Thursday, April 12, 2012

What must be done




What must be done

Dr. Haim Shine

German author Gunter Grass is an very brave man, at least as much as you can attribute bravery to obtuse, mean-spirited and shortsighted people. He plainly writes what millions of anti-Semites the world over are thinking deep down. No doubt Grass' Iranian allies are enjoying the beating of his tin drum, which is giving off sounds of fury, wrath and the echoes of evil messengers.

The existence of the Jewish people against all odds, their eternal willingness to sacrifice themselves for their faith, and in particular for the founding of the Jewish state – following Hitler's horrible attempt to annihilate them – all these give Israel's enemies no peace. The Christian theology that holds an anti-Israeli stance at its core, as well as the ideologies that Hitler and Stalin were reared on, will never come to terms with the continuing existence of the Jewish people. They will not desist as long as the final solution to the Jewish problem has no been achieved. Their hope for this currently lies with Iran.

Gunter Grass belongs to a group of "intellectuals" who from childhood were educated to believe that Jews pose a threat to the world. Their negative opinions about the Jews were shaped by the Hitler youth movement. In order to realize that ideology, Grass was conscripted to the Waffen-SS but only admitted that fact in 2006. These same people still blame Jewish influence for destroying the Nazi empire, which began in Europe but threatened to conquer the world and impose the Aryan race worldwide. These defeated Nazis will never forgive us and as long as they live, so will the venom inside them. I doubt any of them feel any guilt for what was done to us by their fathers, vile murderers who made no distinction between the young and the old, between men and women.

Two great miracles have occurred during our history. The first was when slaves who left Egypt received the Torah. These were slaves who held on to their belief in a single God, who has no form and cannot be directly reached, only worshipped. The second miracle was the establishment of the state of Israel following the Holocaust. Those who survived succeeded in taking part in the creation of a marvelous, independent country, a country that gave back much of the self confidence the Jews had lost during thousands of years in the Diaspora.

On Passover Eve, we open our doors and say, "Pour out Your wrath on the nations who do not know You and on the countries who do not call upon You ... Pour Your anger over them, let Your fury overtake them." Only since the founding of Israel have we been able to safely open our doors and read the Haggadah aloud. Gunter Grass' friends are no longer near and no longer need to be feared.

The state of Israel has returned national pride to the Jews. Israel is not meant to welcome those who incite against it or spark confrontations with it. The time has come for the intellectuals among us to internalize that we no longer have to accept being humiliated or be submissive. We have all come here, to our homeland, in order to be free in our own country, and not to be trodden under the soles of writers with bad reputations.


For all of these reasons it was right for Interior Minister Eli Yishai to plainly, clearly and confidently declare that Gunter Grass is not wanted in Israel. Since he truly is not. Grass wrote "What must be said" and Yishai did "what must be done."


http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_opinion.php?id=1711

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