Harvard antisemitism & Israeli independence

Some thoughts on Israel's birthday

The long-awaited (and long-delayed) report on antisemitism at Harvard University is finally out. This is breathtaking:

In response to a friend who knew two people who were killed at the music festival, one close friend said, “I mean, I guess that sucks, but what did they expect?” When I expressed anguish at the loss of life, another responded, “do you believe in de-colonization in theory or in practice?”

Ok, so these students live on colonized land in Cambridge. By their logic, would they "expect" to get murdered at a dance party on campus by some extremist genocidal Massachusett group? Obviously not, but these people clearly have never followed a thought to its logical conclusion in their lives.

So let's define our terms. Zionism is belief in the Jewish people's right to self-determination in their indigenous land. Anti-Zionists believe that the one tiny sliver of land on this planet where the Jews exercise sovereignty and can control their own fates and defend themselves is too much and must be dismantled, that that's what "justice" demands. A world were Jews have no refuge, like the one that existed before 1948, is clearly superior.

The Struma, a ship containing 767 Jewish refugees denied entry to British-controlled Palestine in 1942. Turkish authorities towed the decrepit vessel out to sea and abandoned it. The boat sank, with a single survivor.

Pay no attention to the actual apartheid against Palestinians in Lebanon, or the slaughter of Palestinian refugees in camps in Syria, or Hamas's use of its own people in Gaza as human shields and its murder of dissidents. Nope, all that matters is annihilating the world's one Jewish state, and then there will be peace and justice.

If these people knew any actual history, they would understand that Israel’s is actually the greatest success story of decolonization of the 20th century.

Pioneers on the sand dunes where they would build Tel Aviv

I’m not too worried about Israel. In the 77 years since its extraordinary rebirth after the Jewish people survived centuries of exile, forced conversions, pogroms, and genocide, the modern Jewish state has survived much greater challenges than the contempt of some morally vacuous morons at elite American universities.

Back in 1948, when the new United Nations had second thoughts about supporting the establishment of the new Jewish state, the Arab nations prepared for a war in which they were confident they would destroy the state in its infancy and drive the Jews into the sea, and the United States imposed an arms embargo, the Jews were pretty much on their own. They had to fight a war to defend their very existence with whatever arms they could scrounge. Many of their number were brand-new immigrants, fresh from the ashes of Europe where they had survived ghettos and camps and seen their families slaughtered. Most of the world didn’t expect the reborn Israel to survive its infancy.

Women of the Palmach

Well, it survived that war, and every subsequent one that its enemies have waged in an attempt to destroy it. It faces plenty of challenges today, internal and external, but there’s one thing of which I have no doubt: Israel isn’t going anywhere. And thank God.