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The Onslaught Against the Jews Is an Onslaught Against the West

(Mosaic) Melanie Phillips - You might have thought that after the Oct. 7 onslaught, the world would have shown sympathy to Israel. Instead, much of the so-called civilized world has turned against Israel and the Jewish people. Attacks on Jews worldwide are at record levels. We can only understand what's happening if we realize that we're looking at a worldwide war on both the Jews and the Free World. The first demonstrations in the West, mainly by Muslims, took place on Oct. 7 itself while the attack in Israel was still going on. They were an ecstatic celebration of the slaughter of Jews. The Islamists believed that their moment had come. They understood Oct. 7 to be the final and victorious onslaught. Having broken through Israel's defenses, they thought that they were now on the way to destroying Israel altogether. Then the path would be open for the defeat of the West. There's been nothing spontaneous about these demonstrations. They've been organized from the start by an alliance composed of Hamas and other Muslim Brotherhood groups, the hard left, and Western Palestinian activists. Anti-Israel indoctrination has gone on for decades and long colonized the universities. Billions of dollars have been devoted to frying the minds of the Western intelligentsia. For several decades, Western elites have held that the West was born in the sins of racism and colonialism and that therefore national identity in the West is itself intrinsically evil. The Western nation-state, they said, had created hatred, prejudice, and war. The culture and laws of Western nations therefore had to be trumped by universalist institutions and laws such as the UN, international law, and "human rights" legislated by international courts. As John Lennon sang, there's nothing to fight or die for. But Israel - the paradigmatic nation-state - certainly believes there's something to fight and die for. That something is its continued existence. It refuses to negotiate its own demise. Israel will survive because it has no alternative. Israel will prosper and grow because there the Jewish people know what they are, they love what they are, and as a result they want their nation to survive. The West will only survive if it decides to love us instead of disdaining us and trying to erase what makes the Jewish people special - which is what has made the West special too. The writer is a columnist for The Times-UK. This essay has been adapted from a speech given on December 8, 2024, at the Jewish Leadership Conference in New York.
2024-12-26 00:00:00
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