By Lloyd Levy
LONDON– The early Zionists were intent on creating a new Jew, one who would not be beholdento the non-Jewish majority. The new Jew would be free of the Diaspora mentality, which was perhaps most famously described by the Zionist poet Bialik, in his poem “The City of Slaughter .” The poem describes how the Jewish men hid when the Cossacks came, and left the women at the mercy of the pogroms.
In many ways this attainment of the new Jew, has been most successfully achieved in the 62 years since the Jewish State was recreated after a hiatus of 2000 years.
Yet in one important respect, the Israeli elite seem to have been unable to shake off the Diaspora mentality of trying to always please the non-Jew. This has been manifested above all in bowing to outside pressure to always offer concessions to our enemies.
For example, the British Foreign Secretary is currently in Israel, and has acted as if he is still the old imperial master. He has met with the Palestinians who weekly try to break down the “wall,” and urged them to redouble their efforts. Sheer hypocracy, if one considers that Britain has erected a similar wall in Northern Ireland, to separate the Catholics from the Protestants.
France is another one that likes to lecture, but are hypocrites. I well remember French agents sinking a “Greenpeace” ship in the Far East a number of years ago, and even currently is undertaking a mass expulsion of “gypsies”.
Yet Israeli leaders bend over backwards in typical diaspora tradition. They have shown a lack of self
confidence that only encourages more pressure. The Muslims dont have that problem- if someone publishes a
criticism of them in say Denmark, you get world-wide rioting, and often the stabbing of the perpetrator.
So the result is that the West self-censors and becomes frightened to criticise.
Israeli leaders have been the main culprits. Barak fled from Lebanon, Sharon from Gaza, and Olmert would probably have negotiated away the West Bank . Weakness merely begets more pressure.
Yet remarkably, in recent months this state of affairs has begun to change very significantly. Avigdor Lieberman, Israel’s Foreign Secretary, has publicly rebuked his French and Spanish counterparts, telling them to put their own house in order before criticising Israel.
UNESCO is being boycotted also, because it ruled that Rachel’s Tomb was not to be classified as a Jewish site, but as a Muslim one.
The displeasure felt against the British Foreign Secretary, as mentioned earlier, has been made clear.
This awakening of self confidence, led by Netanyahu and Lieberman is well overdue. Some may not like his politics, but a growing number of people in Israel feel that in Lieberman, they finally have someone who speaks for the Jews. Israel is self confident, and is prospering, while much of the world is in financial crisis. Israel has reached breakout in terms of technical and military prowess. I reiterate my opinions in earlier columns, that the “campaigns” in Lebanon and Gaza in recent years, were far more successful than is generally acknowledged.
Those of us in the diaspora still bear the inevitable yoke of the diaspora mentality. However thankfully, the Israeli elite appear to have at long last found their self confidence, and the Jews in Israel again have leaders that aspire to be a new type of self confident Jew.
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Levy is a businessman who divides his time between London and Eilat