Don't Make Us Into You

I once walked past a Jewish beggar outside one of the gates to Jerusalem. He extended his hand to me, palm up, in the universal gesture and said something to me in Ivrit that a companion translated. “He grants you a blessing direct from the Almighty as he allows you to give your gift to him in return.” It was a concept that I hadn’t been aware of previously. I was to be the beneficiary of a blessing from God because I was allowed to give this man some of my money. It’s a great concept, and puts our relative giving a new perspective. It’s another take on the eternal balance of life, for every action in the universe there is an equal and opposite reaction.

Today we are faced with two implacable enemies that many are too afraid to name. One of these foes lives in our homes, and the other is both at home and overseas. The first enemy is the rapid disintegration of the fabric of our Western values. We have skyrocketing drug use, teenage pregnancies, violence and general social decline. Strangely, this is set against the highest general levels of education, wealth and leisure ever known. We have never been better fed, lived longer or better, but our culture seems to have lost its way. Perhaps this is largely due to the breakdown of the family unit itself. So many of us are divorced, separated, unmarried or living in hitherto unconventional groupings it may have removed the underpinning of our social structures.

To fix this social problem will be a generational issue for which there is no simple solution. I know it is not going to be solved with money, or quick educational fixes. It starts with self respect, and then permeates every part of our lives. It has to include respect for our elders, and looking after them when they can no longer look after themselves. We need to understand and return to core values which relegates the pursuit of money and self gratification for their own sake. We must restore our faith in our tarnished institutions and then the realization might come to us all, that although we have an imperfect society it is the best there is in the world.

The other great threat is international Islamic fundamentalism. Let me be plain, I have nothing against Islam or practitioners of that religion. However within that religion lives a poisonous rage against me, for being a Jew, and me for being British, and for me being a Zionist, that I just can’t reason with or tolerate. This is not meant to imply that they don't hate you just as much for being whatever you are. If you are not a practitioner of their particular form of religious xenophobia they want you subjugated, and if that isn't possible, they want you dead.

Many people have been bullied or persuaded that Zionism equates to racism, or some form of apartheid, and neither are true and are, in fact a blood libel on this worthy aspiration of which I am proud to proclaim my support. For the record let me define Zionist, it simply means that the Jewish people have the right to settle and live in the State of Israel. Some would add it is the duty of all Jews to live in Israel, both those that love the country, and those that hate the Jews might agree on that aim for their different reasons! Whatever your view, why is it wrong for the Jews, alone in the world, to have a place to call their own?

How many Protestant, Catholic or Muslim countries can you count with their huge populations and yet the world questions the legitimate aspirations of just one group of people, the Jews, to a state of their own with a population of about 7 million? By the way, about 20% of the population of Israel is Arabic.

I’m not suggesting that Palestinian Arabs of any religious persuasion shouldn’t live within the borders of Israel. But if the Palestinians who left Israel during their War of Independence want to return, how about the equal rights of the equal numbers of Jewish people, to their places in the Arab countries they were driven from?

There are two sets of rules, try being a practicing Jewish person and living openly in the Arab world. Even the mighty Christian church is legislated against in that world. The only reason we stand for this inequity is because we lack the self-confidence to demand equal treatment. Presently the Catholic Church is understood to be negotiating for the right to build some new churches within the Arab world. Show me a town or city in the UK that does not have at least one mosque. The liberals amongst us are always quick to demand equal rights for all, well how about equal rights for us, the Jews and Christians as well.

I shall share my real fear. It’s only a matter of time before an Islamic fundamentalist / terrorist commits another huge atrocity in a Western democracy. This could result in a tipping point, when the more loony local population will react with such ferocity that a firestorm of supposed “revenge” would sweep our once peaceful streets. Then the majority of the peaceful Muslim population will suffer for the sins of the minority of maniacs in their midst. Already mosques and individuals have been attacked with increasing regularity throughout the non- Muslim world. I don’t want to contaminate this argument by saying that this would be largely their micro society’s own responsibility. However to counter this real likelihood the indigenous Islamic community must act, now, to cut out the cancer of sheltering the illegal, irresponsible murderous maniacs in their midst. There can never be any excuse for turning a blind eye to people who plan to murder and maim other people, however much you don’t like them. It is past the time when the moderate Muslim majority, which I am confident is the apt description, drive out and expose the fundamentalist from their midst. If they don’t do this we are left with the inescapable conclusion that the majority is quietly supporting the maniacs and are therefore living in our country as its enemies.

The truth is that like many other threats to society of this or any other era, the Muslim fundamentalist fanatics, whatever their proportion of the Islamic population are, in fact, doomed to fail. They don’t have the numbers of the armies and armadas that have confronted us in the past. They don’t have the ideas that will appeal widely in the world. Theirs is the doctrine of hate and murder, and that will not appeal in the more developed world. In the end we have more of everything that matters, including raw power, but especially we have a more appealing culture.

Right now there are Islamic preachers spouting hate in our countries, against their hosts, us. The Islamic congregation knows who they are, but clearly they have, so far, largely left them in place. They must get rid of them, now. They must tell the police, now. They mustn’t listen to the poisonous rubbish being spouted from within the supposed sanctity of your holy places. They mustn’t allow the rabble-rousers to further inflame their children with their mad schemes to create a Caliphate over our countries. The green flag of Islam will never fly over 10 Downing Street, however much these fantasists hate our Western democracies. Ultimately this group of losers will find the same fate as all the others who dreamed of World domination. Just like the Nazis and Communists their madness will find its natural place, in the small dustbin marked, “historic footnotes”.

I don’t want your anger to overspill and make me and others over-react, We are happy to be us, don’t try and make us into you.