Hope and shield

Our old friends, the Anglican Christians, are now our new enemies. Theyhave decided to join the Presbyterians in one-sided opposition to the Stateof Israel. They and their big brothers, the Episcopalians, sent adelegation to Palestine/Israel in order to consider divesting themselvesfrom Israel. In other words, all of their 75 million adherents worldwideand their Church organizations will be asked not to invest in Israel.They met with Yasir Arafat, a well known expert on Israel, and with AshmiBishara, a well known Israeli Arab. He is even a member of the Knesset, sohe must know what to do. They chose not to meet with any Israeli Govt.official, nor any Jewish leader, in case their pure views might thus beaffected by any hint of pro-Israel bias. It makes me want to puke!As far as they are concerned, the decision was made before they left home.These representatives of the "Anglican Peace and Justice Network" haveissued a statement that the actions of Israel against the Palestinians are"worse than draconian." Hence they will propose total divestment of Israel.Somehow or other they missed the terrorism that is being used by the poorPalestinians against us, and that has so far taken the lives of over 1,000Israelis, including a few while they were here. They probably think it isjustified, but they may not have noticed that the two Israeli soldiersmurdered in Jerusalem last week had blacker skin than the suicide bomber.By the way, note that in Northern Ireland, since the Catholic IRA identifieswith the PLO, and hoist the Palestinian flag, the Protestants, mostlyAnglicans and Episcopalians, have taken to identify themselves with Israeland hoist the Israeli flag. Something is seriously wrong here.At the same time that this is happening, in Oslo, a well-known center ofliberal culture, a large banner proclaiming that the Holocaust was aninvention of the Israeli secret service, and with the usual left wing signof a Magen David equals a swastika was hoisted across from the City Hall.The elders of the city, when approached by the Jewish community there andasked to remove this monstrous manifestation of anti-Semitism, refused.Because, they argued, it is free speech, and everyone knows that opponentsof Israel are being intimidated by the accusation of anti-Semitism. Nowthere's logic for you.In his speech at the UN last week Pakistan Pres. Pervez Musharraf managed toget in his dig at Israel. He said that the Palestine problem is "the core ofthe core" of the problems facing the Muslim world, and that "an iron curtainwill descend between the West and the Muslim world" unless something is doneto solve the outstanding issues between them. Apart from the stupidity ofthis remark, what hypocrisy, when the issue of Kashmir is orders ofmagnitude more dangerous than the puny Palestinian problem. Here there area few million involved. In Kashmir there are hundreds of millions ofhostile Muslims and Hindus facing each other with atomic weapons. It willbe good if Pakistan and India manage to resolve the problem of Kashmir, butlet them put their own house in order before criticizing us.So we Jews, a nation that dwells alone, know who our enemies are. So whatis new? We have in the same bag, the liberal Christians (Anglicans,Episcopalians and Presbyterians), and the EU nations (led by France andGermany), and the Palestinian terrorist groups (Hamas, Islamic Jihad,Fatah-al Aksa), the Muslim and Arab nations and their extremist elements(Iran and Syria) and various assorted international terrorist groups (alQaeda-linked). Luckily we have a few friends (the US among them). But,under these circumstances, as the situation begins to look more and moreominously like the 1930's all over again, this time we have the IDF. Ourhope and our shield.