Senator John McCain's brother on The Jews & Israel
a very worthwhile read
Joe McCain (Brother) on Jews and Israel - don't know anything about John Mcain's brother, other than he is a retired reporter. Worth reading...
Senator John McCain's brother on the Jews & Israel.
There is a lot of worry popping up in the media just now -- 'Can Israel Survive?'
Don't worry about it. It relates to something that Palestinians, the Arabs,
and perhaps most Americans don't realize -- the Jews are never going quietly
again. Never. And if the world doesn't come to understand that, then millions
of Arabs are going to die. It's as simple as that.
Throughout the history of the world, the most abused, kicked-around
race of people have been the Jews. Not just during the holocaust of
World War II, but for thousands of years. They have truly been 'The
Chosen People' in a terrible and tragic sense.
The Bible story of Egypt's enslavement of the Jews is not just a
story, it is history, if festooned with theological legend and heroic
epics. In 70 A.D. the Romans, which had for a long time tolerated the
Jews -- even admired them as 'superior' to other vassals -- tired of
their truculent demands for independence and decided on an early
'Solution' to the Jewish problem Jerusalem was sacked and reduced to
near rubble, Jewish resistance was pursued and crushed by the
implacable Roman War Machine -- see 'Masada'.
And thus began The Diaspora, the dispersal of Jews throughout the
rest of the world.
Their homeland destroyed, their culture crushed, they looked
desperately for the few niches in a hostile world where they could be
safe. That safety was fragile, and often subject to the whims of
moody hosts. The words 'pogrom', 'ghetto', and 'anti-Semitism' come
from this treatment of the first mono-theistic people.
Throughout Europe, changing times meant sometimes tolerance, sometimes
even warmth for the Jews, but eventually it meant hostility, then
malevolence. There is not a country in Europe or Western Asia that at
one time or another has not decided to lash out against the children
of Moses, sometimes by whim, sometimes by manipulation.
Winston Churchill calls Edward I one of England's very greatest kings
It was under his rule in the late 1200's that Wales and Cornwall were
hammered into the British crown, and Scotland and Ireland were
invaded and occupied. He was also the first European monarch to set up
a really effective administrative bureaucracy, surveyed and censused his
kingdom, established laws and political divisions. But he also embraced
the Jews.
Actually Edward didn't embrace Jews so much as he embraced their money.
For the English Jews had acquired wealth -- understandable,
because this people that could not own land or office, could not join
most of the trades and professions, soon found out that money was
a very good thing to accumulate. Much harder to take away than land
or a store, was a hidden sock of gold and silver coins. Ever resourceful,
Edward found a way -- he borrowed money from the Jews to finance
imperial ambitions in Europe, especially France. The loans were almost
certainly not made gladly, but how do you refuse your King? Especially
when he is 'Edward the Hammer'. Then, rather than pay back the debt,
Edward simply expelled the Jews. Edward was especially inventive--
he did this twice. After a time, he invited the Jews back to their English
homeland, borrowed more money, then expelled them again.
Most people do not know that Spain was one of the early entrants into
The Renaissance. People from all over the world came to Spain in the
late medieval period. All were welcome -- Arabs, Jews, other
Europeans. The University of Salamanca was one of the great centers
of learning in the world -- scholars of all nations, all if elds came
to Salamanca to share their knowledge and their ideas. But in 1492,
Ferdinand and Isabella, having driven the last of Moors from the
Spanish Shield, were persuaded by the righteous fundamentalists of
the time to announce 'The Act of Purification'.
A series of steps were taken in which all Jews and Arabs and other
non-Christians were expelled from the country, or would face the
tools and the torches of The Inquisition. From this 'cleansing' come
the Sephardic Jews -- as opposed to the Ashkenazis of Eastern Europe.
In Eastern Europe, the sporadic violence and brutality against Jews
are common knowledge.
'Fiddler' without the music and the folksy humor. At times of fury,
no accommodation by the Jew was good enough, no profile low enough,
no village poor enough or distant enough.
>From these come the near-steady flow of Jews to the United States.
And despite the disdain of the Jews by most 'American' Americans,
they came to grab the American Dream with both hands, and contributed
everything from new ideas of enterprise in retail and entertainment
to becoming some of our finest physicians and lawyers. The modern
United States, in spite of itself, IS The United States in part
because of its Jewish blood.
Then the Nazi Holocaust -- the corralling, sorting, orderly
eradication of millions of the people of Moses. Not something that
other realms in other times didn't try to do, by the way, the Germans
were just more organized and had better murder technology.
I stood in the center of Dachau for an entire day, about 15 years
ago, trying to comprehend how this could have happened. I had gone
there on a side trip from Munich, vaguely curious about this Dachau.
I soon became engulfed in the enormity of what had occurred there
nestled in this middle and working class neighborhood.
How could human beings do this to other human beings, hear their
cries, their pleas, their terror, their pain, and continue without
apparently even wincing? I no longer wonder. At some times, some
places, ANY sect of the human race is capable of horrors against their
fellow man, whether a member of the Waffen SS, a Serbian sniper, a
Turkish policeman in 1920's Armenia, a Mississippi Klansman. Because
even in the United States not all was a Rose Garden. For a long time
Jews had quotas in our universities and graduate schools. Only so
many Jews could be in a medical or law school at one time.
Jews were disparaged widely. I remember as a kid Jewish jokes told
without a wince - 'Why do Jews have such big noses?'
Well, now the Jews have a homeland again. A place that is theirs. And
that's the point. It doesn't matter how many times the United States
and European powers try to rein in Israel, if it comes down to survival
of its nation, its people, they will fight like no lioness has ever
fought to save her cubs. They will fight with a ferocity, a
determination, and a skill, that will astound us.
And many will die, mostly their attackers, I believe. If there were a
macabre historical betting parlor, my money would be on the Israelis
to be standing at the end. As we killed the kamikazes and the
Wehrmacht soldaten of World War II, so will the Israelis kill their
suicidal attackers, until there are not enough to torment them.
The irony goes unnoticed -- while we are hammering away to punish
those who brought the horrors of 11 September here, we restrain the
Israelis from the same retaliation. Not the same thing, of course --
We are We, They are They. While we mourn and see the at September
11th, we don't notice that Israel has a September 11th sometimes
every day.
We may not notice, but it doesn't make any difference. And it doesn't
make any difference whether you are pro-Israeli or you think Israel
is the bully of the Middle East. If it comes to where a new holocaust
looms -- with or without the concurrence of the United States and
Europe -- Israel will lash out without pause or restraint at those
who would try to annihilate their country.
The Jews will not go quietly again.
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