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ALPERN AT LARGE - First came the slaughters and enslavements of the Israelites/Hebrews/Jews for millennia, then came the confinement in the Middle Ages into ghettos (that’s a term that started with Jews), and then came the pogroms and exiling of Jews throughout Europe…and pretty much no one stood with them.
Next came the ultimate efforts to exile Jews from Europe--from Nazi Germany and its growing empire--and pretty much no one stood with them…not even Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR) and the United States.
Next came the Final Solution, and six million Jews were herded into concentration camps—not merely incarceration or internment camps but death and execution camps—which led to the mass destruction of six million Jews…and pretty much no one stood with them.
Next came the harsh discovery of Hitler and Nazi Germany’s death camps by the West, and General Dwight David Eisenhower demanded photos be taken so that the non-believers of later generations would not forget this atrocity…but despite the Nuremberg trials, Western Jew-hatred continued unabated with “Gentlemen’s Agreements” keeping Jews in quotas to keep them out of universities and medical, law, and other graduate schools…and pretty much no one stood with them.
Next came the Russian and Eastern European mass incarceration of Jews in the Soviet Union and its Eastern European puppet states…and the Jews were both entrapped and harshly persecuted by Stalin because of ongoing Eastern European and Asian Jew-hatred…and virtually no one stood with them.
Next came the Never Again movement, which was the culmination of the Zionist movement established pursued for centuries with the “Next Year in Jerusalem’ prayers spoke in Jewish holidays for centuries…and yet despite the Holocaust and ongoing Jewish persecution, virtually no one stood with them.
Next came the consideration of a United Nations creation of Israel, and if it were not for President Harry S. Truman’s Jewish friend Eddie Jacobson, President Truman—very much irritated by Jewish pressure and other anti-Jewish political pressure—would not have championed the United Nations resolution to create Israel…but virtually no one else stood with them.
Next came the established boundaries of Israel in 1948, with Palestinian states on the Gaza coastal strip to the west, and on the western lands next to the Jordan River, established with an almost certain intention by the British and the U.N. for the Palestinians and their overwhelming surrounding allies to overwhelm, conquer and slaughter Israel’s Jewish inhabitants…so virtually no one stood with them.
Next came the Israeli War of Independence that occurred immediately after the creation of Israel and its surrounding two Palestines, but yet the Israelis won that that war predominantly with surplus post-World War Two weapons smuggled en masse by Western Jews to Israel…and although the Jewish/Israeli victory won the hearts of many throughout the world, virtually no one truly stood with them.
Next came the harsh anti-Israel rhetoric—with the endless “we don’t hate Jews, we hate Israel”--and many throughout the world lionized the cause of those who attacked and planned yet again to slaughter Jews in Israel, and by extension throughout the world, so with the exception of an ambivalent United States and a few Western nations…virtually no one stood with them.
Next came a host of anti-Israeli groups and nations who sought to slaughter Israeli and worldwide Jewish peoples, and hijackings and explosions became a “new normal” in the Middle East and throughout the world against Jewish targets…and yet Jew-hatred continued unabated by both liberals and conservatives in the U.S. and throughout the world…so virtually no one truly stood by them.
Next came a blitz-like attack by surrounding Arab nations throughout the region against Israel in 1967, but yet despite initial losses Israel fought back and actually conquered lands adjacent to their borders in order to maintain a sustainable defensive posture…and yet most throughout the world outside of the increasingly-admiring West resented and hated Israel and worldwide Jews after their victory…so virtually no one stood by them.
Next came another blitz-like attack by the same surrounding nations in 1973 while Jews were at prayer in synagogues on Yom Kippur, the most holy and important day of the Jewish religion, and yet despite heavy losses Israel fought back and won even more lands…but with the exception of an airlift from a Jew-resenting U.S. President Richard Milhous Nixon, at the advice of his Jewish yet non-Jewish embracing Secretary of State Henry Kissinger to counter the Soviet Union…virtually no one stood by them.
Next came a “guns and olive branch” gaslighting Palestinian Liberation Organization Chairman Yasser Arafat, and then the civilian slaughter at Kiryat Shemona, at Munich, and so many other locations throughout the world, and multiple failed attempts to create co-existing Israeli and Palestinian states by Presidents Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton…but the United Nations still branded the Jewish state of Israel as the terrorist and threatening state in the Middle East…so yet still virtually no one stood by them.
Next came the efforts to create Palestinian self-rule by Israel in the Gaza Strip and along the west bank of the Jordan River, and peace with Egypt (for which its leader, Anwar Sadat, once the greatest enemy of Israel, was assassinated for his treaty with Israel), and the United Nations and the world still hated Israel while worldwide anti-Semitism grew…so virtually no one stood by them.
Next came Hamas, and Hezbollah, and their Iranian and Iraqi supporters, and multiple Israeli restraints and ceasefires to stop the fighting to save the lives of Palestinian citizens caught in the middle, for which Gaza (now run by Hamas) sought only to rearm, and not pursue co-existence with Israel…and everyone pretty much knew that, so therefore virtually no one stood by them.
Next came an increasing abandonment of teaching young Jewish kids and adults in the United States and the West of all that has been described above, and as well a burgeoning Jewish sentiment to support the Palestinians and the Arabs and abandon Israel, by those never taught the aforementioned history (or who dismissed it as irrelevant)…and so increasingly, and shockingly by Jews in growing numbers, virtually no one stood by them.
Now comes a Hamas slaughter targeting civilians—as has always been its modus operandi—and so many throughout the world proclaim they NOW stand with Israel and the Jews…and yet again it’s been shockingly and unquestionably proven that APPEASEMENT DOES NOT WORK…
…but it’s anyone’s guess if anyone truly stands with the Jews.
(Kenneth S. Alpern, M.D. is a dermatologist and CityWatch Columnist. He is a Westside Village Zone Director and Board member of the Mar Vista Community Council (MVCC), previously co-chaired its Outreach Committee, and currently is Co-Chair of both its MVCC Transportation/Infrastructure and Planning Committees. He was co-chair of the CD11 Transportation Advisory Committee and chaired the nonprofit Transit Coalition and can be reached at [email protected]. He also co-chairs the grassroots Friends of the Green Line at www.fogl.us.)
