ISIS as a Meter for Jewish Unity

Two things characterize the horrific terrorist attacks that occurred in Israeli cities recently: 1. The assailants were Israeli citizens, born and raised in Israel to Bedouin and Israeli Arab families. 2. The terrorists were inspired by ISIS. This wave may subside, but the trend going forward is clear: There will be more and more terrorist attacks within Israel, perpetrated by supporters of ISIS, who come from Israeli citizens of Arab or Muslim descent.

The heart of the problem is not the hatred of Israeli Arabs toward Israel. The heart of it lies among us, Jews. Our own division is fueling their hatred and audacity. The more divided we are, the more our haters feel emboldened and their hatred intensifies.

Not all Arabs and Muslims are terrorists. Many of them simply want to lead their lives in peace and enjoy the affluence that living in Israel enables them to achieve. Nevertheless, the education they receive, the media outlets that broadcast to the Arab speaking population in Israel, and the ambience they grow up in leave them no choice but to become a society that inherently rejects the presence of Jews in Israel (to which they refer as Palestine), and the existence of the State of Israel altogether.

Over the past several years, the State of Israel has invested many billions of dollars to promote education, housing, job opportunities, and community services in Arab and Bedouin communities in Israel. Regrettably, because of the inherently anti-Israeli disposition, it is not generating any closeness between Arabs and Jews, and it is failing to generate gratitude among Arabs toward the state or foster any sense of commitment toward it.

It is not only the recent terrorist attacks that prove it. After the attacks, spontaneous celebrations broke out in several Arab towns within Israel. As I said, it is the ambience that fosters the next killers.

But the heart of the problem is not the hatred of Israeli Arabs toward Israel. The heart of it lies among us, Jews. Our own division is fueling their hatred and audacity. The more divided we are, the more our haters feel emboldened and their hatred intensifies.

Just as with any form of antisemitism, the fuel behind the entrenchment of ISIS among Israeli Arabs and Bedouins is our own division—first and foremost within the State of Israel, and subsequently, among Jews the world over.

If there is no peace among us, we will have no peace with anyone. ISIS is only a meter that shows us how hateful we are toward each other. Its life’s marrow, its oxygen, its fuel is our hatred for each other.

Inadvertently, the Jewish people determine how the world will treat them. Our foes may be Muslim, or Christian, or proponents of social ideologies such as Nazism or communism, but in the end, the fuel behind them is our own division, our odium for one another.

Hitler derided our division and feared our union. So did Henry Ford, and many other antisemites throughout the ages. Fittingly, our sages have repeatedly lamented our division as the progenitor of our downfalls, and praised our union as our source of success.

No other nation is expected to display internal unity. When other nations are united, they are feared. When we unite, we are loved.

Nothing about us is the same as it is for other nations. Our roots are different: We are descendants of eclectic natives of countless tribes and nations who had joined together under the tenet of loving others as themselves. Accordingly, the world expects us to show that we care for one another regardless of our circumstances. When we succeed, they praise us, and when we fail, they scorn us and say that we are redundant. The more brazen ones among them try to do away with us, and the rest of the world tacitly supports them.

Accordingly, when we try to appease the world by dispensing billions on what we regard as their needs, they consider it bribery and do not hate us one bit less for it. On the contrary, it only increases their contempt toward us. In doing so, they are telling us what they really need from us: to focus on each other.

This is why the heightened level of ISIS activity that we are witnessing in Israel these days means that we have grown more separated than before. Accordingly, the only action that will turn down the hatred is to strengthen our internal unity.

You will find more on this topic in my book The Jewish Choice: Unity or Anti-Semitism.

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The Negev Summit: Israel as "A Light unto Nations"

The role of Israel as a connecting force in the Middle East is not a coincidence; fostering unity has been the essence of the people of Israel since time immemorial. As part of an historical summit in the Israeli Negev town of Sde Boker, top diplomats from Israel, the US, Egypt, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, and Morocco have agreed to meet regularly to establish a permanent forum for the creation of “regional security architecture,” in light of the possible renewal of the Iranian nuclear deal.

If we as the people of Israel were stronger on the inside in terms of cohesion, we would see significant results in all areas of life without the need for political agreements. However, as long as we are not united on the inner front–strongly connected in one heart–then there will be a vital need for our leaders to sign agreements on the political and security fronts. ?

The unprecedented forum is one of the results of the "Abraham Accords" which brought normalization of diplomatic ties between Israel and the UAE, Bahrain, and Morocco. While the new Middle Eastern regional front will also focus on joint efforts in the areas of counterterrorism and defense, education, health, tourism, food, water, and energy, the main concern for Israel and its Arab allies is Tehran’s threat.

The State of Israel must do everything in its power to protect its security, both by forming alliances and by striving for additional political meetings, and there is no doubt that a unified security front in the Middle East can deter Iran. On a more internal level, if the people of Israel demonstrate a unified spiritual front against any threat, this will sooner or later neutralize it. Cohesion is the ultimate power for the redemption of people from troubles and torments. As the sages said, "When Israel are as one man with one heart, they are as a fortified wall against the forces of evil."?

And why exactly do we, the people of Israel, have the power to change complex and sticky situations? Because from our beginning about 3,800 years ago, we acquired from our ancestor Abraham in ancient Babylon a method of connection which taught us how to transcend the egoism that ruled us, how to rise above differences, and how to direct ourselves toward the supreme force of nature. Thus, "Israel" (from the Hebrew Yashar-El) means "straight" to "God," and from its foundations, Israel has always been an ideological group aimed at being a unifying force in the world. ?

If we as the people of Israel were stronger on the inside in terms of cohesion, we would see significant results in all areas of life without the need for political agreements. However, as long as we are not united on the inner front–strongly connected in one heart–then there will be a vital need for our leaders to sign agreements on the political and security fronts. ?

Meanwhile, buds of the future role of Israel can also be seen forming on the physical level. Israel is revealing an extraordinary political feature of being at the center of every fateful conflict and threat–from the "Negev Summit" bringing the Middle East countries together over Iran, through the role of mediator between Russia and Ukraine, to the recent visits of the President of Israel to Turkey and the Israeli Army delegation to Morocco.?

Israel is gradually gaining ground in taking up its rightful role as a connecting force between peoples. In the future it is also expected that Israel will formalize its physical and spiritual role to become a sort of international parliament and forum through which countries can communicate –a contemporary Sanhedrin reminiscent of the ancient assembly of sages in the Land of Israel-. As the Jewish thinker Rav Kook said, "The purpose of Israel is to unite the whole world into one family." ?

Countries all over the world will subconsciously continue to feel that Israel should function as the connecting factor between all nations and peoples, regardless of who leads the nation in turn. The world will continue to ask us to act as mediators. World demand will spur us to continue to perform the task entrusted to us since the days of our original agreement with Abraham, to truly become "A Light Unto Nations."

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Canada Students’ Hitler Salute Proves Entrenched Antisemitism

Last week, “A Jewish teacher, the daughter of Holocaust survivors, was surrounded by students who flashed the Heil Hitler salute in class at a North York school,” the Toronto City News reported. This was neither the first nor the second such case in Canada. CBC reported that this is the “third incident this month involving students performing a Nazi salute within the Toronto District School Board.” It may surprise some people that there is antisemitism in Canada, but it shouldn’t. Jew-hatred is spreading rapidly, and will proliferate around the world until we Jews take the required action to eliminate it.

We may use antisemitism as a sensor for self-hate. Even when we do not sense it, if there is antisemitism, it means that we are hateful of each other. Consequently, the antidote to antisemitism is to strengthen Jewish unity. This is the action we must take.

It should not surprise us that there is antisemitism in Canada, since many of its residents come from inherently antisemitic nations in Europe. The displays we see today merely express what has been kept hidden in their hearts until now, but nothing fundamental has changed in how they feel toward Jews.

Moreover, antisemitism will not go away until we dry up its well. Since Jew-hatred is expressed by non-Jews, we attribute its origin to them. But they are not the origin. Our own sages tell us countless times that when we hate each other, we bring about the hatred of the world toward us. Even if we do not feel that we hate other Jews, the very existence of antisemitism means that hatred exists among us, even if covertly.

Our sages referred to Jewish self-hatred as sinaat himam (hatred without cause). They explained that this is what caused our downfall in the days of the Second Temple and the exile from the Land of Israel. While we refer to it as self-hatred, in essence, it is the same ailment that destroyed us two millennia ago.

Therefore, we may use antisemitism as a sensor for self-hate. Even when we do not sense it, if there is antisemitism, it means that we are hateful of each other. Consequently, the antidote to antisemitism is to strengthen Jewish unity. This is the action we must take.

We have always known this, and we have always spurned it, even in the face of the most demonic perils. In 1929, Dr. Kurt Fleischer, then leader of the Liberals in the Berlin Jewish Community Assembly, stated that “Antisemitism is the scourge that God has sent us in order to lead us together and weld us together.” Regrettably, it did not happen and we did not come together.

These days, as antisemitism rears its ugly head once more, we must not forget that we hold the key that can lock it up for good, and that key is our own unity. If we turn toward each other with good intentions, we will lock antisemitism outside our world. If we keep treating each other with contempt, loathing, and conceit, as we often do today, the door to Jew-hatred will open all the way and a tsunami of antisemitism will wash upon us.

You will find more on this topic in my books Like a Bundle of Reeds: Why unity and mutual guarantee are today’s call of the hour, and The Jewish Choice: Unity or Anti-Semitism, Historical facts on anti-Semitism as a reflection of Jewish social discord