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Israel Exists to End the Victimization of Jews

(New York Times) Bret Stephens - Adam Armoush, a 21-year-old Israeli Arab, donned a yarmulke on a recent outing in Berlin to test a friend's contention that it was unsafe to do so in Germany. On Tuesday he was assaulted in broad daylight by a Syrian asylum-seeker who whipped him with a belt for being a Jew. There were nearly 1,000 reported anti-Semitic incidents in Berlin alone last year. To be visibly Jewish in Europe is to live on borrowed time. That's not to doubt the sincerity and good will of European leaders who recommit to combating anti-Semitism every time a European Jew is murdered or a Jewish institution attacked. It's only to doubt their capacity. There's a limit to how many armed guards can be deployed indefinitely to protect synagogues or stop Holocaust memorials from being vandalized. There's a limit, also, to trying to cure bigotry with earnest appeals to tolerance. The German government is mulling a proposal to require recent arrivals in the country to tour Nazi concentration camps as a way of engendering a feeling of empathy for Jews. It doesn't seem to occur to anyone that, to the virulent anti-Semite, Buchenwald is a source of inspiration, not shame. Jews cannot rely for their safety on the kindness of strangers. Hence Israel's robust willingness to use force to defend itself. Israel did not come into existence to serve as another showcase of the victimization of Jews. It exists to end the victimization of Jews On Friday, Palestinians in Gaza returned for the fourth time to the border fence with Israel, in protests promoted by Hamas. The explicit purpose of Hamas leaders is to breach the fence and march on Jerusalem. Israel cannot possibly allow this - doing so would create a precedent that would encourage similar protests, and more death, along all of Israel's borders. The armchair corporals of Western punditry think the repeated use of deadly force to counter this is excessive. It would be helpful if they could suggest alternative military tactics to an Israeli government dealing with an urgent crisis against an adversary sworn to its destruction. They don't. Their complaints provide moral sustenance for Hamas in its efforts to win sympathy for its strategy of wanton aggression and reckless endangerment.
2018-04-23 00:00:00
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