skool brain laundry and are under 50 years old.
You don't have to kill several million. You only have to kill enough necessary to convince the rest that to no longer attempt to destroy Israel is in their best interest.
THIS IS HOW YOU DEAL WITH BULLIES.
I, too, am surprised at the patience Israel has show her enemies. They've taken more attacks and punishment without lashing back than any other country has even tried to do.
As for when they do strike back, the ME will be changed beyond recognition. Just look at the comparative numbers from recent stories. Suicide bombers take out about 20 people, the Palestinians end up with approx. 1000 dead in return. Each time. While the media spin of this makes Israel look bad, in reality it just shows that even while holding back they are much more efficient than their enemies. Look out if they ever get serious!
Every time we look East, we should remember the blood of all fellow Americans, from the Marines killed in Lebanon to the 3,000 under the rubble of the WTC.
NEVER AGAIN!
The kids don't get it, dale. In a war, a nuke is just a bigger bang! War is not polite!
Stay well and vigilant.........FRegards
Sort of figures.
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