Watershed

There are certain points in history when everything changes, a watershed. But sometimes the origins of the change and the change itself cohere into a subtle segue. This is what has happened to the Jews. Two principal events triggered this change, the growth of Nazism and the Holocaust (1933-1945) and the growth of Zionism and the formation of the Jewish State (1918-1948). These two events, one negative the other positive have projected Jews into a different sphere.

Once upon a time the center of gravity of the Jews was eastern Europe, from Germany to Russia there were millions of Jews, living precarious and pious lives. When the Holocaust carried them away under terrible conditions, those Jews who were left were mainly in the West and in Israel. Not only do these Jews expect to be treated respectfully as citizens of democratic countries, but they also will no longer tolerate being treated as second or third class citizens. The first response of Jews to a threat was to pray and flee, now the first response is to fight, especially since Israel now has the largest concentration of Jews in the world and we have an excellent fighting force, the IDF. The British have the saying "praise the Lord, but pass the ammunition."

Having passed this watershed, we Jews have to realize that we are different from those Jews who came before. This is a difficult thing to do, especially since the lines of historical continuity and culture tend towards uniformity. We still think of ourselves as victims. But, we have become the new Jew, we must turn over a new leaf, we must be different from the past. We have seen the abyss and those of us who survived have taken an oath, a personal oath, not to behave as our forbears did, even if they had no choice, we will make these choices for ourselves. One example of this is the response to the threat of Iran. Here you have the leader of a large and powerful country threatening to destroy Israel and the Jews. And this is no idle threat, they are preparing themselves for a global campaign, much as the Nazis did using the might and riches of Germany. But, that time it took the whole world to defeat and conquer Germany. Now, it's David and Goliath, Israel is preparing to stand up to and destroy the capability of Iran to destroy us. That is the change, instead of being a powerless people in the face of a declared threat, we are taking the intiative in our own defence.

I predict that Iran will never give up the pursuit of nuclear weapons and missiles to deliver them whatever the sanctions. I predict that Israel will be forced to strike against the Iranian nuclear facilities and its infrastructure, and I predict that Israel will be successful. Iran will be set back at least ten years and during that time, if not imminently, there will be social chaos in Iran and a regime change. Such is the fundamental change that has occured within the psychology of the Jewish people.