A Tale of Two Lions

In the middle of Ramat Gan, east of Tel Aviv, on a busy main street at the
base of a stylish modern high rise tower, there stands a small statue. You
could be forgiven for missing the statue altogether, for passing it by
without a glance. Yet, that statue is very symbolic of the moment and of
the continuing relationship, such that it is, between Britain and Israel.
For the statue shows two lions in combat, the larger British imperial lion
grapples with the smaller lion of Judah. Yet, the latter is making a good
fight of it, and from their appearance it seems that the Jewish lion is more
ferocious, more committed to the fight than the British Lion. In fact, the
fight that took place between the two, the Jews of Palestine and the British
Colonial Mandatory power in the late 1940's after the end of WWII, resulted
in a victory for the vastly outnumbered Jews and an ignominious defeat for
the British.
Some might attribute the British loss to the fact that they had been bled by
their exertions during the war against the German Nazis and their allies.
But, if any group had bled during that period it was the Jews, bereft of
arms, starving and without funds, the Jews after the unimaginable sufferings
of the Holocaust, took on one of the greatest powers on earth at that time,
the victorious British Army, and defeated it.
In 1946 an attack was mounted by the Jewish underground on the British
Police Station in Ramat Gan. One of the Jewish fighters, Dov Gruner, was
wounded and captured. He came from Hungary and had lost all his family
during the Holocaust. In 1941 he had volunteered and had fought in the
British Army against the Germans. After WWII he had returned to Palestine
and joined the underground. Upon his capture he was tried and sentenced to
death. Appeals for mercy had no influence on the British Government and he
was executed on April 16, 1947, with three other comrades. May this forever
be a stain on the moral conscience of the British people. In fact that is
why the statue of the two lions stands in Ramat Gan to remind us of the
monumental callousness of the British and the sacrifice of our Jewish sons.
Many attribute the origin of the State of Israel to the subsequent wars
between the Arabs and Jews, but Israel was actually born as a result of the
defeat of the British Mandatory power by the Jews. The subsequent UN vote
and the wars with the Arabs only sufficed to affirm what had already been
established. But a large part of the conflict resulted from the biased
attitude of the British. Reading "One Palestine Complete: Jews and Arabs
under the British Mandate," by Tom Segev, one goes away with a clear
indication of the preference of the British for the subservient and
obsequious Arabs, rather than the independent and uppity Jews. While the
Arabs knew their place, below that of the British colonial masters, the Jews
did not appear to have learnt the proper lesson. That was why Labor Foreign
Minister Ernest Bevin had to show them who was boss, by shipping them back
from Palestine locked in cages to the concentration camps of Europe from
whence they had escaped.
Although this did not deter them, and actually caused a backlash against
Britain in world opinion at that time, this was one of the more ignoble and
disgusting acts of any British leader. Do notthink that current British leaders are made of better stuff. We have had British Foreign Ministers and their offspring prancing around Gaza telling us how to treat the poor Palestinians, while they are blowing up our children in schools and our people in buses and cafes. Maybe we should have followed their example as to how they treated the Irish, with their "Black and Tans" and "Bloody Sundays." But we didn't, and we won't, but we can't abide their holier than thou hypocrisy.
Now a Union of 40,000 British University Teachers has passed a resolution to
boycott two Israeli Universities, Haifa and Bar Ilan, on grounds that are
not only incredibly stupid, but they are also factually incorrect. Further,
this monumentally idiotic act can only show the thinking world how shallow
and biased the British are, because they cannot in any way influence the
actual political situation by this politically motivated act.
So why do we care? We care because we are fed up with being the object of
the bias of others who are more stupid and ignorant than we are, who have no
idea of the real situation yet think that they can tell us what to do and
how to do it, and who think that they are somehow morally superior to us.
I have never fathomed this particular attitude, because the British were
singularly ill-equipped to be rulers of a great Empire. They failed
miserably and incurred the hostility of most of their former colonies. Now
they are trying to work their way back, by pandering to the most extreme
views, particularly if it fits in with their long-term streak of
anti-Semitism. This is not the violent anti-Semitism that was endemic in
Central Europe, but the polite British, exclusionary kind. We don't mind
Jews, as long as they know their place and aren't overtly Jewish. The Brits
don't like any show of ethnicity. So you won't see Michael Howard wearing a
kippah, and you won't see Oliver Letwin saying a kiddush (his Conservative
Party profile does not mention that he is Jewish). Not if they want to get
elected. And you will hear Oona King rejecting her Jewish ethnicity in
order to pander to the anti-Semitic Muslims in her constituency, and yet
they will still attack her!
Given the number of anti-Jewish activities going on in Britain today I am
afraid that Jewish life as such has little future there. And in the battle
that has been sought and joined by the shallow British academics, the lion
of Judah will once again prevail.