Tag: Zion

The end of the Diaspora

Martin van Creveld anticipates it. The Learned Elders of Wye see it. David Goldberg sees it. As does Rich Cohen:

The horror of the Holocaust purchased us a 70-year vacation from history, though we didn’t know it. We believed the world had changed, as had human nature. Jews remained distinct in the new dispensation, but in a good way—a near-at-hand exotic, a symbol of exile, which we were told was the natural state of modern man. For perhaps the only time in history, you might actually want to be a Jew. Because of the close families and good husbands and yada yada. Saul Bellow, Phillip Roth, Mel Brooks. To those of us who came of age in these years, the future seemed like it would be more of the same, the present carried on forever.

We were wrong.

If you go online and read the comments on any story about Israel or George Soros or search certain terms on Twitter, you begin to feel the golden age of the American Jews was just a moment in time. Perhaps the old paranoia stirs in me, but I see ominous signs everywhere:

What changed? Well, for starters, there are just
fewer of us in proportion to the whole. Whereas Jews once constituted
five percent of America, and as much as forty percent of New York, those
numbers have shrunk. We’re perhaps thirteen percent of New York and
around two percent of the nation. In this sense, American Jews are
living with the results of their success. This is indeed the promised
land. It’s where Jews fulfilled the dream which, for many, has been to
stop being Jews and become part of the imagined whole.  Like the caboose
of a train, we’re getting smaller as we go away.

I think Cohen is leaving out three of the more important reasons for the Jewish decline. First, being the most left-leaning portion of the American electorate, Jews are disproportionately affected by the dyscivic and dysgenic consequences of their own social policies. In the traditional 1950s America they so hated, a Jewish man with abnormal inclinations would be heavily encouraged to resist them, get married, and have at least three Jewish children. In post-traditional America, such a man is encouraged to do anything from play house with another man to put on a dress, mutilate himself, and call himself Esther. But whatever non-traditional lifestyle he chooses, his line is going to end with him.

Second, as Cohen says himself, “Jews had re-imagined the nation.” Of course, they didn’t merely reimagine it, they helped remake it more to their liking out of the mistaken belief that a multi-ethnic America would be better and safer for them than an Anglo-Saxon America. This is turning out to be wildly untrue, as the genteel disdain they so resented on the part of the elite White Anglo-Saxon Episcopalians is considerably milder than the way in which they regarded by nearly every immigrant group that the Jews have sought to import, from Central Americans to Eastern Europeans to Asians.

(The same is true in England, for that matter; the rise in anti-semitism in the UK isn’t merely the result of Muslim immigration, but Polish immigration as well. Until I moved to Europe, I had no idea that Poles tend to dislike Jews even more than they dislike Russians and Communists. I’m not sure they entirely distinguish between the three.)

The third is that a number of elite Jews in America have increasingly attempted to use America’s military on behalf of Israel’s foreign policy. This is increasingly resented by Americans across the political spectrum; for example, neither Right nor Left is even remotely interested in invading Iran as the neocons have been demanding for the last 13 years. Their efforts have not yet boomeranged, as Dr. van Creveld fears, but at some point they most likely will if they do not cease.

I don’t see it getting as bad for American Jews as it will for their few remaining European cousins, mostly because Americans are much less ethno-nationalistic and there is considerably more space. But I do think Cohen is correct in anticipating the significant decline of Jewish influence in America. Because, at the end of the day, Israel is the Jewish nation and the idea of the functional multi-ethnic society is not long for this world.

Of course, the idea was always bound to fail. It was obvious, on the basis of the assumption on which the belief was founded: “We believed the world had changed, as had human nature.” The world may have changed, for a time, but it will always change again. Human nature, on the other hand, doesn’t. 

Transcript available

From last weekend’s Brainstorm event with Dr. Martin van Creveld, Israeli military historian and the author of The Transformation of War and A History of Strategy: From Sun Tzu to William S. Lind:

VOX: Speaking of the US, I am curious to know what the general opinion in Israel is of the American neocons who, like you said, have been trying to overthrow Assad. They have overturned the Ukrainian government, the Libyan government, the Iraqi government, etc. What is the general view of the neocons in Israel?

MVC: Oh, we love them. The Israelis are very happy to fight the Arabs and the Iranians with American blood. During the first Gulf War, Israel was then under Yitzhak Shamir and did whatever it could to encourage an American invasion of Iraq. I wouldn’t say that this was decisive but they tried. It was the same when the Americans invaded Iraq for the second time. It was the same when Americans clashed with Iran over nuclear weapons. Each time you can see this very consistently. You can see the Israeli Right and, to some extent, even the Left say okay, this is lovely, we are going to let the Americans put the chestnuts in the fire for us.

Myself, I must say, that I dislike this policy very much. But certainly most Israelis like it. They like to be on the side of the strong as I see it. They push America as much as they can into these ventures. Just today I saw a famous t-shirt that says “Don’t worry America, Israel is behind you.” I also know that some Americans, like Pat Buchanan, have been writing that these lousy Israelis have been trying to use American for their own purposes and have unfortunately they have succeeded. So, personally I am not happy about this policy. I think that it may well one day act as a boomerang.

 VOX: Do you think it is bad for Israel to be dependent in that way?

MVC: Yes, because, as we say in Hebrew, “the one who’s got the money has the say.” It’s bad in several ways, it is bad in the sense that we are tilting too much in the Republican direction. That is a bad thing in my view. It’s not bipartisan. There is a danger that one day support for Israel will probably fade and people will say enough of this. They will say Israelis are exploiting us with American-Jewish help. They are exploiting us for their own purposes. Let them go and fight their own wars. I have been warned more than once by my American friends that this is one day going to happen. It hasn’t happened yet but it is going to happen one day and it worries me. Frankly, it worries me.

VOX: Yeah, you don’t want to use your allies on a war that you don’t need and then not have their support when you actually need it.

MVC: Exactly.

In the event you are not a Brainstorm member but happen to be interested in obtaining a transcript of the interview with Dr. Martin van Creveld, it is available in EPUB and MOBI format at Castalia House.

We haven’t scheduled the times yet, but William S. Lind has agreed to do a future event, as has Dr. Helen Smith. I’ve also contacted Ann Coulter’s publisher and am expect to arrange an interview with her at some point about her new book, Adios America. If there are others you might be interested in seeing on Brainstorm, feel free to make suggestions here. The objective is to maintain a consistently high level of intellectual discourse for the open and closed events alike.

You can join Brainstorm as an Annual or Monthly member
to receive free transcripts as well as taking part in the closed
events. Now that we have 500 seats in the virtual auditorium, there
isn’t much risk of not being able to attend the open ones. On which
note, I should mention that there are still 240 seats left for next week’s event with Roosh V.

The end of Holocaustianity

I’m more than a little astonished that Israel’s government is so willing to throw away the moral high ground here:

Israel does not plan to recognize the Armenian genocide perpetrated by Turkey, Rafael Harpaz, Israel’s ambassador to Azerbaijan, told Azeri website Trend.

“Israel is a democratic country, everybody has two opinions, not one opinion,” Harpaz said. “The government has a very clear opinion.”

He said Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman had made Israel’s policy clear. Harpaz told Trend he hoped Israel’s troubled relations with Turkey would improve.

I suppose this decision makes sense from a geopolitical grand strategic point of view, kjkbut when seen through the Lind lense, it looks a lot more like a potentially disastrous move that could perhaps even be prosecuted in some European countries.

It seems to me that this will make Holocaust denial much easier to justify.

When nukes are inevitable…

Relax and enjoy the decline of total war. Jerry Pournelle discusses the inevitability of Iranian nukes with a reader:

Assuming that we were to bomb Iran, how long could we expect to set back their nuclear program?


Let’s
assume, for the moment, a “surgical” strike whose targets are all
nuclear facilities. Comments I’ve read from people who ought to know
something maintain that we’d probably set back the program two or three
years; with the predictable consequence that Iran would immediately
begin the best financed and most clandestine program it could to produce
nuclear weapons *immediately*.

Here, I think, we run into the North
Korea quandary. It is already possible for any tyrant to make the case
that, however appalling you are, if you have nuclear weapons the United
States will leave you alone; whereas if you do not have nuclear weapons
you live on sufferance. That’s awkward. While I certainly wouldn’t want
to encourage nuclear proliferation, I’m not sure it’s helpful to
persuade tyrants that they *really, really need* nuclear weapons.

Now,
of course, the problem could perhaps be “solved” by strikes aimed not
at nuclear plants but at destroying Iran as a civilization. At which
point we really would have become a Satan. Or, at least, an apocalyptic
Babylon.

So my question to Mr. Stephens would be: short of becoming
monsters, there is probably no permanent way to prevent Iran from
getting nuclear weapons. In consequence, do we really want to pursue a
strategy whose likely result would be to urge them to get the bomb
*really quickly?* Or are delaying tactics more likely to produce useful
results?

Buying time is always a useful purchase. And perhaps the horse will learn to sing.
 
Yours,
Allan E. Johnson

Allan Johnson puts the case well and compellingly. Our choices are
few, and our technical capabilities are uncertain. Strikes at Iranian
nuclear capabilities will be bloody given their locations. Commando
style raids would make the destruction more thorough but would be far
more costly. The Iranians have been clever in their designs and
location. Uncertainties about the success of a surgical denuclearization
attack are quite high for the US or any conceivable coalition working
with us.

Of course that is doubly, triply, true for Israel; to assure the
attack’s success might require nuclear weapons, and I am quite certain
that at least some IDF generals have said this to the War Cabinet. First
use of nuclear weapons has so many devastating diplomatic and domestic
political consequences that I doubt Mr. Netanyahu would seriously
consider it.

Buying time may be all that is possible.

And buying time is pointless except for the small minority who benefit from the delay. In some cases, such as the Federal Reserve’s decision to delay the inevitable bankruptcies of the indebted, buying time has made the situation observably worse for most.

The real question is if Israel genuinely feels itself threatened by a nuclear Iran or not. Considering that Martin van Creveld has been very clear about the fact that it does not, we can safely discount the likelihood that Israel will do anything, much less nuke Iran. I don’t doubt that Israel would do so if they perceived a legitimate  existential threat, but the fact that they have not done so already suffices to indicate that they do not.

After reading several of van Creveld’s books from THE TRANSFORMATION OF WAR to A HISTORY OF STRATEGY and TECHNOLOGY AND WAR, it has become very clear that the primary military function of nuclear weapons is to take 20th century total war off the table. This does not mean that war will not take place, but rather, that it will take place on a scale more similar to those wars prior to the mass mobilizations of entire populations and the targeting of enemy civilians.

Remember, war has historically almost NEVER been primarily about killing the enemy, but rather destroying his will to fight by demoralizing him. And that should be of considerably more concern to an utterly, and literally, de-moralized West than one more nation possessing weapons it has no intention of using unless attacked.

An unexpected betrayal

Both Israelis and American Jews are beginning the learn the cost of being House Jews for the Democratic Party:

Sometime in the fall of 2008 I sat down at my desk and banged out an impassioned letter to my sister. She was on the fence, I knew, about the young senator from Illinois who was running for president. There was some talk in the family that perhaps, on at least one occasion, during the Bush years, she had voted Republican.

We chalked it up to her decision, made as a college freshman, to marry a skilled and caring med student, who hailed from Michigan and loved cars. He drove a Chevy, Grand Am — candy red, I think — and called the city of his birth Dee-troit.

Sure, we realized, he was a terrific father and a stand-up guy all around, but he distrusted all things organic — he was in the habit of scrubbing my sister’s farmers’ market apples with hot water and soap — and he wore jeans while skiing. He loved mayonnaise and iceberg lettuce, had a soft spot for ATVs and leaf-blowers.

In short, we didn’t ask who he voted for — there was some hope that he might be a Libertarian — but, in the fall of 2008, the facts seemed quite clear: He was going with John McCain and Sarah Palin. My sister, I feared, might follow suit.

And so I took to the computer. In an email entitled “Politics” — which I reread this week for the first time in the wake of the nuclear framework deal agreed upon in Lausanne, a deal that has left me with the clammy feeling of anticipated betrayal — I spoke about the horrors of the American prison system and the plague of racism that continue to rot America from the inside; I spoke about drugs and how only people of color are incarcerated for using and dealing them, while people like George W. Bush and every other person I knew in college was free to pull bong hits, take acid, and boil ‘shrooms to his or her heart’s content. I think I spoke about African-American role models and education and gay rights. I even told her to read Frederick Douglass.

Then I lampooned McCain for never having sent an email and mentioned his age. “McCain is 72,” I wrote. “He has had four of five bouts of melanoma. He spent five and a half years in a POW camp. He is dad’s age. Dad is in great shape for his age. He has not been to the Hanoi Hilton. Yet he falls asleep at dinner regularly. Something could happen to McCain. In walks the moose hunter.”

As for Israel, I said with all the authority I could muster, it didn’t really matter. No president has recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. The United States believes in a two-state solution. The occupation of the West Bank and its subsequent settlement with civilians made sense historically, emotionally, but was a horrid piece of irony: The nation that had lived under persecution for two thousand years because of its statelessness had, in a sublime moment, carved out a state in its ancient homeland and revived its wizened language only to sacrifice that historic achievement on the altar of — of all things! — territorial expansion.

A deal with the Palestinians, pushed forward by American muscle, was in Israel’s interest, I said. Without a two-state solution, guided by someone like Barack Obama, “Palestinians will outnumber us and will no longer consider 1967 a relevant date. The battle will be for all of Israel and they will win. Everyone will be yelling ‘Apartheid.’ Within two generations we’ll see the destruction of the Third Temple.”

Moreover, I noted, Bush, with his love of Zion, had been a disaster, inadvertently empowering Iran. Obama, with his cool detachment, was just what we needed.

Lastly, I encouraged her to vote Democrat, now, before her Alex P. Keaton-like eldest got the right to vote and cancelled her out. And she did (I think, maybe). She even wrote to me about the beauty of that cold January day in 2009 when he was sworn into office.

What a pity this stab-in-the-back could not possibly have been foreseen… even if I failed to note that his ritual genuflection to AIPAC was even less genuine than it appeared to be at the time.


After eight years of experiencing regular pain between the shoulder blades, conservatives can enjoy the prospect of the knife sticking out of liberal backs.

Iran’s nukes: an Israeli perspective

Last week, a number of people were expressing their opinions concerning the prospects that Iran would obtain nuclear weapons as a result of the Lausanne talks and what this meant for the USA, Israel, and the Middle East. Most of those opinions, including mine, were largely uninformed, but then it occurred to me that Castalia House’s newest author, Martin van Creveld, was someone who has spent a good deal of time thinking about this very subject, and as Israel’s leading military historian, he is in a position to know considerably more about the situation than anyone else here.

Later today we will be announcing a second Castalia House book by Dr. van Creveld that I cannot recommend highly enough. Perhaps reading this response to my question about his perspective on the likely consequences of the prospective Lausanne treaty will help you understand why.

“More may be better” was the title of an article published back in 1981 by the redoubtable political scientist Kenneth Waltz. Going against the prevailing wisdom, Waltz argued that nuclear proliferation might not be all bad. Nuclear weapons, he wrote, had prevented the US and the USSR from going to war against each other; as, by all historical logic since the days of Athens and Sparta in the fifth century B.C, they should have done. Instead they circled each other like dogs, occasionally barking and baring their teeth but never actually biting. Such was the fear the weapons inspired that other nuclear countries would probably follow suit.

To quote Winston Churchill, peace might be the sturdy child of terror.
Since then over thirty years have passed. Though Waltz himself died in 2013, his light goes marching on. At the time he published his article there were just five nuclear countries (the US, the USSR, Britain, France, and China) plus one, Israel, which had the bomb but put anybody who dared say so in prison. Since then three (India, Pakistan, North Korea) have been added, raising the total to nine. Yet on no occasion did any of these states fight a major war against any other major, read nuclear, power.

And how about Iran? First, note that no country has taken nearly as long as Iran did to develop its nuclear program. Started during the 1970s under the Shah, suspended during the 1980s as Iranians were fighting Saddam Hussein (who invaded Iran), and renewed in the early 1990s, that program has still not borne fruit. This suggests that, when the Iranians say, as they repeatedly have, that they do not want to build a bomb they are sincere, at least up to a point. All they want is the infrastructure that will enable them to build it quickly should the need arise—a desire they have in common with quite some other countries such as Sweden, Australia, and Japan.

Second, the real purpose of the Iranian program, and any eventual bomb that may result from it, is to deter a possible attack by the U.S. Look at the record; one never knows what America’s next president is going to do. With another Clinton, who attacked Serbia, and another Bush, who attacked Afghanistan and Iraq, in the White House a distinct possibility, caution is advised. The Mullahs have no desire to share the fate of Slobodan Milosevic, Saddam Hussein, and Muammar Khadafy.

The latter’s fate in particular gives reason for thought. In 2002-3, coming under Western pressure, Khadafy gave up his nuclear program.  As his reward, no sooner did the West see an opportunity in 2011 than it stabbed him in the back, waged war on him, overthrew him, and killed him. Leaving Libya in a mess from which it may never recover.

Third, Israel is in no danger. Alone among all the countries of the Middle East, Israel has what it takes to deter Iran and, if necessary, wage a nuclear war against it. What such a war might look like was described in some detail by Anthony Cordesman, an American political scientist a former member of the National Security Council. His conclusion? The difference in size notwithstanding, the outcome would be to wipe Iran, but not Israel, off the map.

Netanyahu has Iran in his head and effectively used it to win the elections. Yet truth to say, no Iranian leader has ever directly threatened Israel. To be sure, neither Iran’s presidents nor the Mullahs like the Zionist Entity. They do not stand to attention when Hatikvah is played. They have even had the chutzpah to deny the Holocaust. Yet all they have said is that, if Israel attacked them, they would respond in kind. Also that “rotten” Israel would end up by collapsing under its own weight. All this serves to divert attention away from their real purpose. That purpose, as I just said, is to deter the U.S. And to draw as much support in the Moslem world as verbal attacks on Israel always do.

Finally, morality. Are the Iranians really as bad as some people claim? Taking 1981 as our starting point, we find that in the three and a half decades since then the U.S has waged war first against (or in) Grenada; then Panama; then Iraq; then Serbia (in Bosnia); then Serbia again (in Kosovo); then Afghanistan; then Iraq again; then Libya. In some of these praiseworthy enterprises it was supported by its allies, the Netherlands included.

The Iranians are not angels—far from it. They have meddled in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Saudi Arabia, as they still do. They have also assisted terrorist organizations such as Hezbollah and Hamas. But everything is relative. They have not waged large-scale warfare against any other country. Let alone bombed it or invaded it.

And that, in the final analysis, is all that matters.

Now, Martin van Creveld is the very opposite of an innocent on this subject. He knows more about war, the history of war, and the strategy and tactics of war than nearly anyone on the planet. And so when a world-famous military expert, who lives in the heart of the land that is most threatened by Iranian weapons, contradicts the neocons living in the USA who have been beating the war drum for a decade and claiming that the mad mullahs are simply slavering to hurl nuclear-tipped missiles at Israel the moment they have them, I suggest that it is wise to listen to the former, not the latter.

A shot across the bow

At this point, given recent steps like these, I think it is eminently clear that the US government has told the Israeli government to take a hike and is going to reach an agreement with Iran that will permit it to become an acknowledged nuclear power:

In a development that has largely been missed by mainstream media, the Pentagon early last month quietly declassified a Department of Defense top-secret document detailing Israel’s nuclear program, a highly covert topic that Israel has never formally announced to avoid a regional nuclear arms race, and which the US until now has respected by remaining silent.

But by publishing the declassified document from 1987, the US reportedly breached the silent agreement to keep quiet on Israel’s nuclear powers for the first time ever, detailing the nuclear program in great depth.

The timing of the revelation is highly suspect, given that it came as tensions spiraled out of control between Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and US President Barack Obama ahead of Netanyahu’s March 3 address in Congress, in which he warned against the dangers of Iran’s nuclear program and how the deal being formed on that program leaves the Islamic regime with nuclear breakout capabilities.

Another highly suspicious aspect of the document is that while the Pentagon saw fit to declassify sections on Israel’s sensitive nuclear program, it kept sections on Italy, France, West Germany and other NATO countries classified, with those sections blocked out in the document.

The 386-page report entitled “Critical Technological Assessment in Israel and NATO Nations” gives a detailed description of how Israel advanced its military technology and developed its nuclear infrastructure and research in the 1970s and 1980s…. Declassifying the report comes at a sensitive timing as noted above, and
given that the process to have it published was started three years
ago, that timing is seen as having been the choice of the American
government.

This appears to be a clear message to the Israelis that since they have nukes themselves, they have absolutely no grounds to complain about anyone else obtaining them. I do find it somewhat amusing that the article claims the US has breached a nonexistent agreement.

If an agreement of the sort that appears to be in the works does in fact take place, it should be interesting to see how all the “Iran is the New Hitler”
neocons explain the complete failure of a nuclear Iran to immediately
launch the attack on Israel that they have been telling us is imminent for at least the last
decade.

Given what is presently taking place in Yemen and Iraq, I would think it is Saudi Arabia that has a lot more to be concerned than the Israelis.

Spy vs spy

The latest revelations of Israeli spying on the USA may, in part, account for the increasing indifference the White House and the Democratic Party are showing to Israeli interests:

It is – rightfully – front-page news that Israel was caught spying on the closed-door negotiations between the U.S. and Iran. And the Obama administration is particularly outraged that Israel allegedly shared that information with Republican congressmen who want to stop any peaceful deal with Iran.

This is certainly outrageous … but small, in the grand scheme of things.

Why? Because Israeli spying on America is so rampant that U.S. officials have labeled it “alarming, even terrifying”.

And because the U.S. has only half-heartedly asked Israel to stop … Israel has told the U.S. to pound sand. As if that isn’t bad enough, the NSA voluntarily shares the raw data it collects on American citizens with Israel. This includes raw data on U.S. government officials.   This not only raises major privacy concerns for American citizens, but it might mean that Israel is spying on the American Congress and other high-level politicians.

Indeed, leaked NSA documents show that U.S. intelligence officials are concerned that the NSA may be putting Israel’s security needs ahead of America’s.

If true, the NSA is only doing what Tom Friedman does. I had to laugh after reading the conclusion of his article in the New York Times today:

So before you make up your mind on the Iran deal, ask how it affects
Israel, the country most threatened by Iran. But also ask how it fits
into a wider U.S. strategy aimed at quelling tensions in the Middle East
with the least U.S. involvement necessary and the lowest oil prices
possible.

This is rather remarkably blunt. Apparently US interests are now supposed to be an afterthought for Americans. Of course, it’s a little difficult for the US government to convincingly affect much outrage about Israeli spying, when the US is so actively spying on the rest of the world.

Choose this day whom you will serve

Jon Podhoretz doesn’t appear to like the idea of having to choose between America and Israel:

Today, the president of the United States told the prime minister of Israel he was reassessing America’s “options” with regard to Israel in light of remarks Benjamin Netanyahu made about potential Palestinian statehood and an election-day Facebook post urging Israeli right-wingers to go to the polls on Monday to counter a surge in Israeli Arab voters.

The crisis in the relationship we discuss in our new editorial statement has entered a new and potentially unprecedented phase.

It may well be that the president is going to present American Jews with a choice over the coming months no American president should ask us to make—to become parties to and participants in his effort to create what, in 2009, he called “daylight” between the U.S. and Israel.

The question, of course, is to what Podhoretz is truly objecting. Does he, a U.S. citizen, genuinely find it difficult to choose between the U.S.A. and Israel? Or is he more truly concerned that, as the Spanish Inquisition did with the false conversos, the president intends to expose where the true loyalties of the Jews in America lie?

There should be an amount of “daylight” between the U.S. and Israel. They are two separate and very different countries, and while they share some interests, they also have other interests that are distinct, and in some cases, even divergent. An alliance between the two countries makes sense. Attempting to force the two countries to march in lockstep does not.

The mere fact that Podhoretz would appear to oppose recognition of this basic reality is sufficient to raise some questions where his true and singular allegiance lies. It is telling that the name of his piece is “The Crisis Has Exploded” when the vast majority of Americans have no idea that there is any such crisis at all.

It’s not anti-Semitic to observe that no man can serve two masters. But it is literally anti-American for a U.S. citizen to call for the sacrifice of U.S. interests on Israel’s behalf. There is nothing wrong with being pro-Israel. I am pro-Israel. But there is definitely something wrong with selling out what is supposed to be your own country, regardless of what reason you give to justify it.

Time to go

Jeffrey Goldberg considers whether it is time for the Jews to leave Europe in The Atlantic:

It is not 1933. But could it be 1929? Could Europe’s economic stagnation combine with its inability to assimilate and enfranchise growing populations of increasingly angry Muslims in such a way as to clear a path for volatile right-wing populism?

A few weeks after the January massacres, I met with a group of aggrieved Jews in a café near the main synagogue in Sarcelles, the suburb that was the center of last summer’s anti-Jewish riots. French troops in combat gear patrolled the street. The synagogue is now also used as a base of operations for the more than 40 soldiers who have been assigned to protect the town’s Jewish institutions.

“We’re very glad for the soldiers,” one of the men, who asked me to identify him only as Chaim, said. “But soldiers in the synagogues means that there is no life here, only danger. This is why I’m leaving.” It is, he said, using an expression common during the Algerian civil war, a choice between le cercueil ou la valise—“the coffin or the suitcase.”

But another man, who asked to be called Marcel, responded that it would be cowardly to flee for Israel at the first appearance of Molotov cocktails. “Running, running, running,” he said. “That’s the Jewish way.” He said his parents had arrived in Sarcelles from Tunisia in 1967, driven out by anti-Jewish rioters who were putatively distressed by Israel’s victory in the Six-Day War. “We ran from Tunisia. We’re not running from here.”

“But no one wants us here,” Chaim said. “They’ll attack us again as soon as the soldiers go.”

I said that I didn’t think Manuel Valls was going to remove the soldiers anytime soon.

Marcel laughed. “I don’t count on the Socialists. I would count on the National Front before I count on the Socialists.”

His conclusion: I am predisposed to believe that there is no great future for the Jews
in Europe, because evidence to support this belief is accumulating so
quickly.

Goldberg’s predisposition is correct. There is no future for the Jews in Post-Christian Europe now that the great experiment in diversity and multiculturalism is ending. The various European nations trust the Jews no more than they trust the Europeans. What is happening in Europe now is going to be happening in the USA circa 2050, and I doubt the results will be any different.

Europe no more needs Jews than Israel needs Eskimos or China needs Bantu tribesmen. And the Jews presently make it difficult for the Europeans to address their Muslim problem, just as they currently make it impossible for the USA to even begin to address its own immigrant invasion. That is why the sooner that the diaspora returns home, to the land they have fairly won in sweat and blood, the better it will be for them as well as for the nations they still presently inhabit. The French are not going to patrol their own streets indefinitely on behalf of those who are not, in the end, even French.

War is coming. And wartime is seldom kind to those who have made it clear that their loyalties do not lie with those who are actively involved in waging it. I am no anti-semite; in fact, I am a pro-Zionist and one of the very few individuals who has ever been formally cleared of the charge of anti-semitism by a Jewish organization. But I am also a student of history and war who abhors unnecessary violence and bloodshed that could easily be avoided by even a modicum of reason and common sense.

The diaspora Jews must understand that they will never rule over the more numerous nations for long. That has always been the fatal flaw in their favored strategy; accumulating wealth and influence does NOT provide security, especially for an unpopular minority, as it makes one a legitimate target in the eyes of the oppressed and dispossessed, even if one is not responsible for the oppression and the dispossession.

There is a very good scene in HBO’s A Game of Thrones when Queen Cersei demonstrates to Littlefinger the salient difference between influence and power. And influence only trumps power so long as power is unwilling to exert itself.