The Nihilism of Antisemitism
Hamas targets the Jews because of what Judaism represents: the moral system underpinning Western culture
When Israel is attacked, you often hear people say of “the crisis in the Middle East” that it has been going on for decades. But Jews know better than that. It’s been going on for thousands of years.
What is happening in Israel today is not about “settlements” or “disputed territories.” It is not about “occupation.” There are no Israeli settlements in Gaza, and Israel long ago ceded that land to the Palestinian Authority. Nor is it about the blockades or Israeli control over Gaza’s borders. Gaza also has a border with Egypt, which the Egyptians have kept sealed since 2006. But you never hear of Hamas terrorists targeting Egypt.
What happened last week, when terrorists blazed into Israel, deliberately murdering hundreds of citizens, including women, children, and the aged, kidnapping scores of people, raping, torturing, and tormenting Jews, is not about geopolitics. It’s about hatred toward the Jews and what Judaism represents: the rock-solid moral foundation of Western culture.
Every year on Passover, we Jews read a passage from our festival prayer book, the Haggadah: “In every generation, they rise against us to annihilate us. The Holy One, blessed be He, however, saves us from their hand.”
Indeed, the earliest archaeological evidence of Israel’s existence (other than the Bible) is the Merneptah Stele, which includes the line: “Israel is laid waste—its seed is no more.”
Whether it’s the Holocaust, the Russian pogroms that preceded that event, the forced exiles, the Inquisition, the Egyptian enslavement, or the attacks of Amalek on helpless Jews in the desert, the children of Abraham have been the targets of hate and violence since the beginning of recorded history…..
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