Reflections and Ruminations

A Visit With Col/Dr. Moti Kedar

When I first heard that people were bringing the Hamas footage of 10/7 to Davos to be seen--I said: "I don't think that's a good idea. The sight of Jewish blood and of Jewish weakness will incite even more blood lust among the Jew haters."

I think I had a point--and yet, I lacked the requisite power to enforce any opinion, however prescient or plausible it might have been. Indeed, the footage did just that.

I also said that the best place for this toxic footage is in a Jerusalem courtroom in a trial similar to that of Eichmann's. I stressed that expecting such footage and all subsequent forensic and witness accounts to be impartially heard in an international venue was a fool's errand and a huge mistake.

My guest, last night, my dear friend and colleague, Dr. Mordechai Kedar, suggested that if Israel dared try Palestinian terrorists in a Jerusalem courtroom that the world would probably cheer for the barbarians as "freedom fighters." A better decision would be assassinating them, one by one, so that each and every Hamas leader or collaborator would know that, one by one, their day of death was imminent, sooner rather than later. I believe this is precisely what Israel has been doing; it is as "proportional" as Hell, ain't it?

Lt. Colonel/Dr. Mordechai was here to interview me about the state of American Jewry. And so I talked about all our self-loving Jews who loved themselves and their privileged positions so very much that they would do anything to keep their places even if it meant having to demonize other Jews--just so long as they were spared. At least for now. Or for a very long time. Take them--the "oustjuden." The "greenhorns." The haredim. The right-wing Israelis. Especially PM Netanyahu. The IDF. The "settlers." All those Jewish thinkers and writers who support any of the above, etc.

Yes, we have our own American judenrat--those infamous and pitiful councils which chose which Jews the Nazis could take first--and did so in order to spare hundreds or thousands for a while longer.

Who am I to judge? I was not there. I was never forced to make such a choice. But I will say this: Allow me to praise those who escaped from Auschwitz/participated in armed uprisings/fled into the forests to fight/helped others escape from the evil decree/hid Jews all throughout the Shoah/took Jewish children into their homes for the duration of the Nazi slaughter.

Let me be fair: Many American Jews both believe, and have been led to believe, that being a Jew means that they have to be the first to hold all other Jews to impossibly high standards, beginning with the Jewish state. In their august view, this is precisely what it means to be a "light unto the nations." They've turned the rather dry, Talmudic legal concept of "tikkun olam" into a concept of social justice, but one which is not meant to show the slightest mercy or kinship with Israel or with any of the "wrong" kind of Jews. (See above.) Rather, the concept as applied is one which concerns the importance of fighting anti-Black racism and forgetting entirely about anti-woman sexism; a concept in which Islamic gender and religious apartheid cannot be called out because it will stereotype Muslims who, in their politically correct blindness, they consider as more endangered than their infidel and dissident victims.

This includes Muslim female children and women, upon whom Sharia law imposes torturous limitations. If any woman dares to rebel in any way, her punishment is, if she is lucky, forced marriage and/or house arrest (Saudi Arabia), state-sanctioned rape (Afghanistan, Pakistan), jail, torture, and death (Iran). This is also true for the dissidents, homosexuals, and infidels in within their borders and within their grasp.

Some Reform and some Reconstructionist American "temples" are pro forma anti-Zionists--and passionately and loudly so. One such temple invited and then dis-invited me as a lecturer. Only afterwards did I discover that they did not allow an Israeli flag on the bima and said no prayers for the state of Israel. To my sorrow, the rabbi, the cantor, and the two Hebrew School teachers were all women. They had decided that I was an Islamophobe, homophobe, racist, and--quelle horreur!--a Zionist and they sent round leaflets to other sympathetic temples as an announcement. A warning. A bell around my neck.

Oh, I could go on, but Dr. Mordechai taped our conversation, and he may have much more to quote from. As to what he told me: I dare not repeat most of it. Suffice it to say: The Jews are also at war with each other in the Holy Land.

Look: I am so worried that the other day I actually followed the suggestion to recite some psalms, read a particular chapter in Megillat Esther (9:8) and study a bit of Pirkei Avot. Why? Because the 23rd of Sivan, the date on which both Israel and America attacked Iran in self-defense, is exactly the day that the Jews were given permission to slaughter all those in ancient Persia who had intended to slaughter them.

'What kind of coincidence is this?" I asked Kedar.

"There are no coincidences in the Middle East," he said. "For example, take 9/11. That is about the date that the Ottoman Turks had been stopped at the Gates of Vienna."

"Oh" said I. "Payback?"

"Exactly. And the Yom Kippur war? That took place on Syria's Hafez al-Assad's birthday."

"Why" I asked?

"Because he had been shamed for having lost the Golan in the 1967 war and this was a 'present' to him--and a hope that the Golan would be returned to Syria."

Enough for now.