Op-Ed: In These Tough Times, We Must Act

By Att’y Steven M. Goldberg, Arutz Sheva

The writer is National Vice Chairman of the Zionist Organization of America, Vice President of Children of Jewish Holocaust Survivors, Los Angeles. He practices law in Los Angeles.

“The Jew bows before no man, only G-d.” Menachem Begin

Is there any doubt that the State of Israel owes its birth to the Irgun Zvai Leumi? Although the Jewish establishment in the United States and Palestine lobbied, pleaded and cajoled the international powers to be so kind as to allow the establishment of a Jewish homeland while the flames of the Holocaust consumed six million Jews, it required the direct, aggressive and sinewy actions of the freedom fighters of the Irgun to convince the British to abandon its occupation of Eretz Israel.

As the “respectable” leaders wrung their hands, It was the Irgun, as well as Lehi, who responded to the brutality of the British measure for measure, whipping for whipping, hanging for hanging, and set the stage for the creation of the Jewish State.

The formal establishment of the State of Israel resulted in the retirement of the Jewish underground and its merger into the newly created Israeli government. The official military of Israel would henceforth assume the full responsibility for defending the citizens of the Jewish state. Further, the existence of a thriving Israel relieved supporters of the Irgun in the United States to relax and shift their efforts, if they wished to continue then, to activism more palatable to the American Jewish establishment.

Today, It is sad state of affairs that compels the conclusion that the Israeli government, despite being led by a Prime MInister raised and educated as a Revisionist Zionist, seems to be faltering in its responsibility to defend Israel’s citizens.

The government has allowed the mullahs of Iran to approach, if not pass, the point of no return in their drive to develop a nuclear weapon, in the desperate hope that the the United States will take the urgently needed military action or at least cooperate with an Israeli preemptive strike. In view of President Obama’s aversion to starting another war with a Muslim nation, proclaimed loudly by the selection of the pro-appeasement and anti-Semitic Chuck Hagel as Secretary of Defense, such wishful thinking is just that.

The Netanyahu government also called a premature halt to Operation Pillar of Defense back in November of 2012, which allowed Hamas to claim bragging rights about launching numerous rockets into Israel and withstanding Israel’s attempts to strike back. Hamas even launched several rockets at Israel’s citizens during President Obama’s visit with complete impunity, with the cynical confidence that the Prime Minister would not take any retaliatory action that might disturb his American guest.

A third intifada may be in the works. A baby girl is in critical condition because of a rock attack just outside of Ariel, and her mother and two sisters were also injured. A Jewish man was shot in the leg while waiting for a bus near Kedumim. Just a few months ago, two religious Jewish men were assaulted by Arab teenagers in an attack captured on videotape. Riots accompany the funeral of a terrorist who died of cancer in prison. IDF soldiers are routinely the victims of rock attacks, but expected to hold their fire and even flee, as long as they don’t injure their attackers.

Last year the Prime Minister released more than 1000 terrorists in exchange for the release of Gilad Shalit. Several of the released Palestinian Arabs have had to be arrested for planning new terrorist attacks, and it only a matter of time before one of them succeeds in murdering or maiming more Jews.
Israel’s government silently acquiesced as President Obama pointedly excluded students from Ariel University from attending his speech in Jerusalem.

To top things off, the Prime MInister, under obvious pressure from the President, offered an apology to Turkey for the actions taken in self-defense by the Israeli soldiers who were viciously attacked with knives, clubs and pipes when they boarded the Mavi Marmara. Loyalty to the courageous, wounded IDF soldiers and national pride took a back seat to the desire to please Barack Obama by giving him a diplomatic achievement.

If possible, American Jewry is in even more desperate shape. The Jewish establishment, including the supposedly powerful AIPAC, cowered in the face of the nomination of Hagel as Secretary of Defense, despite his blatant hostility to Israel.

It is virtually impossible to find an American Jewish leader who will tell the truth about the so-called two state solution, i.e., that it would be suicidal for Israel and should be renounced once and for all. It took a non-Jewish American candidate for President, former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, to tell the truth about the Palestinians, namely that they are an “invented people.” Of course, it does not help that Israel’s Prime Minister has announced his own support for the creation of a Palestinian state, despite his previous statements to the contrary.

Finally, Jewish students in American universities – and all over the world – are subjected to vicious and unrelenting boycott, divestment and sanctions campaigns and even physically intimidated by Muslim extremists who dominate campuses under the approving eyes of leftist professors and administrators. Israeli speakers and performers are heckled, insulted and even put in danger.

This leads to one conclusion: a new generation of Jewish activists must step forward both in Israel and in the U.S and create a 21st century form of a New Irgun.

In the security sphere, they must demand fitting responses for attempts to harm Jews. Rock throwing, which is attempted murder, has at last been recognized by the courts for what it is. It must not stop there. Jewish activists must demand that it does not.

On an economic level, there should be an unequivocal tit-for-tat against those who attempt to boycott any portion of the Jewish state. If the Palestinian Authority or any European state announces a boycott of goods from Judea and Samaria, Israel’s Jews should refuse to hire Palestinian workers or buy any goods produced by Palestinian businesses.

In the political sphere, anti-Israel politicians should be met with loud and visible protests by Jewish activists every place they appear. Although the likes of Ahmed Tibi have the right to speak freely, so do the Jews who oppose them, and they should assertively exercise that right.

In the United States, modern day versions of Peter Bergson and Ben Hecht should step forward to organize American supporters of the New Irgun.

American politicians hostile to Israel should be confronted. College students should be organized to coalesce and confront anti-Israel professors and Muslim extremist groups. Undoubtedly they will be subjected to the same demonization experienced by Bergson, Hecht and their supporters, but history will vindicate them.

Such a movement may not be popular with the establishment either in Israel or the United States. Doing nothing, however, is an even worse alternative.
As President John F. Kennedy stated, “There are risks and costs to action. But they are far less than the risks of comfortable inaction.”

The writer has requested that Arutz Sheva write that the opinions expressed in this article are his own and do not speak for the organizations with which he is involved.