No, you will not read about this in the news because it is a metaphor. Israel is like the house in which one chair hosts a termite or two. Left unfumigated, the termites multiply and attack more chairs and tables until serious damage, perhaps irreparable, has been done to the furniture in your house. If the house has a wooden frame, then the entire house becomes unsafe. Alternatively, I could also have written that Israel is like the frog put into the pot on the stove, not noticing as the water temperature rises until it is too late to jump out.
This metaphor popped to mind as I watched a Netflix documentary on the Jews of Hungary called “The Last Days”. At about ten minutes into the movie, survivor Renee Firestone said
People wonder, ‘How is it that we didn’t do something?’ We didn’t run away. We didn’t hide. Well, things didn’t happen at once. Things happened very slowly. So each time a new law came out, or a restriction, we said, ‘Well, just another thing, It’ll blow over.’
And that is how it seems that Israel and Israeli Jews are responding to each new instance of fomentation against us within our own country. It can be compared to the appearance of a new termite in the chair or the raising of the water temperature one more degree or fraction of a degree. We shake our heads, put up an angry or sad post on social media, I and other bloggers write another article expressing our concern, and then we go back to our lives with nothing changing.
What will be the last straw? The point of no return? The last nail in the coffin?
Here is a list in no particular order…. We just went back to life as usual:
- when at least one Israeli university stopped playing the national anthem at graduation ceremonies in order not to offend the sensitivities of Arab graduates.
- when the Supreme Court decided that Khan al-Ahmar should be demolished and the residents moved elsewhere but the government did nothing.
- when the 10th or 50th or 100th or 150th illegal Bedouin outpost was put up in Area C by the PA with the help of the EU, a cynical land-grab of Israeli-controlled lands.
- when we see Israeli NGOs, such as B’tselem and Breaking the Silence, contributing to cries of apartheid and accusations of Israel’s ‘brutal daily oppression’ of the Palestinian Arabs.
- when foreign Arabs started buying up land in the Galilee with the purpose of erasing the Jewish presence there.
- when Bedouin in the Negev steal agricultural produce, livestock and equipment and squat on public land and sometimes, even, on private land.
- when Bedouin steal weapons from IDF bases.
- when Haifa Mayor Einat Kalisch-Rotem appointed Raja Za’atra, known supporter of terrorism against Israel, as Deputy Mayor of Haifa — while this was foiled, the fact it was even suggested was a red flag.
- when Israelis appear at what are supposed to be conjoint peace demonstrations on public platforms in Israel and accuse Israel of war crimes with nary an Israeli flag in view.
- when you are not accepted as a caring human being if you do not believe that Israel is a brutal occupier of the Palestinian Arabs.
- when Arabs rioted violently against Jews in Lod and Acco.
- when Haifa hosts a viciously hostile anti-Israel course (called Decolonizing Haifa) held in property the municipality provides to the NGO hosting it and to which it donates tax-payer funds for operations.
Each of these things is “just another thing,” right? “It will blow over,” right?
Until it won’t and we will have passed the point of no return. Unless those who can do something to protect our sovereignty actually do something to protect our sovereignty.
{Reposted from the author’s blog}
