Dear friends
The assault on truth which is all around us, was twice made especially poignant to me this week.
The first involved an interview from a few weeks ago with Chris Williamson, a former labour minister in the UK, where he literally argued that Israel was worse than the Nazis! Considering the fact that nearly 400,000 British soldiers lost their lives to battle the evil of Nazism, it would follow that at least that many would be worth the sacrifice to destroy Israel.
Whilst I entirely reject the notion that Israel is the villain here, even were one to have such an opinion, in what world is it even rhetorically defensible to state that it is worse than the Nazis?! The divorce from truth and reality is certifiably 100%.
The second experience was not quite on the same level of absurdity but actually touched much closer to home. A friend had shared that she had gone to one of the big anti-Israel rallies which was already hard enough for me to hear. When I asked her to at least reassure me she didn’t chant the anti-Jewish slogan ‘from the river to the sea Palestine will be free’ she proudly responded that in fact she did, and it was ‘cathartic’ for her.
When I pressed her if she understood the meaning of what she was saying she started a convoluted explanation which required me to end the conversation because I was so in need of literally throwing up. Even writing these words now makes my stomach churn violently.
Considering the fact that the camp which this friend belongs to is the same which insists I must accept a non-binary cat persona of a school child, I would have thought that when being told that their words are offensive since they literally call for the destruction of my family and people, my perspective would be taken just as seriously.
But no, because it’s not about consistency and truth. It’s about how it makes them feel. Since it was cathartic to chant with a mob for the destruction of the only Jewish state, then that must be right. Their own perspective of course is that they are fighting for justice of the underdog, which does indeed make sense only when there is a total dearth of understanding and knowledge either of the history or the actual contemporary players.
Like understanding what Hamas stands for, in Hamas’ own words. The annihilation of Israel. Facts are indeed confusing when you’re married to feelings which contradict them.
The inability and lack of clarity to be able to differentiate Hamas from legitimate Palestinian aspirations and political actions, reveals a deeper underlying lack of moral clarity. In fact, any intellectual clarity whatsoever. It is so absurd that its very argument is inherently self-undermining. If Hamas’ actions can be morally excusable because of their suffering, Israeli response would likewise be justified because of theirs, would they not? So why all the anti-Israel sentiment? In other words, if truth and morality is entirely relative which justifies Hamas, wouldn’t that justify Israel’s actions too?
Well, I beg to differ. Despite the fact that we may not have access to absolute truth, does not mean we cannot clearly discern between wrong and right.
This week’s Parsha is a great illustration. In it, we are told of Dinah, daughter of Yaakov, who goes out into town and hooks up with Shechem. it’s unclear whether Shechem used any force, and certainly from the description of the unfolding story we are told two things to suggest that there wasn’t.
For Shechem goes to his dad the local chieftain and says he wants to marry Dinah because he is in love. They both then approach Yaakov and his sons with an offer of marriage and becoming one people. And again, Shechem declares his love.
The brothers we are told were in a fury. No mention is made of any wrong of rape or lack of consent being an issue. Only that their sister was ‘defiled’.
At any rate, even if was rape, terrible as it may be, it would not justify what happens next. Shimon and Levi, deceive the male townspeople by convincing them to all undergo circumcision so that their prince Shechem will be able to marry the love of his life.
On the third day, when they were most vulnerable in their pain, Shimon and Levi came into the town and slaughtered all the adult males. The women and children they sold into slavery.
Why? Because their honour was in some way disgraced.
This I submit is where we clearly see progress. that we live in a time and place where every aspect of that story is so entirely foreign and repulsive. In our world, a woman has total freedom. Justice is a process. Honour is something you earn not something dependent on the virginity of your sister. And punishment for a crime is meted out to the individual who committed the crime in direct proportion to the crime.
There is something objectively more enlightened in our approach to such an episode than these two savage brothers. Not something. Everything.
So goes with Hamas. They are not some relative truth to a suffering Palestinian people. they, Hamas are, a grotesque evil reminding us that we do in fact descend from apes. that civilisation and progress is something which needs to be cherished and absolutely valued. Not derided and obfuscated as in the muddle of the post-modern illiterate mind of todays Left.
Shabbat shalom
Shneur