Ending the Eternal Pogrom

 

Hitting a stone wall.

I have a lot of Jewish friends. I also have a lot of Muslim friends. The horrors Israeli Jews have suffered in the last few days depress me beyond measure. 

Putting aside anger, and even right and wrong, how do we ever end this? It has been going on since 1948. No matter what Israel does, the Palestinian Arabs and many Muslim powers surrounding Israel will not be reconciled to its existence. The transplant has failed.

The supposed reason for Israel was so that the Jews could avoid pogrom and persecution; at last they could escape historic European persecution and defend themselves. But this has turned out to be a false hope. The last few days have been as bad as any old Russian pogrom. 

Israel is a relatively small number of people on a small patch of land surrounded by a vastly larger number of hostile neighbours. Who are gradually developing technologically. For sheerly demographic reasons, sooner or later, Israel is going down, going down in blood, and in the meantime there will be massacre after massacre after massacre of the Jews.

Israel is a mistake. 

In the Torah, the Jews are called to be a leaven and a light unto the nations. It seems obvious this was God’s desire. The return to Jerusalem and the rebuilding of the temple is supposed to happen only in the last days. To have tried to force the issue as a purely secular matter seems presumptuous. Presumptuous as the Tower of Babel.

Of course, the recreation of Israel was also never fair to the Arabs. Why was it up to them to surrender some land? Why did they have to yield sovereignty to the Jews, and not, say, Germany or Russia or Poland, whose borders were fungible in 1948? Why not the US, Canada, or Australia, with large sparsely populated areas?

To be a light or leaven unto the nations, the Jews must disperse to all lands; as the leaven must be worked though the bread, and the light must not be hidden in a bushel. Any land not of idiots ought to be desperate to have them. There is a world depopulation crisis; developed countries calculate that they need immigrants in larger numbers. Why not this group of naturally adaptable, mobile immigrants, who contribute more to the culture wherever they go than any other group ever?

Consider English Canadian culture without Leonard Cohen, Irving Layton, A.M. Klein, Ed and David Mirvish, Wayne and Schuster, Sharon, Lois, and Bram, William Shatner, Jack Granatstein, Frank Gehry, Moshe Safdie, Avie Bennett, Mordecai Richler, the Bronfmans, Mel Hurtig, Jonathan and Barbara Kay, Ezra Levant, Moses Znaimer, Heather Reisman, Eugene Levy, Howie Mandel, Rick Moranis, Robbie Robertson … there would be nothing. That’s what leaven is like.

The best thing Canada could do in the current crisis is to open unrestricted immediate citizenship to any Jew coming from Israel. Best for the Jews, who would surely face less persecution in Canada than in the Middle East. What the Arabs would prefer, not want to live with the Jews. Best for Canada. Best for the world. God’s stated desire.

Other countries should do likewise.