By Rabbi Dow Marmur
JERUSALEM — The Palestinians know, of course, that they cannot defeat Israel and that the rest of the world, including their Muslim coreligionists, won’t come to their aid. In order to keep the myth alive that the Jews are colonialist imposters who’ve grabbed Palestinian land – without any historic or moral right to it – the Palestinians turn to countries with left-leaning politics and to international bodies to present themselves as victims.
Indeed, they’re victims and, yes, Israel victimizes them, too. But the main cause of their victimhood are their own leaders, including many of their religious teachers who tell them that to die as martyrs when attacking Israelis is preferable to compromise and live with them.
The so-called international community loves victims and doesn’t mind describing the Jews, and particularly the Jewish state, as the victimizers. Whether it’s the latest version of perennial anti-Semitism or a reaction to the Israeli occupation, the effect is the same. Jews are being blamed.
That seems to be behind the latest UNESCO resolution which denies Jews any historic rights to Jerusalem. As we’re seeing in Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, facts seem to be of no consequence in politics. People will believe what they deem to be convenient, however absurd and offensive. And you can’t get more of both than to deny the Jewish links to Jerusalem’s Temple Mount.
That’s why even countries which in other contexts maintain almost friendly relations with Israel, and cooperate with it in many fields, have chosen to vote with the mob or abstain, thus colluding with the lies. They probably argue that resolutions of this kind have no teeth and don’t lead to any action, so why not be nice to the Palestinians and, at the same time, nasty to the Jews?
Mercifully, there’re still people in the world who’re offended by such abuse of the truth and some – including high ranking UNESCO officials – have said so in public. However, the Palestinians have had their “victory” and Israel has to defend itself by furious and indignant diplomacy.\
Which brings to mind the old story about a congregation that wanted to get rid of its rabbi but couldn’t find a legitimate cause for doing so. The congregants, therefore, decided to spread the rumour that the rabbi’s daughter is a prostitute. That may embarrass him enough to leave the congregation of his own accord. But then someone remembered that the rabbis didn’t have any daughters. Yet they decided to go ahead and said: Let him defend himself. The UNESCO resolution seems to be of that ilk.
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Much more serious, however, is the testimony before the United Nations Security Council by representatives of the two most prominent Israeli organizations critical of Israel’s occupation, B’Tselem and Peace Now. Why are they washing Israel’s dirty linen before this notoriously hostile body? They say that it’s because when they speak to Israelis only, the Israelis don’t want to know, but when they speak at the UN, everybody in Israel gets their message.
Had the United Nations, including UNESCO, provided a more mature and balanced forum, the peace activists might have a case. But as things stand at the moment, they are probably just doing harm not only to Israel but also to themselves and making it very difficult to support them.
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Rabbi Marmur is spiritual leader emeritus of Holy Blossom Temple in Toronto. Now residing in Israel, he may be contacted via dow.marmur@sdjewishworld.com.