The enemies of Israel are right about the history of their hatred of the Jewish state: that it predates October 7, beginning not in the fall of 2023 or the spring of 1948, but in the beginning itself; for in the beginning, from the Old Testament to the New, from the life and times of the first Jew to the death and resurrection of the King of the Jews, hatred of the children of Israel is constant. Nothing about this hatred, the oldest hatred, is new. Nothing done to Israel, by the enemies of Israel, is new either. None of which means we are right to do nothing, that because what has been will be again, it’s vanity to do anything. Even if history is as inevitable as the seasons, it doesn’t follow that a time of war calls for a time of silence, that the purpose of heaven belongs to those who wage a religious war against Israel. To live this way is to believe life is futile, that as we don’t remember the past, none shall remember us. And yet the author of all history remembers; He will not forget who attacked Israel.
If we believe belief saves us, that faith frees us to do nothing or nothing we do matters because our actions aren’t our own, we’re wrong. If we’re so arrogant to believe we’re humble, that it’s wrong to stop wrongdoing because all life is predestined, we believe a lie. We lie to ourselves, we hide behind legalisms, when we allow evil against Israel to flourish. We allow the enemies of Israel to act like our old enemy, the evil empire, as they hijack the law and stage a show trial.
The trial now underway is a revival of the worst lies about Zionism and the West, testing the listener’s constitution far more than the speaker’s commitment to constitutional principles. For the man in the glass booth above the hall, whose job it is to translate lies without rebuking them, the trial’s an ordeal. For the speaker, whose mission it is to defame Israel and denounce the United States, the trial’s an opportunity.
The speaker’s free to bang his fists (or his shoe), or brandish a gun, receiving from the members of one body what no other body can give him: the semblance of legitimacy. The speaker’s even free to threaten the free, saying history is on his side or all must side with him, because he alone is a freedom fighter. No reprisals come to the tyrant who promises to bury us, or the terrorist who tries to bully us when he says, “Do not let the olive branch fall from my hand.”
Truth and brevity are the first casualties in the speaker’s war against history, followed by the facts themselves, for the speaker reserves the right—he exercises the right—to excise the facts from his speech. Any fact that contradicts the speaker is thus irrelevant, while any fact that tends to incriminate the speaker is inadmissible. Fallacy is the only argument the speaker advances, alternative facts the only facts he accepts, because the speaker’s a demagogue who fancies himself a pedagogue.
All history is a work of revisionism, according to the speaker, regardless of the facts. The facts pertaining to October 7 are therefore unimportant. The cry of the living, the images of the dead, the picture of a hostage calling out to her boyfriend, the video of a woman bleeding through her pants, the kidnapping of babies, the parading of bodies—all this is a distraction. The speaker denies the commission of a massacre, for which Hamas is guilty, but accuses Israel of genocide.
The speaker then accuses Israel of the crime of existence. And because Israel isn’t without sin, because she feels the same senses as a Christian and experiences the same seasons as a Muslim in the Middle East, because she hurts with the same weapons and heals by the same methods as any other nation, she is somehow less. Only when Israel’s enemies are free to kill her will the speaker recognize Israel’s right to live. Until then, Israel may not shed a drop of Islamist blood to save the life of a single Arab or Israeli hostage.
For now, Israel will tarry. Her perfection will not come at the cost of her destruction. Her history will not end. Her name will endure. She will remain a great and mighty nation.
