After yesterday’s events in Amsterdam, telling Holland to wake up is a natural and understandable reaction. But I could just as easily said, “Wake up world”, for what we saw take place in the city where my parents grew up, is going to happen everywhere in Europe, and beyond, including eventually America, if this problem isn’t addressed. While I like to believe the majority of Muslims are not a problem, let’s call this what it is, a Muslim problem. Maybe more importantly, we should learn from history and identify the parallels of what we are seeing in Europe today to what we saw in Europe in the 1930s.
While we might be inclined to say that this is different because it is not government sanctioned, that is not entirely accurate. After the Islamic revolution of 1979 in Iran, it was made very clear that the goal was to make the entire world Muslim. Much of Holland’s Muslim population is of Moroccan descent, an important point to make when addressing the issue. Morocco traditionally has been a country welcoming to Jews. When Jews left Morocco for Israel in the first large migration of Jews from North Africa, the Royal family practically begged them to stay. But with the tentacles of Iran spreading everywhere, and using the Palestinian issue as there moral high ground, they have spread their evil rhetoric worldwide. That coupled with the funding of Qatar and others has fueled this rise in Muslim fundamentalism, And of course, just as was the case with Nazi Germany, while there ultimate goal is world domination, their favorite target is the Jews.
For those who throw around the terms “Nazis” and “fascists”, if you truly want to see an example of that today, just YouTube yesterday’s events in Amsterdam, events eerily reminiscent of Kristallnacht, which took place 86 years ago tomorrow. My fellow Jews need to call to task all of those who stay quiet when the Jewish people, .02% of the world’s population, are treated as though they are the problem and are targeted and attacked just because they are Jewish. We must not remain silent and we must not be afraid to speak the truth, regardless of who it offends or angers.
As for not only Holland, the country not just of my ancestors but my immediate family, but the rest of Europe and countries beyond, if you do not wake up, your governments will ultimately fall and you will enter an age of terror not seen since the 1940s. I like to believe that it is not too late, and in all honesty I just don’t know, but what I do know is that the only chance we have is in identifying and dealing with the real threat, not whatever scapegoat is easier to target and makes us feel better about ourselves.
It pains me that I even have to write this letter to you. It would have been my hope that the highest ranking Jewish politician in American history would be someone I could see as loyal to Israel and the Jewish people. However, in light of your recent comments it is apparent that your priorities and motivations must come into question.
I am not someone who believes that you do not have a right to disagree with the position of the Israeli government. You do not have to like Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. What you do need to do though, is understand the power of your platform and the consequences of your words. For you to state at this point in time that Prime Minister Netanyahu has lost his way and that Israel needs new elections makes you seem like a traitor to your Jewish people. It is not about the merits of the argument itself. Maybe Israel will need new leadership, and a 2 state solution with real partners in peace is something that certainly can be discussed, but to do this now is irresponsible and dangerous to Jews all over the globe and extremely empowering to Hamas and all parties wishing to obliterate Israel and kill Jews worldwide. Furthermore, if your response is that you are a U.S. Senator, not an Israeli Member of Knesset, if you do not realize that your comments put America in danger as well, maybe it is time New York held elections and elected new leadership in the Senate.
I would like to believe your motives are pure and that you made your comments because you believe it is the most swift and secure path to peace, but it certainly appears to many as though your comments show you to be a Jew 3rd, an American 2nd, and a politician first. I would feel otherwise Senator Schumer, but the one thing I am not accusing you of is being stupid. When looking at the old and famous Arab proverb, ” the enemy of my enemy is my friend”, and seeing how your comments subsequently make you seem like a friend to the likes of Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib, I must ask you this question. Are you trying to curry favor with the certain elements within your state and within the country? Do you feel as though ingratiating yourself to those who want to see every Jew killed will help you in the future? If so, I have just one thing to say to you. Kapos were killed by the Nazis as well.
I am not litigating why your comments at this point in time were as harmful as they were, because as I mentioned, I am not calling you stupid, Even though I would almost prefer to do so. I am calling you at best misguided, at worst a traitor. Not so much for your opinions, but for the timing of saying it to the world. You have a responsibility, like it or not, not just to the Democrat Party, but to the American people and your fellow Jews. In standing in opposition to the Israeli government while it is fighting for the survival of the State of Israel, Jews worldwide and in many ways freedom in the western world, you have shirked your responsibilities, and I, as a proud Jew and American will not be silent. It is my genuine belief that you do not speak for most Jews and very likely not for most Americans.
A spiritual global war has begun, and while the death toll nowhere nearly qualifies as what we would call a world war, make no mistake. The fate of the world is hanging in the balance, and should the scales get tipped in the wrong direction, the devastation will be enormous and more catastrophic than we have ever witnessed.
Having a positive outlook and being a person who spreads light into a dark world is important, but we live in times when a hard dose of reality must take precedent over all else. It is vital that we do not allow ourselves to be intimidated or frightened from telling the truth. Allowing someone else to dictate the terms of your very existence debases the gift of life given to us by God, and to allow someone to mark us as a racist for stating the facts, handcuffs us into submission. Between 1933 and 1945, Germans were not being called dangerous because they were born in Germany, or because they were white, they were called dangerous because they were ruled by a Nazi party that made much of the country follow their instructions and carry out their evil intentions. So too, to make the very accurate and critical statement that the world has a rapidly growing Muslim extremist problem, is not racist, it’s factual. One important fact is that the people in the Muslim world who enjoy their freedoms need to recognize we share a common enemy. If the western world wants to avoid a descent into another Dark Ages, the leaders of the west must start to identify the problem, for if they do not, life as we know it, will either be taken from us, or horribly changed forever.
How is it being done? They have the physical forces on the ground, most conspicuously controlled by Iran. However, the opportunistic, two-faced approach from Qatar, a country that funds the poison in American universities, is at least as heinous and destructive. One is attacking head on, while the other infiltrates from within.
The problem we are facing can best be illustrated by looking at 2 recent days. October 7th and October 8th. Everyone who is open, honest and even slightly decent, knows that the shocking and surprise attack that took place on October 7th was cruel, evil and barbaric to an extent not witnessed in the modern era. And yet, the victim, the Jewish people and the State of Israel, were ambushed again the very next day. Nowhere near the same devastating way as the day before, but in a clearly calculated, planned and coordinated effort to pour salt on our collective wounds. If you believe that the demonstrations that “popped up” the next day, before Israel even began its retaliation, were not part of the plan, then I want to tell you about this bridge between Manhattan and Brooklyn that I can get you at a cheap price.
I have known enough Muslims in my life to know that at their core, they are decent people like everyone else. But when any group has a growing element at the top that has learned how to tap in and poison the minds of a significant segment of society, a dangerously significant percentage of people can be swayed to commit evil, or at the very least, support it. This is what we are seeing today with those who want the destruction of Israel, the Jewish people and the whole western world. But to fool ourselves into believing that the problem only exists in the Middle East, is to fight a battle while surrendering the war. When we see the throngs of people in the world’s biggest cities, siding with terrorists and believing reinvented facts, we must realize that to leave this ignored, it to accept a new world order that will cost millions of lives and a descent into a world no civilized person will want to live in.
Ultimately this problem can only be solved by those with the power to do so. Every western leader that values the freedom their country provides them must stand up and be counted. It starts with supporting Israel, the country fighting the battle on the front lines. While it is true that it is fighting for its survival, taking actions that provide resistance to Israel’s victory is opening the door to a global catastrophe. Besides emboldening those looking to destroy the west, losing Israel, a country critical, not only strategically but militarily, is waving a white flag before taking the battlefield. This means the leaders of the free world must support Israel’s efforts to destroy Hamas and any adversary threatening its existence. This means these very same world leaders can not be intimidated by the protests in their streets and acts of hate and aggression that allow the inmates to run the proverbial asylum.
If this sounds like harsh medicine, it should. The disease that must be eradicated is spreading by the day, and the survival of the world as we know it today may very well depend on it.
Despite all you might hear or read in the propaganda put out by Hamas or from their accomplices in the media, both conventional and social, the vast majority of Israelis and Jews worldwide do not want to see the deaths of innocent civilians. Israel always has, and always will show the greatest respect for human lives. It is not only the Jewish way, it is the way of all decent people around the world. But when we look at the events of October 7th when upwards of 1400 people were massacred in Israel, and the almost immediate calls for a cease fire after the first bomb was dropped on Gaza in response, it becomes clear that the term “ceasefire” for many is not about showing compassion for innocents, it is about handcuffing the Israeli military.
An organization whose prime mission is to destroy Israel and kill every single Jew alive, invades Israel, commits acts of barbarity and depravity on the worst level, runs home and basically shouts, don’t hurt me! We would expect that from the cowards that they are, but then we have their evil minions, some of whom work for the BBC, the British parliament, the U.S Congress, and of course Hamas’s good buddy, the United Nations, calling for a ceasefire almost immediately, it becomes clear how devious and well organized their grand plan has become. The call came so quickly it’s been used as justification for the UN to basically ignore the actions of Hamas and of course not even considering a UN resolution condemning the terrorist group’s actions, something far too predictable from the world’s most corrupt organization. In doing so, these willing parties knew very well that what they were really calling for in their phony cry for compassion towards the innocents. They were calling for the destruction of the State of Israel.
At least Hamas is honest. They come right out and say they want every Jew dead, but those who preach their gospel, calling Israel occupiers and colonizers and accusing Israel of committing genocide, are devious to the extent that the Nazis were during the Holocaust. When you call for an immediate ceasefire of an organization that is open about not stopping till Israel is theirs and all Jews are killed, you do so knowing that the ceasefire ultimately plays into the hands of the group that wants death from the other side. They very conveniently ignore Israel’s constant attempts for peace with the Palestinians over the years. They ignore the fact that Israel has not occupied Gaza since 2005. They ignore the perverse financial corruption, causing over 2 million Gazans to live in poverty while Hamas invests sick amounts of money into their war machine and terror tunnels while their leaders live abroad as billionaires. What do they see instead? They see Jews they as being in the way.
Make no mistake. The plan of Hamas, Iran and all their accomplices is a restructuring of the Middle East followed by a restructuring of the rest of the world. This is not paranoia, it’s fact, based on their very own often verbalized ambitions. But again, their major obstacle are those pesky Jews in Israel, the ones who have the gall to think they have the right to survive, and who have the military might to ensure that they do. All they are left with right now, is a futile attempt to handcuff Israel, slow them down to a halt, so they complete their evil mission. Their biggest problem however, is when coming from people with zero moral clarity, who have no authority over Israel, and with Israel having an obligation to its people, in Israel and beyond, the mission must been to its completion. So stop with your crocodile tears and put away the handcuffs, because the jig is up. It’s abundantly clear that your call for a ceasefire is not a call to see less people die, it’s a call to see more people die. The difference is, that many calling for a ceasefire want all the dead people to be Jews.
In order to make the points needed in this piece there will be a number of definitions riddled throughout. The need for that comes from the astounding and alarming ignorance that prevails in much of global society. For far too many, progressiveness has become regressive. tolerance has become distinct bigotry, and liberalism has been completely hijacked. Independent thinking, or even thinking at all for that matter, has become a thing of the past.
A progressive is defined as a person advocating or implementing social reform or new, liberal ideas. I will address this definition after I address liberalism.
Tolerance is defined as “the ability or willingness to tolerate something, in particular the existence of opinions or behavior that one does not necessarily agree with.”
There are 2 definitions indicated for liberalism. For the sake of this discussion both are pertinent.
1:willingness to respect or accept behaviour or opinions different from one’s own; openness to new ideas.
2:a political and social philosophy that promotes individual rights, civil liberties, democracy, and free enterprise.
Now for some excerpts from the Hamas Charter.
The Covenant of the Islamic Resistance Movement was issued on August 18, 1988. The Islamic Resistance Movement, also known as the HAMAS, is an extremist fundamentalist Islamic organization operating in the territories under Israeli control.
The Islamic Resistance Movement is a distinguished Palestinian movement, whose allegiance is to Allah, and whose way of life is Islam.
Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it.
[Peace] initiatives, and so-called peaceful solutions and international conferences are in contradiction to the principles of the Islamic Resistance Movement.
The Day of Judgment will not come about until Moslems fight Jews and kill them.
If only it would be so easy that just reading the definitions and the facts would make an impact? However, since reading everything already quoted isn’t enough to change the minds of those seeing themselves as liberal or progressive, allow me to help.
By definition, liberalism is rooted in tolerance. Freedom of religion, freedom to express dissenting viewpoints, sexual freedom, and free elections, would likely all be necessary components of a liberal society. After all liberalism is a willingness to respect or accept behaviour or opinions different from one’s own; openness to new ideas.HAMAS, is an extremist fundamentalist Islamic organization. Since I know many of the mindless idiots trying to dispute this won’t bother, or get confused when not on TikTok, here are the definitions of the words extremist and fundamentalism, the two words at the core of your support.
Extremist a person who holds extreme or fanatical political or religious views, especially one who resorts to or advocates extreme action.
Fundamentalism :strict adherence to the basic principles of any subject or discipline.
Tolerance is more a precursor to liberalism than it is an opposing idea. As tolerance is “the ability or willingness to tolerate something, in particular the existence of opinions or behavior that one does not necessarily agree with.” Here are some fun tidbits for Queers for Palestine-the sister group of Blacks for the KKK and chickens for KFC- to rest their green and red hats on.
Palestine criminalizes same-sex sexual activity between men. Sentences include a maximum penalty of ten years’ imprisonment.
In October, Ahmad Abu Murkhiyeh, a 25-year-old gay man, was found decapitated in Hebron. He had sought asylum in Israel two years prior to his murder.
In February 2016, Hamas executed Mahmoud Ishtiwi – one of the group’s leading commanders – under allegations of gay sex and theft.
In August 2019, the Palestinian Authority announced that LGBT groups were forbidden to meet in the West Bank on the grounds that they are “harmful to the higher values and ideals of Palestinian society”.
So now we expand this to define a progressive as a person advocating or implementing social reform or new, liberal ideas.
Woman in the home of the fighting family, whether she is a mother or a sister, plays the most important role in looking after the family, rearing the children and embuing them with moral values and thoughts derived from Islam. She has to teach them to perform the religious duties in preparation for the role of fighting awaiting them.
In what sick world is that social reform or a liberal idea?
Allah is its target, the Prophet is its model, the Koran its constitution: Jihad is its path and death for the sake of Allah is the loftiest of its wishes.
In other words, equal rights for anyone who is Muslim and no one else.
Initiatives, and so-called peaceful solutions and international conferences, are in contradiction to the principles of the Islamic Resistance Movement.
Read this a half a dozen times and research why all peace treaties have fallen apart next time you have the gall to call Israelis the Nazis.
To quote the only good thing to be associated with the United Nations since Audrey Hepburn, (a great woman who worked with the UN to help feed starving children, not destroy Israel), palestine.unwomen.org states:
Approximately 15 per cent of married women in Gaza experienced incidents of sexual abuse by husbands over the previous year. More than half of these experienced it repeatedly (3+ times)
50 per cent of Palestinian women and 63 per cent of Palestinian men agreed that a woman should tolerate violence to keep the family together.
That means that when you shout Free Palestine and From the River to the Sea, you are supporting the suppression of half of humanity, and if you are a lesbian, you are marching against the acceptance of your lifestyle. Feel stupid yet?
I ask you. Does any of this sound liberal to you? Does it sound progressive? Is this rooted in what any sane person would call tolerance?
True liberals, such as my sister, have very tolerant and progressive ideas, rooted in what they conclude are ways of showing complete tolerance to all decent people and the pursuit of complete freedom of individuals to choose how they wish to live. However, she also recognize that fighting for your survival take precedence over all else, and that there is nothing liberal or progressive in supporting a movement that clearly defines one of its main objectives as the annihilation of an entire group of people, as Hamas does regarding the Jewish people. She recognize that there is nothing liberal about supporting a group that beheads babies and rapes and mutilates females of all ages. If you are someone who identifies as a Progressive or Liberal and you have chosen to rally in support of Hamas you are neither of these things. What you are instead is a mindless idiot, basing everything on doing the one thing that is less than progressive than anything else, following a mob. Worst of all, not only are you digging your own grave, you are helping move the world back to the Dark Ages. If that is what you support, you’ve redefined progressive and liberal.
I had the displeasure of seeing parts of your interview on CNN during which you focused on the events that have taken place since October 7th, while downplaying the atrocities of October 7th. This interview, conducted by Christiane Amanpour, who is clearly and consistently biased against Israel, felt more like a propaganda video than it did an interview of a woman of royalty.
In the interview you said the following:
“When October 7th happened, the world immediately and unequivocally stood by Israel and its right to defend itself and condemned the attack that happened … but what we’re seeing in the last couple of weeks, we’re seeing silence in the world.”
First of all, the whole world did not stand by Israel. Those with a modicum of moral clarity did, as did some of its closest allies, however before Israel even had a chance to respond to the barbarism committed against their citizens there were protests in the streets against Israel. As expected, there was no strong condemnation by the United Nations. And as soon as Israel started it’s bombing of Hamas targets there was an uprising in universities, many of them feasting off of funding from the Arab world. There were “Days of Rage”, called on by Hamas which conveniently led to protests in the streets. But your words are telling, because you say “what we’re seeing” as opposed to what is actually happening, because you see what best suits your prejudices and interests.
You then said:
“This is the first time in modern history that there is such human suffering and the world is not even calling for a ceasefire. So the silence is deafening – and to many in our region, it makes the Western world complicit.”
Really? First time in human history? Not one country joined in fighting against the Nazis before being attacked themselves. 6 million Jews were killed in what was truly a genocide and you have the audacity to speak of deafening silence? And complicit in what? Self defense? The government of a sovereign nation giving its people the right to live in peace?
You then went on to say:
“Are we being told that it is wrong to kill a family, an entire family, at gunpoint, but it’s OK to shell them to death? I mean, there is a glaring double standard here. “It is just shocking to the Arab world.”
I can see how it would be shocking to the Arab world. At least the element within the Arab world that does not value human life. The 1400 people murdered on October 7th were not warned to get out of the way and were not human shields for terrorists. They were innocent men, women and children, many of whom were helping Gazan residents on a regular basis. And to say “kill a family, an entire family, at gunpoint”, should already be seen as wrong by you under the circumstances under which it took place, but since it is not, allow me to make things a little more clear for you. Babies were beheaded. Living and dead women were raped. A pregnant woman had her stomach cut open and her baby shot next to her. People were burned alive. And all of these atrocities done on purpose by a gleeful bunch of terrorists. So to even attempt to draw a moral equivalency between that and the attacks on Gaza is rather disgraceful on your part.
What has to be remembered in light of your comments, is Black September, 1970, when an estimated 25,000 Palestinians were killed by your country, Jordan, after the PLO tried to overthrow the ruling monarchy. Let me repeat that, so that people reading this know the real double standard here. Jordan killed 25,000 Palestinians. Not because 1400 Jordanians were brutally murdered. Not because Jordanian women were raped. Not because Jordanians were under constant attack from missiles. And not because more that 200 Jordanians were kidnapped. Your country killed 25,000 people because the PLO tried to overthrow your monarchy. The only reason the number wasn’t more was because at that point you had successfully removed the PLO from your country and your leadership, which was the main concern of your ruling government, not your people. Israel’s war is being waged to protect the safety of its people.
You concluded by saying the following:
“I just want to remind the world that Palestinian mothers love their children just as much as any other mother in the world.”
If this is true, and I hope that it is, they will ultimately thank Israel for giving their children a future. With Hamas in charge, the future for Palestinian children is a future where at best they are pawns in a mission to destroy Israel, and at worst they are terrorists carrying out that mission. If you truly cared you would admit that to the world, but then again, if one really looks at the history we learn that Jordan never had any use for the Palestinians. That is the truth, but unfortunately, you and so many like you do not care about the truth, you care about what best suits your interests, and it is clear that Palestinians living in the freedom Israel would gladly help them achieve, is not one of your interests.
Make no mistake. This is a war not only against the Jewish people, it is a war against everything the western world, and particularly the United States, stands for. And unlike the efforts being made on our side to make it a cleaner, more humane war, the other side always has, and will always continue to fight dirty. While I have never been a soldier in combat, I do know that war is not a game. When it comes to war, the saying, it’s not if you win or lose that matters it’s how you play the game, does not apply. The objective of war, what bring you to that place when it becomes a necessity, should be the fact that winning is not only crucial, it is often a matter of survival. This means that having those concerns and alarms that would constitute paranoia in peacetime, in times of war are not only useful, they may be the difference between life and death. One such concern is that of the Fifth Column.
A Fifth Column is defined in Meriam-Webster dictionary as “a group of secret sympathizers or supporters of an enemy that engage in espionage or sabotage within defense lines or national borders.” In 1940, as full scale war broke out in Europe, President Franklin Roosevelt said the following in an address to the nation regarding the fifth column.
The methods of these “spies and saboteurs” was “to create confusion of counsel, public indecision, political paralysis and, eventually, a state of panic…. The unity of the State can be sapped so that its strength is destroyed.”
Identifying a dissenter or antagonist is much easier. Rashida Tlaib who spews hatred and vitriol towards Israel and the Jewish people, not only remains a member of Congress, she still receives classified briefings on Israel. While the danger someone such as Tlaib or an Ilhan Omar represents to ideology and the fabric of society is obvious, those that appear friendly, but work on behalf of the enemy are an even bigger enemy. To name anyone without proof would be reckless and irresponsible. To be tainted by prejudice towards even the most likely group of potential agitators may very well blind you from seeing the enemy in front of you. And while I have my suspicions, without facts to back them up, they are merely words. Words that will help no one and do nothing to make us safer.
So then what can we do to combat this potentially very dangerous element within the enemy’s army? It starts by changing your perspective. Putting woke ideology and progressive policy over the safety of your family and country is not only a mistake, its unethical. However, profiling when it comes to a danger as devious as the fifth column may cause you to look past the real danger. The bottom line is that unless you approach everything with an open mind, you are liable to miss what may be right in front of you. And even then the chances of missing it are far better than we would like them to be.
Ultimately, it is my contention that the best approach we can take as individuals is to listen to Maya Angelou’s famous quote that reads, “when people show you who they are, believe them the first time.”
We do not have the luxury to see things as we want them to be, we must see them as they are, and to ignore the likelihood of an enemy within, leads us down a very dangerous path. We are at war, and the enemy will do anything to be victorious. We must never forget this, lest we make their goal easier. This is not a game. It does matter whether we win or lose, because losing is not an option. It is a war we must win.
For YEARS I have said that randomly throwing around the word Nazi was dangerous. I have said that comparing someone to Hitler without factual backing is dangerous. It has happened on all sides towards anyone who committed acts or said thing they didn’t like. This is not a political post. As a Jew I feel that we are not in a time of politics, we are in a time of survival.
In speaking out about this, my reasoning was as follows. If you call everyone that says or does something you don’t like or does something that is actually wrong, when someone who is a Nazi or someone who is another Hitler rears their ugly heads, you might not recognize it. Well we are now seeing behavior truly comparable to the behavior of Nazis, lead by the Supreme Leader of Iran, Ali Khamenei, someone whose words and actions truly do compare to Hitler.
And now we have people rallying in favor of Hamas and screaming Free Palestine at rallies around the world, not knowing, or even worse not caring that in doing so they are supporting another Hitler, one who is openly leading a Muslim incarnation of Nazi Germany.
It is now time for all of us who have always understood who the Nazi were, tell the world that these terrorists attacking Israel are truly Nazis. Start calling them by what they are. Let the world know that not only has that disease been allowed to come back, it has come back strong, and there are far too many people supporting their cause.
As the full scope of the barbaric attack on Israel is still unfolding, people’s true colors are on full display. For all those tourists who visited Anne Frank’s House, or movie lovers and Hollywood types who loved and honored Schindler’s List, for all of those who have visited the Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C., or took selfies at Auschwitz, this is your time to speak up. The world is on trial now, and the verdict will likely not only determine the fate of Israel and the Jewish people, but very possibly the fate of the planet for decades, maybe even centuries to come.
Adolf Hitler rose to power in 1933. By the time he was conquered in 1945, while estimates vary, the death toll was believed to be around 60 million people in total, more than two thirds of which were civilians. While Hitler rose to power on the back of economic devastation in Germany, much of what powered him was an insane, uncontrollable homicidal hatred for, you guessed it, the Jewish people. Yet the world did nothing while Fascists groups rose and spoke up all over the world, including a pro-Nazi rally in New York City’s Madison Square Garden on February 20, 1939. Had it not been for Pearl Harbor, one could would wonder if the United States would have even entered the war at all. While America and Great Britain eventually played significant roles in defeating the Nazis, their knowledge of the tracks leading to Auschwitz never lead them to destroying them. Ultimately what it came down to then, and still comes down to today, is one very sad truth, and that is the fact that for a large portion of the planet, Jewish blood is cheap.
I know there are many good people. I know there are many who would die just as quickly to save a Jewish life as they would for any other innocent life. But still today there are far too many people out there who are tolerated for unimaginably distorted ideas of what the Jewish people are and what Israel is as a nation. People who saw videos of young women, children, elderly being kidnapped and taken to Gaza. Women raped and brutalized. Families slaughtered in their homes. Jews dehumanized as they were by the Nazis in what would turn into the mass murder of 6 million Jews. Many of who were Jewish women and children, raped, brutalized, humiliated, terrorized and experimented on by evil “doctors”. All lead by the obsessive hatred of one man, whose obsessive hatred led him to seek world domination that ended in the death of tens of millions of civilians.
Are you scared yet? You should be. Because that same hatred has been indoctrinated into a generation of Palestinian youth, youth that have now grown up to want what Hitler wanted, the death of all the world’s Jews.
So, politics aside, if you are anyone who tolerates anti-Semitic rhetoric from your local politicians, you are ultimately digging your own grave. If you are a social activist who is believing the rhetoric that Israel is an Apartheid State, you are digging your own grave. If you are a member of the LGBTQ community marching and shouting Free Palestine, you are marching against the one country in the Middle East where you could live freely, and yes, ultimately digging your own grave. But most of all, if you are watching brutality playing out before your eyes against innocent Israeli citizens, including women, children, and the elderly, and you are still blaming Israel, you are digging everyone’s grave.
This is not a game. The world is on trial, and those of us who believe in God might say that he is watching very closely. Watching to see who makes the right choice, and who makes the wrong one. This is real life, and whether those of you who hate Israel and think Jewish life is cheap want to admit it or not, you are fighting a battle that will end in your own demise. Ironically, not from those you are attacking, rather from those that you are supporting.
My name is David Groen. Please allow me to tell you a little bit about myself. I am the son of Holocaust survivors from Holland. As I am sure you know, Canada and Holland were strong allies in World War II. In fact, my father, who was an active member of the Dutch resistance, rode into the town where my mother was hiding when the Canadian military liberated it from Nazi occupation. The most important thing I want you to know about me is that I never knew my grandparents, one uncle, one aunt, and countless cousins, since the Nazis decimated the Dutch Jewish community, murdering 75% of the Jews living in Holland between 1940 and 1945.
So yes, I take what recently happened in your country’s parliament very personally. As an author and public speaker passionate about making the world aware of the atrocities that took place and keeping alive the memory of what happened under Hitler’s barbaric reign, my reasons for reaching out to you, as important as they may be, are not politically motivated. In fact, I am reaching out to you specifically to avoid being political, as the more political move would be to reach out to the leader of the opposition. However, my motivation is not to impact Canadian politics, it is to address and help fight a growing global crisis. I do not know you, so I am unable to comment on whether you are a good man or a bad man. I do know that certain Canadian officials, up to the very top, have pleaded ignorance regarding the history of Yaroslav Hunka, the Nazi living in your midst. I choose to believe that plea as being an honest one. Nevertheless, that does not make it an acceptable one. The only thing that will truly make it acceptable is a response in your parliament, preferably from someone who will tell a story of exactly why it is so important that this high level of ignorance be combatted. The speaker should not be a mere talking head, but someone whose family was impacted by the evils committed by the Nazis.
My public speaking revolves around the story of my uncle, Bram Rodrigues-Lopes. The younger and only sibling of my late mother, Bram was a violin player and band member when the Nazis invaded Holland. Through my book and website, Bram’s violin made it back to me and my family a little over 4 years ago. What makes Bram’s story so powerful and so relevant is the fact that he was murdered by the Nazis just 3 weeks shy of his 19th birthday. He never had a chance to build a life and leave behind a legacy. His story speaks to the reality and to the heart of what the Nazis did to those they wanted to exterminate, the Jewish people being priority number one. The story also speaks of the decency and bravery of the friend that safeguarded his violin, as well as his son who made the effort to find me.
Should you choose to bring me to Canada to address your parliament I will provide a powerful message emphasizing the dangers of forgetting the atrocities of the past together with the hope provided by the decency of others. What took place in your parliament this past week only magnifies the importance of keeping the story alive. My presentation will not be political as not only have I made a conscious decision to leave politics to those more qualified, but I also feel I have a different mission on this earth besides moving any country’s political needle. Since I see this as being an apolitical topic, and one of critical importance, I will leave everyone in the room with a message they will carry in their hearts and minds for years to come.
Many of us in the Jewish community use the line, “Never Again”. To work towards that, it is critical for it never to be forgotten. I believe certain people in Canada need a reminder, and I offer myself as the person to provide that reminder to your parliament.
Holland's Heroes 