We said ‘Never Again’ and we meant it!

Whether Chuck Schumer likes it or not! Opinion.

By Ronn Torossian, INN                                                                                   20 March 2024                           Ronn Torossian

Senator Chuck Schumer epitomizes the famous quote where Lenin referred to those who work against their people’s own best interests in support of their enemies “useful idiots.”

While Senator Chuck Schumer calls himself the “Shomer” (Guardian) of Israel, I’ve heard a number of other nicknames recently, including “useful idiot,” or as Rabbi Pesach Wolicki called Schumer, “court Jew.”

Rabbi Wolicki said that Schumer is the “court Jew” of the Biden administration “a man who is serving against the interests of the Jewish people, against the interests of Israel and I would argue against the interests of Judeo-Christian civilization.”

Hamas – the enemy of Israel – is certainly no friend of the United States or Western civilization and Schumer has empowered them with his public, loud and ugly criticism of Israel.

While the Jewish state is in a time of war, while our women are being raped held hostage in Gaza, while other hostages are starved in captivity, while soldiers are being killed, Schumer the highest-ranking Jewish elected official in the U.S. called for new elections in Israel and a two-state solution as he criticized the Jewish state. Shamelessly.

The overwhelmingly Ashkenazi liberal progressive American Jewish community has people like Schumer’s “Rabbi”, a female Reform J Street activist who has called for a ceasefire and has defended BDS. This is totally out of touch with Israel’s reality, where the entire nation will not accept a Palestinian state and is united in the drive for the destruction of Hamas.

So sorry, Senator Schumer, America doesn’t decide when Ukraine holds elections, when France holds elections or when Israel holds elections.

Schumer – a Jew of the Diaspora – should remember the words of Ze’ev Jabotinsky who in 1908 wrote of Jews who displayed an ambivalent attitude to their people, “The bitter root of our shame and our suffering is that we do not give our own people the full love of a patriot. It would be better if we did not love our people at all, if we were unconcerned as to whether it existed or had disappeared, rather than that we should love it halfway, which means to despise it. The Jewish character has some negative qualities; yet it is not because they are negative that we despise them, but because they are Jewish. As for those qualities of our race which are morally or esthetically irrelevant, they awaken our disgust because they remind us of our Jewishness.”

It is time to be said that many among us in both Israel and America are tired of hearing about the “radical” government in Israel of Ben-Gvir and Smotrich. If Netanyahu is responsible for Israeli “radicals” then why is Biden not responsible for the actions of the Squad and Democrat radicals? On the Republican and Democratic side of the aisle there are people outside of the mainstream, just like in Israel. They were elected and will be again.

Israel’s first Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion once said, “When Israel has prostitutes and thieves, we’ll be a state just like any other.” We have prostitutes and thieves – as well as politicians some people don’t like – that’s how it goes in democracies, and America doesn’t get to tell the Jews in Israel how to do things.

There are many lessons Jews learned from the Holocaust. Amongst them was that never ever again will the Jewish people count on anyone else to protect us. Never again will we stand by idly as our brothers and sisters are being killed. We said never again, and we meant it.

Whether Schumer likes it or not.

Prime Minister Netanyahu isn’t the issue here. Not Benny Gantz and not Naftali Bennett and not Yair Lapid would do anything other than destroy Hamas. Whether they are in Rafah or anywhere else, they must be destroyed. History often repeats itself, and we know that October 7th awaits us worldwide if we don’t protect our people and our country.

Yes, history often repeats itself. On June 22, 1982, Joe Biden was a Senator from Delaware and confronted then Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin during his Senate Foreign Relations committee testimony, threatening to cut off aid to Israel.

Begin forcefully responded,

“Don’t threaten us with cutting off your aid. It will not work. I am not a Jew with trembling knees. I am a proud Jew with 3,700 years of civilized history. Nobody came to our aid when we were dying in the gas chambers and ovens. Nobody came to our aid when we were striving to create our country. We paid for it. We fought for it. We died for it. We will stand by our principles. We will defend them. And, when necessary, we will die for them again, with or without your aid.”

Senator Biden reportedly banged on the table with his fist, and Begin retorted,

“This desk is designed for writing, not for fists. Don’t threaten us with slashing aid. Do you think that because the US lends us money it is entitled to impose on us that we must do? We are grateful for the assistance we have received, but we are not to be threatened. I am a proud Jew. Three thousand years of culture are behind me, and you will not frighten me with threats. Take note: we do not want a single soldier of yours to die for us.”

Ze’ev Jabotinsky, the leader of the Revisionist movement, from which both Begin and Netanyahu emanate, noted in 1940 that, “We hold that Zionism is moral and just. And since it is moral and just, justice must be done, no matter whether Joseph or Simon or Ivan or Achmed agree with it or not.”

Justice must be done.

Prime Minister Netanyahu is likely to remain Prime Minister at least through 2024. Minister Ben Gvir and others will continue to gain support the more the US pressures their voters. There won’t be a Prime Minister for many years who can stand a 2-state solution. Not in my lifetime. The people won’t allow it. America’s pressure has strengthened Israel’s Prime Minister. Should we thank Biden for that?

Ronn Torossian is an American-Israeli entrepreneur who lives between Tel Aviv and NYC.