Jews and Antisemitism
Jews and Antisemitism
Before the events of October 7th and the barbaric attack on Israelis, both Jewish and otherwise, I felt the Jewish people were overplaying their hand about antisemitism.
I know throughout history the Jewish people have been blamed for just about everything, but I felt that the current drumbeat about the level of antisemitism just seemed overblown in the 21st century.
Jews were making sure we never forgot the Holocaust, which is justified, but many ethnic groups have had to suffer through genocides and oppression, not just the Jewish people. The Armenians, the Bosnians, Rwandan’s, the people of Darfur, the Cambodian’s, the 65 million Chinese under Mao and now the Uighur’s have all had to endure inhumane acts and these were all just within the last century. I felt antisemitism was a phenomenon of the past or of the periodic acts of a few deranged individuals today. Couldn’t the Jews just move on from the past?
After the attack by Hamas on October 7th I realized just how wrong I was about antisemitism in the world and why Jews persisted in keeping it an issue.
Seemingly overnight the world was given carte blanche to openly spew their hatred of the Jews with a barrage of passive aggressive verbiage hiding their utter hatred of them. The Jew haters of the world exploded out of the woodwork.
Western media condemned the Israeli’s at every turn while seemingly giving Hamas a free pass. The BBC sounded more like Al Jazeera with outright antisemitism proudly on display with every newscast.
Every accusation coming from Hamas was taken as gospel truth while Israel’s view were tempered with skepticism.
Then the mass manipulation of naïve Western college students began, knowing they had virtually no knowledge of a very complex issue that has vexed the world for over a century.
The students were fooled into thinking this was going to be their “Vietnam moment” by stopping what they called a “genocide”. They were even lauded by the Ayatollah of Iran who stated “the American students are on the right side of history.” When you share the same world view as the Ayatollah of Iran, you’d better take a closer look at what exactly you’re espousing.
The irony here is that they’re completely oblivious to the fact that if they were under Hamas rule, the “Jews for a Free Palestine” would be the first to be executed. Those protesters of the Gay community would be next followed by the rest who believe in Western liberal democracies and freedom of speech. It’s easy to virtue signal from the safe confines of a college campus. There’s no risk of being blown up at a bus stop or knifed to death in a grocery store by the very people you’re rooting for.
Never to waste a good crises, many on the left in our country began fanning the flames blaming our “systemic racist country” for assisting in this conflict against the Palestinians. Weapons supplied by America make us complicit in this “genocide” they stated. But is it really a genocide?
The Oxford definition of genocide is “the deliberate killing of a large number of people from a particular nation or ethnic group with the aim of destroying that nation or group.”
Israel has accepted every offer of a two state solution since the Balfour Declaration of 1917 which you can read in my article The Israel Palestine Conflict.
Does dropping leaflets to warn civilians to move out of harms way sound like genocide? What about feeding the population while you fight with their military wing. Did we feed the Germans, the North Koreans, the North Vietnamese or the civilians under Al Qaeda or ISIS while fighting them?
The media constantly reports the death toll numbers coming from the Gaza Health Ministry as if it’s a sports scoreboard. Have you been kept abreast of the number of IDF soldiers that have been killed defending their country? Relying on any information from Hamas or the Gaza Health Ministry, which is run by Hamas, is as useful as having a blind optometrist.
These numbers have been investigated by several entities who questioned the incredibly high number of women and children killed in proportion to the overall population. Hamas numbers also don’t differentiate between terrorist, civilians or even natural deaths.
An article written by Professor Mike Spagat for the website Action On Armed Violence cites many of theses problems. The Gaza Health Ministry claims that 60-70% of the deaths are women and children but this is completely out of proportion to the population.
Even The United Nations has lowered their count of women and children killed in this conflict by 50%. If the most antisemitic body in the world acknowledges the death toll is much smaller, then these numbers are in serious doubt.
Recently, Hamas has admitted themselves that these numbers are false when they posted on the app Telegram. They stated that they can’t account for over 11,000 of these deaths. There are no names, cause of deaths, locations or any information whatsoever. When questioned about the discrepancy, they stated in the post that the death toll they use is from the media but they’re the ones feeding the numbers to the media!
Taking their current number of over 35,000 deaths and then deducting the at least 11,000 false claims, leaves us with about 24,000 deaths.
The IDF has stated that they have killed about 13,000 combatants. Even if that number is also inaccurate, it still means that only around 11,000 civilians have died. By saying “only”, I’m not trivializing these deaths in the least. Every civilian life lost is a tragedy and I’m not trying to downplay those deaths. However, when you compare the ratio of civilian deaths to combatants, this number is extremely low.
In 2004 when America fought to destroy ISIS in Fallujah, the ratio was 2.5 civilian deaths for every terrorist killed. Even if you stick with the false Hamas number of 35,000 deaths minus the 13,000 terrorists killed, that leaves 22,000 civilians that have been killed. That would make the ratio in this conflict close to 1.7 civilian deaths for every Hamas terrorist killed. Considering the population density of the Gaza Strip and that Hamas intentionally uses it’s own people as shields in this war, it’s not only not a genocide, it’s a miracle so few civilians have actually died. The stated goal of Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran to annihilate the Jewish people is literally the definition of genocide.
Why are so many in the media and academia allowed to knowingly spew false claims and exaggerations to this day without any repudiation? Antisemitism.
The entire northern region of Israel has been evacuated since the beginning of the war because of daily attacks from Hezbollah. There are no Jews in Lebanon so where is the outrage over this? The only reason for this attack is to eliminate the Jewish people and the Jewish state. Genocide.
There are attacks on Israel coming from Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Iran and Yemen. Where is the international community? Where are the protests and outrage over this?
Everything is incumbent on Israel to end the war Hamas started. This conflict would end in an instant if Hamas surrendered and released the hostages. However, there’s no international pressure on them, just on the Israelis.
In light of the assault on Israel coming from all sides while they fight for their very existence, Ireland, Spain and Norway chose this moment to recognize a Palestinian state. Rather than demand Hamas surrender and release the hostages in return for a negotiated peace, they rewarded Hamas with recognition of a Palestinian state while Hamas continues to openly state their goal of killing every Jew in Israel regardless of how the conflict ends. Again, a true genocide.
In addition to recognizing a Palestinian state, Irish government buildings flew the Palestinian flag.
The brazen antisemitism didn’t end there. Norway refuses to label Hamas as a terrorist organization and their Foreign Minister prevented the King of Norway from sending his condolences to Israel after the October 7th attack.
Not to be outdone, the Spanish Deputy Prime Minister is on video calling for the elimination of Israel from the river to the sea.
If all this wasn’t outrageous enough, the United Nations Security Council had the audacity to stand and hold a moment of silence for the President of Iran who had been killed in a helicopter crash.
Known as the “Butcher of Tehran” for the murders of his own people, he was part of the October 7th attack as well as the recent indiscriminate missile attack on Israel’s civilian population. The Israeli representative was so outraged by this that he berated the assembly and asked “what’s next, a moment of silence for Bin Laden?”
So when did this seemingly global hatred of Jews begin?
As the Bible tells us, it started when Israel constantly turned it’s back on God. They demanded to have a king lead them so they could be like the rest of the nations. God warned them that this would lead them astray and eventually result in them being scattered and at the whims of the world as seen in Deuteronomy 28:64-66:
65. And among these nations shalt thou find no ease, neither shall the sole of thy foot have rest: but the LORD shall give thee there a trembling heart, and failing of eyes, and sorrow of mind:
66. And thy life shall hang in doubt before thee; and thou shalt fear day and night, and shalt have none assurance of thy life:
This is where the world stepped in. Egypt enslaved them, they were captured by the Babylonians and taken to Babylon and then the Persians captured them and wanted to exterminate them.
Historian Flavius Josephus wrote that the Jews "have often been treated injuriously by the kings and governors of Persia, yet can they not be dissuaded from acting what they think best; but that when they are stripped on this account, and have torments inflicted upon them, and they are brought to the most terrible kinds of death, they meet them after an extraordinary manner, beyond all other people, and will not renounce the religion of their forefathers". Here lies a hint as to why the world hates Jews which we’ll discuss in a moment.
In 70 A.D. the Romans destroyed Jerusalem and scattered the Jews all over the world. They renamed the area Palestina in order to disconnect Jews permanently from their ancestral homeland.
The Roman Catholic Church then made a concerted effort to demonize the Jews as the murderers of Jesus. These are the true seeds of European antisemitism that have never abated.
The Crusades, the rise of Islam and later even the Protestant Church added to the anti-Jew narrative.
France and England expelled Jews and confiscated their property during the 13th and 14th centuries.
The Inquisition brought Jew hatred to a new level as one European country after another killed or expelled their Jews starting in 1492 continuing well into the 18th century. By this time, antisemitism was woven into the fabric of European society.
The Russians took their turn with Pogroms. The Russian word pogrom is defined as “to wreak havoc, to demolish violently.” The first of these murderous practices occurred in Odessa in 1821 and continued into the 20th century.
Then came the Holocaust and Germany’s “final solution” to the Jewish problem in World War II where an estimated 6 million Jews were murdered.
From 1948-1953 the so called “Doctors Plot” led to a purge and mass deportation of Jews from the Soviet Union.
With Jews seeking safe refuge and a return to their ancestral homeland beginning with the Zionist movement, the Muslim and Arab hatred was enflamed once again which brings us to the conflict we see today.
Every ethnic or religious group in history has had their moment of oppression at some point but the Jews are the only people in history that have been under constant attack their entire existence regardless of where they lived.
So what is the reason behind this hatred of the Jewish people?
God.
It’s hard to believe that a word can hold so much, but this one does.
Jesus, a Jew lest we forget, said in John 15:18-19:
18. If the world hate you, ye know that it hated me before it hated you.
19. If ye were of the world, the world would love his own: but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you.
I believe the subconsciousness of the world sees the Jew as a symbol of God. The world, not the people per se, but the utopian paradigm the world thinks it can create is diametrically opposed to the blueprint God has laid out as stated by John 17:14, “I have given them thy word; and the world hath hated them, because they are not of the world...” The world becomes enraged when confronted with the thought of God which then manifests its anger into Jew hatred.
One might ask why then don’t Christians or Muslims receive the wrath directed at Jews? Sometimes they do, but Jews are the originators of God while Christians and Muslims are mere followers.
Given a platform and some charisma, it’s not hard to manipulate the masses. Think of Charles Manson or Jim Jones on a small scale and Napoleon, Hitler or Lenin on a grand scale. The human propensity to want to follow is the character flaw that keeps Jew hatred alive. If there’s a problem, the Jews did it. They’re a convenient and historically dependable scapegoat for the world.
If the world can destroy the Jew, then it can redirect the followers of the world which is exactly what the Antichrist and false prophet will do.
In Orwell’s book 1984, they not only wanted to change and control your speech, but also your thoughts. The Jew and what they stand for is the thought that the world just can’t seem to stamp out.
However, the world has one more card to play.
Many people are familiar with the word Armageddon but very few know what it entails. It’s been misused so much that it’s lost it’s true meaning. Since the Bible created the word, it should be used to accurately define it.
It’s described throughout the Bible but the actual word appears only once in Revelation 16:14-16:
14. For they are the spirits of devils, working miracles, which go forth unto the kings of the earth and of the whole world, to gather them to the battle of that great day of God Almighty.
15. Behold, I come as a thief. Blessed is he that watcheth, and keepeth his garments, lest he walk naked, and they see his shame.
16. And he gathered them together into a place called in the Hebrew tongue Armageddon.
Armageddon is a Greek translation of the Hebrew word Megiddo, which means “place of gathering troops or bands”
Armageddon will be the worlds last attempt at a “final solution”.
Psalm 83:2-5:
2. For, lo, thine enemies make a tumult: and they that hate thee have lifted up the head.
3. They have taken crafty counsel against thy people, and consulted against thy hidden ones.
4. They have said, Come, and let us cut them off from being a nation; that the name of Israel may be no more in remembrance.
5. For they have consulted together with one consent: they are confederate against thee:
Here is what that consultation produced.
In December 23, 2016, the U.N. created resolution 2334 which, “Reaffirms that the establishment by Israel of settlements in the Palestinian territory occupied since 1967, including East Jerusalem, has no legal validity and constitutes a flagrant violation under international law and a major obstacle to the achievement of the Two-State solution and a just, lasting and comprehensive peace;”
East Jerusalem is where the Temple Mount is situated. Israel will never give up the very thing that defines them. I believe it will be this defiance of the world, led by the antisemitic U.N. imposing what they call a solution for world peace, that will set Armageddon into motion.
We see this in Joel 3:1-2:
1. For, behold, in those days, and in that time, when I shall bring again the captivity of Judah and Jerusalem,
2. I will also gather all nations, and will bring them down into the valley of Jehoshaphat, and will plead with them there for my people and for my heritage Israel, whom they have scattered among the nations, and parted my land.
We see it again in Zechariah 12:2-3:
2. Behold, I will make Jerusalem a cup of trembling unto all the people round about, when they shall be in the siege both against Judah and against Jerusalem.
3. And in that day will I make Jerusalem a burdensome stone for all people: all that burden themselves with it shall be cut in pieces, though all the people of the earth be gathered together against it.
The nations of the world will gather their armies and attack Israel from the north as seen in Ezekiel 38:15-16:
15. And thou shalt come from thy place out of the north parts, thou, and many people with thee, all of them riding upon horses, a great company, and a mighty army:
16. And thou shalt come up against my people of Israel, as a cloud to cover the land; it shall be in the latter days, and I will bring thee against my land, that the heathen may know me, when I shall be sanctified in thee, O Gog, before their eyes.
The international forces will make it down to Jerusalem and capture half of the city which will be East Jerusalem as seen in Zechariah 14:1-2:
1. Behold, the day of the LORD cometh, and thy spoil shall be divided in the midst of thee.
2. For I will gather all nations against Jerusalem to battle; and the city shall be taken, and the houses rifled, and the women ravished; and half of the city shall go forth into captivity, and the residue of the people shall not be cut off from the city.
It's at this point when all seems lost that Israel finally returns to God to save them from the world they so wanted to be a part of. As chosen people, they chose the world but the world rejected them just as it did their Messiah, Jesus.
This is why I believe antisemitism has, is and will remain such a strong hatred, God. Jesus told us this in Matthew 24:9, “Then shall they deliver you up to be afflicted, and shall kill you: and ye shall be hated of all nations for my name's sake.”
Like the prodigal son, at least they will return with an assurance from the Messiah in Matthew 10:22, “And ye shall be hated of all men for my name's sake: but he that endureth to the end shall be saved.”
Endure we will.