In Honor of the American Revolution
Prof. Paul Eidelberg
American: You Israelis never cease to amaze me. Since Oslo you have suffered more than 15,000 casualties—Jewish men, women, and children killed, wounded and maimed for life. Yet you do nothing. If this weren’t bad enough, your government plans to expel 330,000 Jews from their homes in Judea and Samaria and turn this land over to your enemies. Why haven’t you people rebelled and thrown the turncoats out?
Israeli: Just a minute. Israel is a democracy. If the public isn’t happy with the government’s policies, we need only wait for the next election and change the prime minister or party in power.
American: But don’t you see it makes no difference which party or party leader is in power: you are retreating toward your indefensible 1949 borders. The Americans of ’76 would never have tolerated this impossible situation!
Israeli: Look here: you forget we are Jews, and for a Jew to shed the life of another Jew—inevitable in a revolution—is simply out of the question. Look at what happened after the violent death of Yitzhak Rabin. This was a national trauma from which we are still suffering.
American: Trauma? Tens of thousands of Jewish children are suffering the trauma of suicide bombings. I ask you: Suppose year after year a few hundred square kilometers of the American southwest were turned over to Mexico, and that thousands of Anglo-Saxon Americans were expelled from their homes each month. We Americans would be up in arms, animated by the revolutionary zeal of those who signed their Declaration of Independence? Let me quote a few passages from that document:
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.—That to secure these Rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.—That whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and provide new Guards for their future security."
American (continued): Perhaps some will say that these solemn words do not justify a revolution in Israel. It seems to me, however, that your government’s 20-year failure to put an end to the murder of Jews by Arab terrorists is surely a “long train of abuses.” And what are you going to say and do if your present government uproots thousands of Jews from their homes every month in pursuance of the Labor-Likud expulsion/retreat plan, which an overwhelming majority of the public rejected in the 2003election? Your ruling elite’s talk about democracy deceives only children. Even your best journalists perpetuate this fairytale. What do you say to this?
Israeli: Look, your tirade about revolution may be true when applied to America and perhaps other countries. As for Israel, however, you have to bear one obvious and one not so obvious fact in mind. Since the government obviously controls the army, the police, and the intelligence services, your proposed revolution would be nipped in the bud. Less obvious is this: even if ten thousand or more Jews were to march on the Knesset and had the wherewithal to withstand water-canons and tear gas, this would only lead to a civil war. All your talk about revolution is futile. We Jews are a long-suffering people. Indeed, to endure suffering is part of our nature. We have had inept and wicked rulers before. We survived them and we’ll survive those who now betray us in the name of “democracy.”
American: But how many Jews must perish before you cease being long-suffering and take your future into your own hands instead of behaving like sheep led to the slaughterhouse of Oslo?
Israeli: You speak as if we are threatened by another holocaust!
American: God forbid, but this time you’ll have no one but yourselves to blame for such a catastrophe.
Israeli: You warn me of a catastrophe in Israel; but what of the catastrophe now occurring in your own country? Hasn’t your Supreme Court trashed America’s Judeo-Christian heritage? Hasn’t your President genuflected to Islam and King Abdullah?
Prof. Paul Eidelberg
American: You Israelis never cease to amaze me. Since Oslo you have suffered more than 15,000 casualties—Jewish men, women, and children killed, wounded and maimed for life. Yet you do nothing. If this weren’t bad enough, your government plans to expel 330,000 Jews from their homes in Judea and Samaria and turn this land over to your enemies. Why haven’t you people rebelled and thrown the turncoats out?
Israeli: Just a minute. Israel is a democracy. If the public isn’t happy with the government’s policies, we need only wait for the next election and change the prime minister or party in power.
American: But don’t you see it makes no difference which party or party leader is in power: you are retreating toward your indefensible 1949 borders. The Americans of ’76 would never have tolerated this impossible situation!
Israeli: Look here: you forget we are Jews, and for a Jew to shed the life of another Jew—inevitable in a revolution—is simply out of the question. Look at what happened after the violent death of Yitzhak Rabin. This was a national trauma from which we are still suffering.
American: Trauma? Tens of thousands of Jewish children are suffering the trauma of suicide bombings. I ask you: Suppose year after year a few hundred square kilometers of the American southwest were turned over to Mexico, and that thousands of Anglo-Saxon Americans were expelled from their homes each month. We Americans would be up in arms, animated by the revolutionary zeal of those who signed their Declaration of Independence? Let me quote a few passages from that document:
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.—That to secure these Rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.—That whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and provide new Guards for their future security."
American (continued): Perhaps some will say that these solemn words do not justify a revolution in Israel. It seems to me, however, that your government’s 20-year failure to put an end to the murder of Jews by Arab terrorists is surely a “long train of abuses.” And what are you going to say and do if your present government uproots thousands of Jews from their homes every month in pursuance of the Labor-Likud expulsion/retreat plan, which an overwhelming majority of the public rejected in the 2003election? Your ruling elite’s talk about democracy deceives only children. Even your best journalists perpetuate this fairytale. What do you say to this?
Israeli: Look, your tirade about revolution may be true when applied to America and perhaps other countries. As for Israel, however, you have to bear one obvious and one not so obvious fact in mind. Since the government obviously controls the army, the police, and the intelligence services, your proposed revolution would be nipped in the bud. Less obvious is this: even if ten thousand or more Jews were to march on the Knesset and had the wherewithal to withstand water-canons and tear gas, this would only lead to a civil war. All your talk about revolution is futile. We Jews are a long-suffering people. Indeed, to endure suffering is part of our nature. We have had inept and wicked rulers before. We survived them and we’ll survive those who now betray us in the name of “democracy.”
American: But how many Jews must perish before you cease being long-suffering and take your future into your own hands instead of behaving like sheep led to the slaughterhouse of Oslo?
Israeli: You speak as if we are threatened by another holocaust!
American: God forbid, but this time you’ll have no one but yourselves to blame for such a catastrophe.
Israeli: You warn me of a catastrophe in Israel; but what of the catastrophe now occurring in your own country? Hasn’t your Supreme Court trashed America’s Judeo-Christian heritage? Hasn’t your President genuflected to Islam and King Abdullah?
Hasn’t your State Department granted a visa to a mass murderer like Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, a despot who not only used thousands of Iranian children to walk over and explode mine fields, but who also screams “Death to America”! You suggest that democracy has cowed Israelis. But hasn’t democracy cowed Americans as well? Are you going to blame a cretin like Obama for America’s decline? You speak of an impossible revolution in Israel. The same may be said of America. But Americans don’t have to resort to muskets. For starters, why don’t you organize monthly marches of thousands of Americans in major cities to demand Obama’s resignation? Unlike the Americans of ’76, you won’t have to cross the Delaware in mid-winter for this purpose.
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