Ever-mutating anti-semitism
Ever-mutating anti-Islamism. An ever-decreasing circle.
A friend sent me this, the day before I motor to my great-uncle’s grave in Albert, France, where he fell on a battlefield in 1915, and where his bones since then have lain. I will wear his medals, and I will kiss his penny, and I will lay chrysanthemums to beautify his horrendous death. His life was taken in the name of folly, not yet 25 years of age—the age when death is supposed only to start.
And, in Ukraine, and in Gaza, and in Israel, and in Russia, and across our damnèd globe, lives are still being taken, by those who will have their own way and will brook no yielding to any other.
Damn those who attack the defenceless; and damn those who attack the defenceless in return.
Ms Cotler-Wunsh’s speech is emotive and is not easy to follow. I’m not conscious of the speaker reaching the end of a sentence. What does she want?
Condemnation of the Hamas attack on 7 October, by the United Nations? Well, but for the USA, she would have that. The fault there lies not with the United Nations, but with the United States.
Detailing the 9,000 projectiles and the ages of the dead animates her speech wonderfully; and yet the attack was equally horrendous even if nobody had been killed. Even if they’d all been 100 years old. It was a frightful thing to do. And if the US will prevent the UN from saying so, nobody will prevent me from saying so.
Anti-semitism is clearly on the rise, but I can assure you it is not on the rise at my house. Nor will it ever be. I have been at Breendonck—five times—and at Oranienburg, and at Theresienstadt—twice—and at Dachau—a dozen times—and at Auschwitz—twice—and at Mauthausen. And it wasn’t to gloat, but to relive the shock and the tears and the horror of such depraved cruelty to living people. Lest I ever forget. Lest I ever forget.
But there is one thing that is on the rise at my house. And that is a critical voice about the retaliation that has been wreaked against the attack’s perpetrators and, without discrimination, against all and any who might have been in the vicinity thereof, whether proved to be implicated or mere incidental by-standers. Wreaked not by the Jewish people but by the Israeli state. The Israeli state, led by its prime minister who has been insistent on bending his country’s judiciary to his own political will, who has fended off serious accusations against his moral and criminal turpitude, and whose government has endorsed breaches of the accords on whose basis progress might otherwise have been booked towards a peaceful settlement of the Palestinian/Israeli question, but therefor.
If Hamas brought any legitimacy it might ever have laid claim to into wildest disrepute by its actions on that fateful day, the state of Israel has no less wreaked a vengeance unworthy of even the most wronged of peoples or states. Even Ukraine forbore from directly attacking the Russian people in their own homes and has contained its righteous anger to repelling the occupiers of its legitimate territory. Israel, by contrast, has pursued its attackers onto their own territory and caused widespread death and suffering among a civilian population and I cannot, even in the darkest corners of my imperfect heart, find any justification for their doing that.
Tell me please that Israel has in all and every respect adhered to the full spirit and letter of the Charter of our United Nations, before whom it makes this plea. Not even the preamble has it abided by. And that, not even in the last four weeks. Tell me this is not so, and, as we are exhorted to do so in the speech, tell me it without use of any “buts”.
Hamas has roundly deserved my outright condemnation, and Ms Cotler-Wunsh has that from me, if she has it not from our United Nations.
And, likewise, Israel, too, has deserved and does have my outright condemnation.
WE THE PEOPLES OF THE UNITED NATIONS DETERMINED
to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war, which twice in our lifetime has brought untold sorrow to mankind, and
to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person, in the equal rights of men and women and of nations large and small, and
to establish conditions under which justice and respect for the obligations arising from treaties and other sources of international law can be maintained, and
to promote social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom,
AND FOR THESE ENDS
to practice tolerance and live together in peace with one another as good neighbours, and
to unite our strength to maintain international peace and security, and
to ensure, by the acceptance of principles and the institution of methods, that armed force shall not be used, save in the common interest, and
to employ international machinery for the promotion of the economic and social advancement of all peoples,
Well said. I’ve tried saying similar things but I am nowhere near as eloquent as you. This is so sad for all involved.