My new article on Linkedin “We’ve Turned Ourselves into Temporary Residents”

A few days ago, the United Nations General Assembly passed a (yet another) resolution denying Jewish ties to the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. Instead of referring to it by its Jewish name, Temple Mount, after the Temple that King Solomon built there 3,000 years ago, as well as by its Muslim name al-Haram al-Sharif, it will now refer to it only by the latter. I cannot blame the world for doing so. When we turn ourselves into temporary residents, shun our historic task and obligation to the world, we cannot complain that the world wants to evict the seditious tenants.

We keep looking for better diplomatic ways to explain Israel’s position, to show that we’re valuable to the world and that we have a historic right to live here. We don’t understand that the world does not see things the way we do. It does not care about history, and it does not care about the “startup nation” we have built here. It sees us as a belligerent, invasive nation that has taken what doesn’t belong to it by exploiting the world’s remorse over the Holocaust.

We are arrogant and patronizing to think that the world owes us something. The world doesn’t think so, and the fact that we are not even asking why, but keep “explaining” to the nations our position, which they are clearly reluctant to hear, illustrates what conceit can do to a nation’s sense of judgment.

The thing we are getting absolutely wrong is our obligation to the world. We were placed here to build “a national home for the Jewish people,” just as the Balfour Declaration says. Regrettably, instead of building our home together, we are fighting one another. We’ve come to a point where we care more about destroying each other than about defeating the enemy. If we are not doing what we are meant to do here, then we have no reason for being here. This is how the world sees it, and the sooner we realize it, the better.

The current UN resolution focuses on Jerusalem and the West Bank. But more UN resolutions are on the way, and they will obviate our right to sovereignty on any part of the country that was not given to us in the 1947 UN Partition Resolution. Not long after, the UN will declare that Jews are an alien entity in Palestine, and that Palestine is where Israel used to be.

As long as we are here, we can reverse the trend, but we haven’t got much time. The only way to change the world’s view about Jewish presence in the Middle-East is if the Jews begin to act as they are expected. We were sent here to rebuild our nation, to reestablish our union, which formed a remarkable nation out of complete, and often hostile strangers who had decided to unite under the motto, “as one man with one heart.” This is our legacy, and only if we are true to it will the nations welcome us here, including the Arabs.

If we wish to work on our unity, then we have every right to declare that this is our goal in being here and that we will not allow anyone to interfere with our efforts. Not only will the world respect this declaration, it will support it.

Here are two examples of how two notorious antisemites relate to Jews when Jews set an example that the world wants to see and follow. Ukraine born Vasily Shulgin was a senior member of the Duma, the Russian Parliament, before the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution. He was also an avid antisemite. In his book What We Don’t Like About Them…, he complains that “Jews in the 20th century have become very smart, effective, and vigorous at exploiting other people’s ideas. However,” he protests, “this is not an occupation for ‘teachers and prophets,’ not the role of ‘guides of the blind,’ not the role of ‘carriers of the lame.’” In another essay, Shulgin becomes almost poetic as he describes where the Jews can lead humanity if they rise to the challenge: “Let them … rise to the height to which they apparently climbed [in antiquity] … and immediately, all nations will rush to them. They will rush not by virtue of compulsion … but by free will, joyful in spirit, grateful and loving, including the Russians!”

A more terse example comes from none other than Henry Ford, who, when not building cars, dedicated much of his time to writing damning essays about Jews. In his infamous composition, The International Jew — The World’s Foremost Problem, Ford writes, “Modern reformers, who are constructing model social systems on paper, would do well to look into the social system under which the early Jews were organized.”

Ford’s grandson, by the way, made it a point to build one of the company’s plants in Israel as a token of support for the Jewish state. Symbolically, that plant is now closed. Unless we begin to work on our unity and strive to set the required example, the fate of our country will resemble the fate of Ford’s plant, and Israel’s Jews, who have turned themselves into temporary residents, will be evicted.
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