And from the man himself.
The Wall Street Journal headlines this over an Op-Ed from Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu: https://www.wsj.com/articles/
The Battle of Civilization
This isn’t only Israel’s war. If Hamas and Iran win, you will be their next target. But we will prevail.
Writing directly to the American people and Western civilization beyond that, “Bibi” Netanyahu writes:
“Jerusalem
Until recently, many believed that the promise of progress in the 21st century would enable us to move beyond the barbaric horrors of the past toward a brilliant future—that we could go about our comfortable lives and that evil will simply pass us.
It will not. The horrors that Hamas perpetrated on Oct. 7 remind us that we won’t realize the promise of a better future unless we, the civilized world, are willing to fight the barbarians. The barbarians are willing to fight us, and their goal is clear: Shatter that promising future, destroy all that we cherish, and usher in a world of fear and darkness.
This is a turning point for leaders and nations. It is a time for all of us to decide if we are willing to fight for a future of hope and promise or surrender to tyranny and terror.
Rest assured, Israel will fight. Since Oct. 7, Israel has been at war. Israel didn’t start this war. Israel didn’t want this war. But Israel will win this war.
Hamas launched this war by perpetrating the worst savagery our people have seen since the Holocaust. Hamas murdered children in front of their parents and parents in front of their children. They burned people alive, raped women, beheaded men. They tortured Holocaust survivors and kidnapped babies. They committed the most horrific crimes imaginable.
Iran has formed an axis of terror by arming, training and financing Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthis in Yemen and other terror proxies throughout the Middle East and beyond. In fighting Hamas and the Iranian axis of terror, Israel is fighting the enemies of civilization itself.
Victory over these enemies begins with moral clarity. It begins with knowing the difference between good and evil, between right and wrong. It means making a moral distinction between the deliberate murder of the innocent and the unintentional casualties that are the inevitable result of even the most just war.
It means holding Hamas accountable for the double war crime it commits every day by deliberately targeting Israeli civilians and deliberately using Palestinian civilians as human shields. It means not only making clear that the use of human shields is an immoral tactic of war, but making certain it is an ineffective one.
….The Book of Ecclesiastes says that there is a time for peace and a time for war. This is a time for war—a war for our common future. Today we draw a line between civilization and barbarism. It is a time for everyone to decide where they stand. Israel will stand against the forces of barbarism until victory.
I hope and pray that civilized nations everywhere will back this fight. Because Israel’s fight is your fight. If Hamas and Iran’s axis of evil win, you will be their next target. That’s why Israel’s victory will be your victory.
Regardless of who stands with Israel, Israel will fight this battle until it is won. Israel will prevail. May God bless Israel, and may God bless all who stand with Israel.”
Well Amen to that!
Let’s be clear. A tidal wave of anti-Semitism is erupting across America and the world. If one watches the history channels on cable TV as I do, this is all seriously reminiscent of those old black and white films of 1930’s Germany as Hitler and his Nazis rose to power. There are the old images of Stars of David painted on the windows of shops owned by Jews.
Over here at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum’s Holocaust Encyclopedia https://encyclopedia.ushmm.
“Nationwide Economic Boycott on April 1, 1933
On April 1, 1933, the Nazis carried out the first nationwide, planned action against Jews: a boycott targeting Jewish businesses and professionals. The boycott was both a reprisal and an act of revenge against Greuelpropaganda (atrocity stories) that German and foreign Jews, assisted by foreign journalists, were allegedly circulating in the international press to damage Nazi Germany’s reputation.
On the day of the boycott, Storm Troopers (Sturmabteilung; SA) stood menacingly in front of Jewish-owned department stores and retail establishments, and the offices of professionals such as doctors and lawyers. The Star of David
was painted in yellow and black across thousands of doors and windows, with accompanying antisemitic slogans. Signs were posted saying ‘Don’t Buy from Jews’ and ‘The Jews Are Our Misfortune.’ Throughout Germany, acts of violence against individual Jews and Jewish property occurred; the police intervened only rarely.”
That was in 1933 – a full 90 years ago.
And here we are again in the 21st century.
It wasn’t acceptable in 1933. And it is not acceptable in 2023.
And as the world learned the hard way in the 1930s, not standing up to fight this anti-Semitism only invites more. Not to mention war.
History counts. And the world should learn from it.
Prime Minister Netanyahu is exactly right when he says:
“If Hamas and Iran’s axis of evil win, you will be their next target.”
The Prime Minister is exactly right.
