What are we? What have we become?

By Dogan Akman

I can no longer understand my people. I keep wondering whether for all these decades, I have been self-deceiving myself, mythologising my people, living under a cruel illusion as to who and what we are or whether the world has passed me by?

In the diaspora, and particularly in the United States and to a lesser extent in Canada, we now have Jews who fraternise with Jew-haters; Jewish organisations that constantly spew anti-Israeli toxic discourse, and dump on Jewish organisations that support Israel; Jewish professors who subscribe to the BDS movement; at least one Jewish organisation in Canada that deliberately disseminates disparaging versions of the history of Israel or provides one-sided views advocated by anti-Israeli folks.

And while the so-called left-wing American Jews, members of the “IfNotNow” gang are protesting Israel’s defence of its Gaza border, Arabs from countries outside of Israel and the Palestinian-run territories are defending Israel in the wave of violence at the border with Gaza and denouncing Hamas for abusing its own people. Not only that but in an unprecedented first, the European Parliament overwhelmingly passed a resolution, inter-alia, condemning Hamas for using civilian shields to protect the known terrorists in their employ and thereby causing the otherwise avoidable death and injury of its own people.

We have of all organisations, the ADL, run by a former Jewish appendage of dastardly Obama,who continues to carry on Obama’s work by gratuitously and hypocritically attacking Mike Pompeo, then the nominee of President Trump for the position of Secretary of State, and two other pro-Israel political leaders and wrongly condemning/defaming three pro-Israeli organisations including Canary Mission. (Cf. “ADL Wrongly Defamed Canary Mission as ‘Islamophobic and Racist’- Promotes BlackLivesMatter and J Street”,Israpundit, April 27,2018)

We have George Soros who seeks to subvert the Israeli society by funding the activities of various outfits in Israel.

We have the Ann Frank Foundation whose anti-Zionist directing minds, having stolen the legacy of Frank are now partnering with the New Israel Fund, to fund anti-Zionist organisations supported by NIF.

In Israel, we have Israeli NGOs (“No good ones”) that claim to be non-governmental and yet subsist on funding received from foreign governments that either have no lost love for Israel or pretend not to be aware what the organizations administering the distribution of the funds to NGOs are up to, or to whom and the purposes for which these funds are being given.

Members of the group “Israeli Boycott from Within”, that champions the boycott and divestment of their country are accosting IDF soldiers near Gaza and calling them “terrorists’.

B’Tselem telling the Israeli soldiers to disobey lawful command in defending the Gaza border.

Then there are other 900 Israeli groups funded by NIF such as the pro-BDS Coalition of Women for Peace (CWP), Abdallah; pro-intifada groups Physicians for Human Rights –Israel (PHR-I) and Yesh Din, generally anti-Israeli groups; Breaking the Silence, Molad, Emek Shave, Gisha, HaMoked, Ir Amim, Mossawa, Maschom Watch, Rabbis for Human Rights, and SISO-Stop the Israeli Occupation, and many others.

All, groups consisting of frustrated politicians to be who cannot persuade the citizenry of the validity of their causes to be elected to the Knesset and resort to dishonour the country and its people and in the process fuel further virulent and violent anti-Semitism, as is the case in Europe.

I wonder, is there another nation/ country whose members act like these Jews? Personally, I cannot think of one that bears proper comparison.

Then again, are these folks really Jewish? If so, is this what Jews are about: A nation full of self-hating ones? A nation against itself? A nation of traitors to it? A nation whose extraordinary achievements and contributions to the well-being of humanity are negated by the actions and words of those who belong to it? A nation that cannot live in peace with itself? A nation unwilling to disown, jettison and banish the rotten in its midst?

Whatever a Jew, and the Jewish nation is or has become, personally I find it increasingly difficult to reconcile myself to the new reality.

To paraphrase a Rabbi who is recently reported to have said that ‘being Jewish is 24/7 affair”, I would go further and say that being a Jew loyal to his and her nation and to Israel is a solemn and sacred duty 24/365-66 to infinity.

And so is naming, shaming and putting out of business of the disloyal, the treacherous, the seditious Jews who denigrate their nation and the State of Israel the individual and collective moral imperative obligations that flow from that duty.

Dogan Akman was born and schooled in Istanbul, Turkey. Upon his graduation, he immigrated to Canada with his family. In Canada, he taught university in sociology-criminology and social welfare policy.  After a stint as a Judge of the Provincial Court (criminal and family divisions) of the Province of Newfoundland and Labrador, he joined the Federal Department of Justice working first as a Crown prosecutor, and then switching to civil litigation and specialising in aboriginal law.