If the executive arm of antisemitism was once in Germany, its judicial arm is today in the Netherlands

By David E. Kaplan

“Sticks and stones can break my bones but words will never harm me,” hardly holds true for Jews and the Jewish state.  Never mind the truth, just package in words the most damaging accusations again the Jewish state and hope the tide of animosity  will ultimately rise submerging those infuriating Jews who just stubbornly refuse to disappear. What’s more, Jews have the nerve to actually fight to defend themselves. How infuriating that they are damn good at it. It’s embarrassing that so small in size a people and that so tiny a state will just not vanish into “a footnote of history,” as historian Arnold J. Toynbee so predicted for the Jewish people or hoped.

So, if the proverbial “stick and stones” don’t work, frame false charges, and attack with virulent verbiage. The most lethal verbal ordnance today are words like “genocide”, “Apartheid” and “colonialist”, all misused to stigmatize Israel and by association, Jews everywhere. Such accusatory methodology was successfully executed throughout the Middle Ages right up to Nazi Germany, so it was now time to remodel and charge Jews not personally but their national state – facing attack from 7 fronts, none of which it initiated.

If Germany led this nefarious way in the 20^th century, it passes this 21^st century the baton to the Netherlands, where stands located the UN’s ICJ and ICC, which enthusiastically have their marching orders. What happens to Jews in the streets of Amsterdam receives its cue from what happens in the county’s judicial centre – The Hague.

While Israel faces down the charge of “genocide”, the only major genocide in the Middle East in recent times occurred on October 7, 2023 and it was perpetrated against the Jewish state. In a case of perverted inversion, the victims are characterized as the perpetrators, while the perpetrators are presented as the victims.  

Douglas Murray expressed it spot on when he writes that the accusations against Israel are:

 “…an absolute inversion of the truth. Hamas invaded Israel, so Israel attacked Hamas. Hezbollah has spent the past year sending thousands of rockets into Israel, so Israel has responded by destroying Hezbollah. The Houthis in Yemen – now so beloved of demonstrators in the UK – sent missiles and drones hundreds of miles to attack Israel, so Israel bombed the Houthis’s arms stores in Yemen.”

In summation, Murray writes:

“Israel’s enemies have spent the past year trying to destroy it, as they have so many times before. But it is they who have gone to the dust, with the regime in Tehran the only thing that is, for the time being, still standing… Sometimes you need war to make peace. Sometime there is a price to pay for trying to finish the work of Adolf Hitler.”

Hear that, the protestors in cities across Europe and the Americas whose grandparents may have fought the Nazis are protesting in support to finishing “the work of Adolf Hitler.”

There are occasional welcome surprises. Countering the false accusation of “genocide” came recently from the unexpected source of Poland! The country’s new ambassador to Israel, Maciej Hunia, had it right when during his confirmation hearing in the Polish parliament to the question if he believes Israel is committing genocide in Gaza, answered:

 “… military actions causing unintended civilian casualties cannot be characterized as genocide.”

He followed up by emphatically affirming his statement with “We saw this in Iraq and Afghanistan.” Every now and again, the truth is revealed. But when it is supportive of Jews and Israel, it has to be squeezed out like the very last bit of toothpaste in the tube.

Writing in the prestigious British journal The Spectator on October 4, Douglas Murray began his article: “Why Israel was right to ignore international advice” by characterizing the picture of recent events in the Middle East as purveyed to the UK public:

“If you follow most of the British media, you may well think that the past year involves the following events: Israel attacked Hamas, Israel invaded Lebanon, Israel bombed Yemen. Oh, and someone left a bomb in a room in Tehran that killed the peaceful Palestinian leader Ismail Haniyeh.”

Global acceptance of the “absolute inversion of the truth” as it pertains to the Jewish state was so evident on the 25 November when  Iran’s leader, Ali Khamenei declared in response to the ICC’s actions that “…an arrest warrant for Netanyahu is insufficient; an execution order must be issued.” Where is the worlds abhorrence or international media interest when those who commit acts of violence and threaten the extinction of other countries remain secure and avoid scrutiny, while leaders of a democratic state fighting terrorism and leading his country in an existential war on seven fronts, faces trials and an appeal for “execution”? Meanwhile, the world courts and global media glosses over:

• That Iran may be the most dangerous country in the world today
• that it seeks to spread its radical Islamic ideology across the Middle East – and beyond
• that it is also one of the principal sponsors of world terrorism, with its tentacles spreading from the Middle East to Europe, Africa and South America and
• that most worrisome of all is its illegal pursuit of a nuclear weapons capability and its repeated threats to annihilate Israel.

Where are the mobilized wordsmiths from the media and the world courts on the case against Iran or even Russia for that matter? As Syria descends again into civil war, Russia joins in the fray with its jets striking the rebel-held city of Idlib where around four million people live in makeshift tents and dwellings. Residents said one attack on the second day of raids hit a crowded residential area, including hospitals, killing civilians. Where is international concern or media interest? Are there any accusations of genocide or frenzied protestors taking to the streets? No, that is reserved when only Israel can be blamed. That is the nature of antisemitism – always finding a way to blame the Jews and that is what is happening again in Syria as  Russia blames Israel and the US for the war in Syria. Russia bombs civilians and hospital and blames Israel.

Go figure!

Is the ancient disease of antisemitism – today at pandemic level -incurable? Are Jews stuck for eternity with what Salman Rushdie expressed in his 1981 novel Midnight’s Children:

“What can’t be cured must be endured.”

In the meantime, what they fail on the battlefield, they will try, “Killing us Softly” with words!

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