The Best and Worst of Times

Sorry to go all-out Dickensian this week, but for global Jewry, it surely is both “the best of times” and “the worst of times.” Not a tale of two cities, but a story of two realities—one sanguine; the other ominous.

The Jewish State of Israel is a global phenomenon. Yet, its very existence—and envy over its successes—keeps Zohran Mamdani, Ilhan Omar, Tucker Carlson, Candace Owens, Hasan Piker and Nick Fuentes up at night, with their teeth grinding.

How can this pipsqueak of a nation, in both size and population, be so dominant in high-tech wizardry, global finance, Nobel Prizes, Wonder Women, a high ranking in the World Happiness index, and a fighting force of diehard Zionists who are more than capable of outwitting Islamists and ass-kicking all comers?

At the same time, however, Israel remains a pariah state, charged with libels that no reasonable person could possibly believe because the evidence of its innocence is so demonstrably overwhelming.

Under any fair reading of international law, Israel is not an apartheid state. Its wars are fought in self-defense. Collateral damage inside Gaza are casualties of war, not genocide. Gazans paid a steep price for throwing their support behind terrorists who started a war, grotesquely, against a superior adversary.

This past week, Karim Khan, the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC), which prematurely charged Israeli leaders with genocide soon after its war of self-defense began, admitted that after nearly three years, there is still insufficient evidence to support any legal conclusion that supports genocide.

Khan acknowledged, begrudgingly, that the genocide charge is nothing but a “political narrative.” It has no evidentiary significance and meets no legal standard.

And yet everyone from Hollywood celebrities, the Squad, Senate candidates in Michigan and Maine, and the mayor of New York City keeps invoking “genocide!” when the chief prosecutor at the ICC isn’t himself so sure. None of them have law degrees! New York’s mayor last week offered yet another unsolicited misstatement: selling land in the West Bank does not violate international law.

Jews globally—including the United States, Europe, Canada and Australia—have benefited their societies enormously, made lasting contributions, shaped and defined cultures, contributed to universities, medical research, and corporate boardrooms. Along the way they made themselves integral to their nation’s prosperity and national identity.

And, yet, all throughout the West these days, synagogues are firebombed and besieged in Europe, Canada and the United States; Jewish-owned businesses defaced, vandalized, and boycotted; Jews neither Israeli nor avowedly Zionist murdered, stabbed, set on fire—whether on a beach in Australia, the streets of London, or an outdoor mall in Colorado.

Jews eating at restaurants are pelted with shrieking accusations of “genocide!” “baby-killers!” “pedophiles!” And that chart-topping ditty: “Globalize the Intifada!” stripped of all Middle East meaning. The simple translation: “Kill the Jew standing in front of you!”

A decidedly unpretty picture, but we’re not in medieval Europe or 1930s Germany, for that matter. In today’s world, Jews have clout and national governments are not persecuting them. Nations that welcomed Islamists into Western societies failed to ask whether they could, or would, adapt. Were they willing to leave behind their murderous antisemitism? No official public policy places Jews in danger. There’s simply a refusal to protect them out of fear of rousing violent Muslims.

No official public policy places Jews in danger. There’s simply a refusal to protect them out of fear of rousing violent Muslims.

These stark, irreconcilable dualities are everywhere. Gazans, we are told, just endured a genocide. But its overall population has improbably increased. That’s a real stain on Israel’s resume for ethnic cleansing.

Moreover, Israel was accused of siege warfare that resulted in mass starvation. Yet, just last week Gaza hosted an international marathon in which over 2,500 locals participated. (No women allowed, of course.)

Was there ever an Auschwitz Marathon in 1946?

The mixed signals between the best and worst of times has seeped into America’s foreign policy, too. According to President Trump, victory in Iran has long been achieved.

The Ayatollah was killed. Over 70 of Iran’s military brass dead—the head of its Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps; the chief of staff of its Armed Forces; the National Security chief; the commander of its Basij paramilitary force; and the entirety of its intelligence establishment.

Tens of thousands of missiles and warships obliterated. Launching sites permanently disabled. A blockade of the Strait of Hormuz has crippled Iran’s economy. The “new” Ayatollah has yet to make a public appearance.

Given these bleak optics, why is Iran’s leadership still breathing? Whatever happened to the public uprising that was supposed to have freed the Iranian people from a half-century of Islamist tyranny?

Our allies—Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the Emirates, and, of course, Israel—are wondering what we are waiting for. Without internet access, the Iranian people are being told that the Americans have been sent back to their mothers in tears. Meanwhile, Iran is still lobbing missiles while purportedly vanquished?

After 60 days of a “military operation” that was never congressionally authorized, President Trump may simply be trying to avoid a War Powers Resolution headache. Perhaps even more importantly, with oil prices soaring, Trump wants safe passage of oil tankers through the Strait of Hormuz without Iran collecting a toll. His apparent refusal to deliver the final blow forces Trump to negotiate with an insane regime that believes it’s already won. Theocracies are infamous for impugning all negotiations as weakness.

Trump has repeatedly said that Iran must be stripped of all nuclear warhead capacity. Focusing on the Strait of Hormuz, however, allows crooked mullahs more time for mischief. These are not rational actors. The regime is comprised of apocalyptic, messianic fanatics who believe that the Koran gives them a license to lie.

We have seen this strategy played out before—claiming victory while not finishing the job. Remember Gaza, a mere seven months ago? Trump pressured Israel into a ceasefire that scuttled the plan to end Hamas once and for all.

It was called Trump’s “20-point Gaza Peace Plan.” Hamas was obligated to surrender its weapons and hand over control of the Gaza Strip to a “Board of Peace.” Those weapons are still in the wrong hands. And no supervisory body has materialized. Meanwhile, Hamas continues to recruit a new generation of terrorists to kill Israelis.

Oh, and now there’s an ecological disaster off Kharg Island, where Iran exports its oil. Leaving the mullahs with their death wishes intact has many repercussions, it seems. The cold, hard realism is that their romance with martyrdom won’t come to an end until we make them all martyrs.

Leaving the mullahs with their death wishes intact has many repercussions, it seems. The cold, hard realism is that their romance with martyrdom won’t come to an end until we make them all martyrs.

Until we do, they will conjure imaginary victories. And resort to their secret weapon: outlasting enemies. The West operates in frantic minutes; Islamists are copacetic with time measured in millennia.

Dickens was right: “We had everything before us; we had nothing before us.”