“Is because, since I am not Jewish, I know it is my historical responsibility to fight against hatred
“Kill that infidel pig!” On September 19, 2006 that simple order, issued by an Imam, forever changed the life of the French high school teacher Robert Redeker. Internet multiplied the threat in dozens of Islamic websites. Since that day his entire family has lived under police protection. His crime? Having written an article in the French newspaper Le Figaro under the title, “What should the free world do while facing Islamist intimidation?” In his article, Redeker defended democratic freedom and warned of the danger of radical Islam. Ironically, by defending the freedom of our society, he lost his own. Although his a member of the editorial board of the leftist elite magazine, Les Temps Modernes, founded by J. P. Sartre, he has been deserted by the leaders of the French left, who have lambasted him for his criticism of Islam.
Thus, like Salman Rushdie, Talisma Nasreen or Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Robert Redeker has discovered that one part of the European left is betraying freedom. He speaks of the menace of Islamic fascism. And his leftist companions accuse him of being Islamophobic and racist. He denounces the world’s passiveness in the face of the slavery of women, the use of children as bombs and terrorist fanaticism. And his left-wing comrades accuse him not respecting other cultures. Like myself, Robert Redeker defends an Islam free of fanatics, dictators and terrorists. And our leftist comrades leave us alone to make that defense. He assumes, then, the moral responsibility of defending the Human Rights Charter against the encroachment of radical Islamism, which is the new totalitarian ideology the world is confronting. And our leftist comrades betray that very moral commitment. That is, in a moment of history which demands a firm defense of freedom, the left does not seem to be up to the moral commitment, which this historical moment requires.
Why is this? What deeply rooted pathologies are causing the European left to back off from its moral commitment? Why are we not seeing demonstrations, in London or Madrid, against Islamic dictatorships? Why are there no protests against the slavery of millions of women, who live without any kind of legal protection? Why is there no public outcry against the use of children as bombs, in the conflicts in which Islam is involved? Why has it never been affected by the victims of terrorist attacks in Israel? Why does it not rank the fight against Islamic fanaticism among its major causes? Why does it mistake defending the Palestinian cause with justifying Palestinian terrorism? And now the big question: Why is the left so obsessed merely with caviling at two of the most solid democracies on the planet, United States and Israel, and not at the worst dictatorships?
As a free thinker, historically linked to the rational left, I find myself under the obligation to accuse a certain sector of the left. A left whose members are the most vocal in the press and take most readily to the streets. A left I accuse of being profoundly reactionary, anti-modern and anti-Western. And hence accomplices in the advance of totalitarianism in the world.
And once again I ask, why? These are the thought pathologies I detect in the most vociferous intellectuals and leaders of the left, from Noam Chomsky to José Saramago, from Michael Moore to Hugo Chávez: the fact that they have been unable to shake off Stalin’s dogmatic inheritance; anti-American simplism; exacerbated anti-Israelism; unconscious anti-Semitism. Hence it is that today in newspapers, at universities and goverments, we don´t find leftist leaders committed to freedom. What we have are leaders of a lunatic left capable of minimizing terrorism, of trivializing the Shoa, of ignoring women’s suffering and of justifying relentless dictatorships. Such a current of opinion, is what explain the hatred Israel now endures in the world, and particularly in Europe. A hatred that goes hand in hand with hatred of the United States.
1.- Let us see the first pathologie, Stalin’s dogmatic inheritance. Even though the Berlin Wall has fallen, a similar wall still stands in the minds of many leftist militants. Thus, certain major Stalinist dogmas remain intact and condition any analysis made by their heirs. It is no coincidence that for decades, Stalinism criminalized Israel, and today’s left continues to do so. It is no coincidence either that, Palestinian terrorist organizations were regarded as forces of liberation, and today’s left continues to minimize Palestinian terrorism. Nor is it a coincidence that for decades it considered the United States to be the paradigm of evil. Indeed, the left continues to be obsessed with the United States. In fact, the majority of anti-American attitudes are due to the blinkers with which the lunatic left views the world. Blinkers that are furiously anti-American. Such a stance dictates that if someone is a friend of America, then that person is my enemy, and, conversely, if he or she is an enemy America, then that person is my friend. And thus, certain members of the extreme left end up being friends of Iran. What they share is a common hatred of the United States and Israel and the contempt for Western values. In short, they are linked by a deep contempt for freedom. Unquestionably, the paradigm of the imbecility of this dogmatic left goes by the name of Hugo Chávez. Yet in Europe there are many intellectuals who think along the same lines as Chávez. It is only the more subtle expression of their prejudices that sets them apart.
2.- The second pathologie, The Unabashed anti-israelism, and Unconscious anti-Semitism. Unquestionably, newspapers worldwide shaw an exacerbated hatred of Israel. No other conflict has been subject to such a distortion of information as this one. Israel is the only country in the world that has to excuse itself for existing, for defending itself and for not disappearing. Its military actions are inflated to the level of horror. Israeli victims are scorned and their enemies extolled as heroes. The Nobel Laureate Imre Kertesz, a Hungarian Jew who survived the Shoa, sums it up perfectly: “Whenever I see Israeli tanks on television, a single idea strikes my soul: My God, how fortunate that I’m seeing the Star of David on Israeli tanks and not on my chest, as in 1944. I am not impartial nor can I be. I leave impartiality to those European intellectuals, who play this game so brilliantly and often damagingly...” This is the way it is. In contrast to the historical Jewish victim who was dragged through the ghetto, hunted down like a rat and exterminated, today’s Jew builds a country from nothing, conducts research, receives international awards and wins all the battles waged against him. And despite centuries of persecution, that image of the victorious Jew is intolerable to many. Israel’s primary sin is the fact that it refuses to succumb. That strength which has enabled it to survive deadly wars and face up to millions of enemies is what most vexes the lunatic left.
Of course, no member of that left would admit to his anti-israelism, much less to anti-Semitism. They speak of solidarity with the Palestinian people, of rational criticism of Israel, of a commitment to freedom. Let’s analyses at the concepts. The first concept: solidarity, the catchword of the International left. However, it is a one-eyed solidarity and that one eye cries only for Palestine alone. This very solidarity at the same time applauds a massacre at a Yeshiva school. Any solidarity shown has been with the Palestinian cause but never with the cause of Israel. That left would revel in Israel’s demise and has never felt at ease with its existence. So it is not solidarity with the victims. It is hatred of Israel.
Another concept is that of rational criticism, notoriously absent in practically all of the analyses.
Far from balanced reflections, all we find is an extreme simplification of the conflict, in which Israel is transformed into an evil body and the Palestinians into victims pure and simple. Thus, for years the majority of analysts metamorphosed Arafat into some sort of Arab Che Guevara, a hero of the people’s struggle. His corruption, authoritarianism and violence were never criticized. No one took the trouble to discover what was done with the billions of dollars, from all corners of the world, that reached the Palestinian Authority. The Palestinians have received, per capita, double what the Europeans received under the Marshall Plan, that help reconstruct Europe, after world war II. And still there is poverty! Why is this? No one has bothered to look into this, because it is easier to blame Israel for Palestine’s ills than to ascertain to what extent the Palestinians are responsible for their own penury.
Finally, let’s look at the concept of commitment to freedom. I hear that expression at all of the pro-Palestine forums. Ardently they declare, “We support the freedom of the people!” Yet this is not so.
Never have they taken up the cause of freedom for the people of Lebanon, Syria, Iran... Nor have they shown any anxiety over the shattered freedom of Palestinians living under the Islamic extremism of Hamas. All that interests them is using the concept of Palestinian freedom as a missile against Israeli freedom.
From these two pathologies, a terrible consequence derives, Journalistic manipulation. With regard to the Arab-Israeli conflict THERE IS NO INFORMATION, ONLY PROPAGANDA. When reporting about Israel, most members of the press violate every single principle of journalism’s code of ethics. This means that any attempt at self-defense by Israel becomes a massacre and any confrontation, an act of genocide. So many insidious things have been said that there is no longer anything worse for Israel to be accused of. In parallel fashion, that same press never mentions Iran’s or Syria’s interference and advocacy of violence against Israel; never the inculcation of fanaticism in children; never the widespread corruption in Palestine. And when it refers to casualties, it raises Palestinian deaths to tragic proportions and yet scorns those of the Jews.
Please, allow me to touch the Spanish left. There are many examples which illustrate the anti-israelism which defines the AND to the Spanish left. For example, the left-wing party has recently expelled a member, for creating a website defending Israel. I quote the expulsion sentence: “Our friends are the people of Iran, Libia and Venezuela, oppressed by imperialism. And not at nazi State such as Israel”.
Another example, the Socilist Mayor of a city close to Madrid, changed the day of the Shoa, for the day of the Palestinian Nakba; thus, scorning the murder of six million European Jews. Or, in my own home town, Barcelona, the Socialist City Council decided to celebrate, during the 60 th anniversary of the State of Israel, a “solidarity week with the Palestinian people”. Furthermore, it invited Leila Khaled, a a notorious terrorist from the 1970s, ho presently promotes the use of bombs against Israel. And so on…
This global thinking, this imbecility, which is part of the “polliticaly correct”, also pollutes the thoughts of President Zapatero. His foreing policy falls in all the potholes of the lunatic left. And, regarding the Middle East, his leaning is definitively pro-arab. The wearing of the Palestinian Kefia, during the last Lebanese war bay President Zapatero, was no accident. It was a symbolic. Spain has suffered the gratest islamist attack in Europe, and is in the sight of all Islamic terrorism. As I wrote a long time ago, “they killed us with satellite cellular phones, connected to the Middle Ages”. And despite it all, the Spanish Left is among the most Anti-israelites of the Europe. And it insists that it does so out of solidarity! This is the madness I wish to denounce in this congress.
Dear friends, of AIPAC, I finish.
I am not Jewish. Ideologically I lean to the left and I am a journalist. Why have I not adopted an anti-Israel stance like the majority of my European colleagues? It is because, since I am not Jewish, I know it is my historical responsibility to fight against hatred. Hatred of the Jews, and hatred of their homeland, which is Israel. The fight against anti-Semitism is not the Jews´s duty. It is the duty of the Gentiles. As a journalist, it is my duty to seek the truth, to go beyond prejudices, lies and manipulations. And the truth is not being told about Israel. Thus, as a person of the left who embraces progress, I am duty-bound to defend freedom, culture, peaceful coexistence, the civic education of children, and all of the principles that the The Tablets of the Law have rendered universal. Principles which Islamic fundamentalism systematically destroys. This means that, since I am a Gentile, a journalist and a leftist, I have a triple moral commitment to Israel. Because, if Israel were to be vanquished, then modernity, culture and freedom would also be crushed. Even though the world has failed to wake up to this fact, Israel’s struggle is the world’s struggle.
Thank you very much.
As the Hebrew saying says,
AM ISRAEL HAI. AMEN.