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Source: https://jewishjournal.com/commentary/opinion/388018/defending-israel-in-an-age-of-madness/
Defending Israel in an Age of Madness
(Los Angeles Jewish Journal) Amb. Michael Oren - For the past 50 years, in capacities both official and voluntary, I have spent most of my time defending the State of Israel. Standing up for Israel became especially daunting after Oct. 7, 2023, when the victims of a verifiable genocide were baselessly accused of perpetrating one. Conspiracy theories once considered fringe had become mainstream, and age-old antisemitic tropes had resurfaced in a presumption of Jewish wickedness. America's national derangement is virtually insurmountable for the defenders of Israel. Though readily disproven, Israel's guilt for annihilating an entire people is today accepted by more than half of the general public. Many favor Palestinian anti-American terrorists over America's only dependable, democratic, military ally. For many decades, advocates for Israel and Zionism wielded the weapon of truth. We produced volumes of "myths and facts" about the conflict. But how should we react when rampant unreason is infused with antisemitism? In this new, twisted American universe, Oct. 7 was a false flag operation in which Israel massacred and kidnapped its own people as a pretext for occupying Gaza, and ZAKA volunteers staged the rape scenes at the Nova Festival. Ayman Mohamad Ghazali, the terrorist who drove his car into a Michigan synagogue, was portrayed by NPR as a gentle, otherwise law-abiding citizen with genuine grievances. The New York Times eulogized Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who butchered his own people. Amid such bedlam, try to advance a logical argument about why Israelis, threatened by a regime sworn to annihilate us and industriously producing the means of doing so, might not want to sit passively until it strikes. The classic antisemitic canard of the cunning Jew winding the unwitting gentile around his crooked finger has been embraced by most of the American press. Yet we must continue to battle the madness - even if we can only dent it here and there. We can reinforce those who remain moored in morality and believe in the need to defeat evil in the world. The writer was Israel's ambassador to the U.S., 2009-13.