Regardless of its religious claims, Jews have been persecuted for thousands of years merely for being Jews and have never had a home to call their own. Jews learned the seriousness of words and concepts expressed by leaders – the Nazi period will be etched on the consciousness of every Jew for all time. It will be as an important marker in the history of Jews, as is the period of enslavement in Egypt.  

That Iran, Hamas and Hezbollah have stated that they wish to eliminate both Israel and all Jews resonates all too clearly. This is not a religious argument, but a racist one. Murderers and potential murderers using Palestine as an excuse to annihilate a whole people should not be tolerated by anyone – regardless of the arguable ‘sins of the Israelis’.

That Israel finds it hard to extract peace is because Israel doesn’t trust any Muslim state (and recently most European countries), regardless of current relationships. It has a good relationship with Jordan, but that could change at any moment – just look at Egypt.

Life is looking very bleak for Jews around the world. The cancer of anti-Semitism is growing at an alarming rate everywhere.

 

I’m not sure what everyone is thinking here – but once the Muslim (and non-Muslim anti-Semites) rid the earth of Jews, which minority will they come after next?

I happened to be listening to some radio commentary relating to Prisoner 'X'.

One caller said, "How long can Israel live off the memory of the Holocaust" or words to that effect.

That really threw me and I haven't been able to stop thinking about it.

As an analogy, how about we 'eliminate' in gas ovens one third of all Australians but we include in that number the caller's grandparents, parents, brothers, sisters, uncles, aunties, cousins, children and friends.

How long will he continue to remember that event? I am sure it will be for his entire life - and I'm sure his progeny and their progeny and their progeny will remember it too.

How long have the poor Australian Aboriginals remembered the massacre of their forebears since  the late 1780s. They still remember it - and rightly so.

The Prisoner 'X' episode will be an excuse for every grubby anti-Semite to crawl out from under his dung pile to spread his toxic brew of hatred and intolerance.

Israel supports a separate Palestinian state for fairly pragmatic reasons: the birth rate of Palestinians will quickly cause Israelis to be outnumbered if Palestine was absorbed into Israel.

However, the recent vote in the UN to support enhanced recognition of Palestine as a state, implies a few things about those nations that voted in favour of recognition (or abstained from voting.)

Palestine is an undeniable composite of Fatah and Hamas and the recent Gaza conflict enhanced Hamas's stature even if it was badly defeated militarily. Neither Fatah or Hamas is yet the unquestioned government of Palestine, and either could prevail over the other faction under certain circumstances.

Hamas, in its charter, vows the destruction of the Israeli state and the elimination of Jews everywhere.

Therefore, a vote for a Palestinian state implies support for a potential Hamas Government.

None of the votes in support of (or abstention from voting for) the Palestinian State was conditional - that is, none said that "we will vote for recognition of a Palestinian State provided it removes from the Hamas Charter the destruction of Israel and the elimination of Jews." They all voted in favour (or abstained) accepting the Hamas Charter without pre-conditions.

This appears to compound the rabid anti-Semitism currently rampant world-wide and is fueled by two factors:

• the growing influence of Islam and the desire of most countries to "get closer" to Islamic states by appearing anti-Israel and anti-Semitic;
• the myopic uninformed liberal view that everyone deserves freedom, regardless of what they intend to do with that freedom. In their view, it appears that everyone deserves freedom except for Israel and Jews.

It is so easy to criticise Israel. Yet there is no country on Earth that is so surrounded by neighbours so willing to exterminate it, who are so numerous and so able to fund delegitimisation strategies of the nation they wish to exterminate.

It is not a coincidence that the shrill shouting of supposed human rights activists are so profoundly silent when those neighbours of Israel commit the most heinous of crimes. There is no condemnation, no boycotts, no shouting from every medium of communication as there is against Israel – one of very few true democracies in the region.

Israel is attempting to avoid annihilation. The attempts to de-legitimise it are attempts to defang that capability – no more – no less.

It would be nice to interpret the cacophany of protest against Israel as a cacophany of support for human rights. In the absence of balance and fairness, the only possible, rational interpretation is a cacophany of anti-semitism. And don’t fall for the argument that says the protest is against Israel and not Jews. Only the anti-Semite pushes that argument – just look around and open your eyes.

There is a massive disaster in the making unless balance, fairness, equality and tolerance are reintroduced into the equation.