Michael L.
I just want to take a moment to thank two non-Jewish friends of the Jewish people who have recently come to prominence. Ryan Bellerose is a Native-American Canadian activist and athlete who has spoken consistently to the idea that Arabs, as a conquering power, cannot claim indigenous status to the land. After all, if Arabs can make this claim viz-a-viz Jews then why cannot Europeans claim indigenous status in the Americas?
It is hugely important, in my view, for Jewish advocates to thank our friends and, although we must stress Jewish self-sufficiency and independence, we must never fail to thank our friends when they come forth. This is true of not only large, significant groups such as, say, the people of the Czech Republic which has shown itself to be a consistent friend to Israel, or to, for example, the Evangelical American Christian community, but of specific individuals who have the integrity and the strength to stand up, even it means standing up against significant segments of one's own community.
Certainly Chloe Valdary is admirable in this regard.
Her voice is like a bell in the night.
Indeed.
How is it that a young southern African-American woman, not even out of college, yet, understands what most Jewish people seem not to and has the cajones to stand up before the world and speak that truth?
What Bellerose and Valdary understand is that the struggle for Jewish sovereignty and self-determination is part-and-parcel of the ongoing movement for social justice and universal human rights.
All "Zionism" is is the movement for social justice for the Jewish people. In this way it is little different from the Civil Rights Movement or any of the struggles of indigenous peoples to establish or maintain freedom. The Jewish example is different from those other struggles primarily in the fact that the Jews of the Middle East succeeded in gaining their freedom upon the fall of the Ottoman Empire and the retreat of the British Empire from the Levant, and through the establishment of the Jewish State.
In the eternal struggle between David and Goliath most on the Left have now decided that the Jews, therefore, represent Goliath.
What Bellerose and Valdary understand is that the Jewish people represent .2 percent of mankind yet receive a degree of hatred and violence and malice wildly out of all proportion to our alleged crimes.
The Middle East is seething with riots and rapes and grotesque, theologically-inspired beheadings and millions of people are dying and being displaced. Bellerose and Valdary have the insight and morality and clear-headedness to understand that what ails that part of the world is, thus, not the tiny Jewish minority endeavoring to protect itself and its children.
And I, speaking strictly for myself, want to thank them both.
You are both gems and we need you.
Debate Magazine
