Frederick Krantz
In the Jewish Messianic tradition the this-worldly redemption of Israel at the end of time also means the redemption of all mankind. The Messiah, a human being descended from the House of David, will lead all peoples to worship together in Jerusalem, ushering in the end of hatred, division, conflict, and suffering. Peace and plenty will reign, and all mankind will enjoy the Edenic fruits enjoyed at the beginning of time only by its forbears, Adam and Eve.
Israel today, as it resumes the Gaza campaign against Hamas in Rafah, stands alone, as it did in 1948 and 1967, as the Jewish people did after 70 CE and 135
and again and again across history, until the near-escape from genocide called the Holocaust. Today, the U.S. led by the Biden Administration has chosen to support the current agent of genocide, Iran-backed Hamas and the Palestinians. In its desire to bend Israel to its will, it is denying it crucial swar materiel (above all, J-Dams, precision-guided “Joint-Direct Action Munitions” needed to destroy deeply-hidden terrorist installations while minimizing civilian casualties).
More, and even worse, in its haste to isolate and compel Israel’s subordination to its policy of appeasing Iran, Biden negotiated a ceasefire deal with Hamas without Israel’s knowledge or consent. This deal—which Hamas quickly “accepted”—would have imposed an immediate and general cease-fire leading to a permanent cessation of hostilities and an Israeli withdrawal from Gaza.
Such a “deal” would ensure the survival of the Hamas terrorists, and implement too a “two-state solution” guaranteeing the permanent possibility of an Islamist state threatening to repeat October’s genocidal attack. This is precisely what Israel, expressing its people’s unified expression of shared will despite the long nightmarish hostage tragedy, has been fighting to prevent.
Yesterday was Holocaust Commemoration Day in Israel and throughout the Jewish world, an especially poignant moment in a miraculously restored Israeli state which sees itself–“Never Again!”—as the bulwark against Holocaust repetition. Yet Israel, and the Jewish people, are once again facing the spectre of genocide. Only now it does so, incredibly, without the clear support of its once reliable, and only, ally, the world’s most powerful democracy, the United States.
Today, President Biden is scheduled, after much public outcry, finally to give an address on revived antisemitism at the White House. He will supposedly clearly and unequivocally counter the dangerous wave of pro-Hamas Nazi-like Jew-hatred which has spread across American campuses and streets since October 7. Whether he will in fact do so is moot—and even if he does, surely his actions must speak larger than his sadly sophistic and seemingly insincere words.
From his Vice-Presidency with Barack Obama on, Biden has supported and funded (to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars) an alliance with Shi’ite, Islamist, Iran. Tehran’s mullahs, as it armed itself with ballistic missiles and nuclear capability, pledged their determination to destroy the “Zionist entity”, the “little Satan”, Jewish Israel. Biden continues to support Tehran despite that explicit policy (and this despite the fact, too, that Iran pledges destruction of the ”Big Satan”, the U.S., as well).
Nothing Biden in his failed Presidency can say today will diminish the fact of his de facto support for the genocidal attack on the Jewish state which October 7 represents. It is a genocide that Hamas has pledged to repeat “again and again”, and which Iran finally sought, through its recent direct missile attack on Israel (remarkably foiled by Israeli anti-missile technology) to effect.
The U.S. under Biden has lost its leadership position in the Western world and globally, From Afghanistan on (and Syria earlier), in the Ukraine (starved for adequate munitions and anti-missile protection), and now in Israel and the Middle East, his disastrous policy of appeasement has weakened the West, and betrayed its only democratic ally in the Middle East, Israel, and played into the hands of the new Axis, China-Russia-Iran-North Korea.
As Biden wobbles, bobs and weaves, with eyes only on how to win re-election in November, the world trembles on the brink of World War III. Whether American leadership can be restored after November 5 remains moot. Remarkably, in so far as clear, principled, and courageous defence of the basic values of liberty and freedom are concerned, tiny Jewish Israel—an exemplar of moral and political courage–has become the leader of the Western world.
Listen to the Prophetic words:
“For instruction shall come forth from Zion, The word of the Lord from Jerusalem.
Thus He will judge among the nations, and arbitrate for the many peoples.
And they shall beat their swords into plowshares,
And their spears into pruning hooks,
Nations shall not take up
Swords against nations,
They shall never again know war.”
(Isaiah, 2:3-4)
(Prof. Frederick Krantz, a historian, is Director Emeritus of the Canadian
Institute for Jewish Research [Montreal and Toronto])
