Dateline Jerusalem — Déjà vu, from the French, meaning “already seen.” Deja vu is a feeling that an event already has been experienced in the past but is actually happening for the first time. Perhaps we are re-living a history that continues to repeat itself, a record of universal hatred for Jews, resulting in exiles, expulsions, the Spanish Inquisition, the Crusades, blood libels, pogroms, and the murder of 6 million Jews during the Holocaust.
On this 72nd anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising against the Nazis, Israel observes Yom Hashoah, Holocaust Memorial Day. Despite a history of attempts to exterminate the Jewish people via violence, now there is a concerted effort to erase Jewish history, the connection to Jerusalem, Jewish holy sites and Israel. What better way to destroy a people than erase their history, deny their identity and their national sovereignty.
A week before Passover, when every Jewish seder (festive meal) commemorates the exodus from Egypt to the Land of Israel. The seder ends with “Next year in Jerusalem!”
UNESCO, the United Nations agency allegedly responsible for protecting the world’s archeological, historical and cultural sites, erased over 3,000 years of Jewish history. They did this with their outrageous decision that Jews have no connection to the Temple Mount or other Jewish holy sites in Israel such as the Cave of the Patriarchs and Rachel’s Tomb. No surprise since almost everything the U.N. does is to parrot Islamic and Palestinian claims that there never was a Jewish Holy Temple or Jewish holy sites and that modern Israel is an illegitimate entity.
Of the 195 member nations of UNESCO, only six countries opposed the UNESCO resolution– the U.S., U.K., the Netherlands, Lithuania, Germany, and Estonia. It was supported by 33 countries including France, Russia, China, Sweden and Spain. No wonder Jews no longer feel safe in those countries. Other nations abstained or did not vote.
Trailing that decision, the U.S. and Europe refused to accept Israel’s legal, moral, and historic claim to the Golan Heights, which has been under Israel’s sovereignty for the last 49 years. As Bibi Netanyahu stated, the Golan Heights has been “an integral part of the Land of Israel since ancient times” and “it remains an integral part of modern Israel.” Despite stability in the Golan since Israel’s control and the security of Israel are dependent upon the Golan, the world would rather turn the Golan over to terrorists of the Islamic State (Da’esh), Al-Qaeda, Hezbollah, and the Nusra Front than allow Golan to be part of Israel. Not surprising considering the U.N. and its sponsored UNRWA schools financially support suicide bombings and martyrdom and programs training and teaching hate of Israelis, slaughtering of Jews, and glorifying war.
The U.N.’s deniability extends to the U.N. Assistant Secretary-General who recently said there is “no proof” that Hamas uses construction material for “military purposes.” This despite the discovered terror tunnels and the confiscation of shipments from the international community that have smuggled in sulfuric acid, diving suits, polyurethane propellant for rockets, sulfur rods, fiberglass rolls, and a special coal used to fuel iron furnaces for processing metals. Just before Passover, a shipment of 4 tons of ammonium chloride — used for rocket fuel — was found hidden in a shipment of salt! Although ammonium chloride is also used for peaceful purposes, as ammonium perchlorate composite propellant it is used for the building of rockets. Israeli Customs agents say the amount seized could be used to manufacture hundreds of long-range rockets against Israel. What caught the eye of Customs agents was the quantity of salt at the border crossing — an outlandish 40 tons. This, plus the fact there has been a vast increase in salt shipments to Gaza alerted the agents and Shabak (Shin Bet), Israel’s security agency.
On the eve of Holocaust Memorial Day, Jews once again are fighting to stay alive while the world does everything it can to remove the Jewish people from their homeland and their thousands of years of history. While terrorists threaten the existence of the State of Israel via rockets, missiles, stabbings, bus bombings, rock throwing, and other armed conflict against Israel’s civilian population, Israelis also must fight another front. The U.N., Europe, and even at times the U.S., threaten the existence of the State of Israel politically.
Deja vu? Yes, although the means to annihilate and exterminate might not be exile, expulsion, an Inquisition, Crusades, blood libel, pogrom, or a Holocaust, the goal is the same… destruction of the Jewish people and their history. Just as the Nazis were appeased during World War II, resulting in the Holocaust, appeasement of terror will only lead to a similar outcome, G-d forbid.
L’hitraot. Shachar