Journalist Amit Segal last week posted a photo of himself wearing a T-shirt sporting the words: “I don’t know when there will be an attack on Iran.” The writing on his back read: “There’s no point in asking me.” I have a different question for Segal: “Where did you buy that shirt?” I’m thinking of wearing it for Purim next week – if the war hasn’t broken out by then.
As usual around here, when the going gets tough, humor takes over. A Hebrew meme doing the rounds says: “It’s now official: Sources say that an attack on Iran is likely today or tomorrow; or maybe next week (wouldn’t swear to it); or some day in the coming month; or there’s a chance that in the end they won’t attack.”
Some people are betting that an attack will take place on Purim itself. I’m not willing to bet on anything – except that the Jews will be blamed, no matter what happens.
Purim is one of those quintessential Jewish holidays often summed up as: “They tried to kill us; we survived; let’s eat.”
The festival marks the story of the Jewish people as recorded in the Book of Esther, when Haman – the adviser of the Persian king Ahasuerus – plotted to kill every Jew in the empire. Esther, with the help of her uncle Mordecai, came to the rescue and Haman and his sons were hanged on the gallows they had prepared for Mordecai.
That was in the fourth century BCE. Jews have a long collective memory. The holiday is celebrated, among other things, by hearing the story of Esther read out loud – while drowning out the name of Haman; eating a festive meal; giving gifts to the poor; and holding parades in fancy costumes. In another curious custom, people are meant to drink until they can’t tell the difference between “cursed Haman” and “blessed Mordecai.” Everything becomes a blur, which is why it becomes hard to distinguish between a “Purim spiel” – a holiday gag or parody – and real life.
As I’ve noted before, were the Purim story to take place today, far from being strung up on his own gallows, Haman would probably be invited to address the UN and blast the Jewish state.
Carlson, controversy, and conspiracy claims
Last week's visit to Israel by radical right-wing podcaster Tucker Carlson was so peculiar it almost parodied itself. Talk about a flying visit. Carlson didn’t leave the VIP lounge of Ben-Gurion Airport – claiming he had been forcibly detained there, despite footage showing him taking selfies with airport staff.
It wasn’t Israeli security that grilled him at the airport. Carlson sat down for a three-hour interview with US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee, a proud Christian supporter of the Jewish state. Carlson could have worn a T-shirt just saying, “There’s no point in asking me.” He made many accusations against Israel and the Jews but did not succeed in answering Huckabee’s questions.
I didn’t sit through the entire interview – life’s too short, especially when Iran is threatening to renew ballistic missile attacks on your home – but I saw enough to understand where Carlson was coming from. It’s a dark, conspiratorial place.
The charges are not new. On the contrary, many of them are based on ancient libels from which the Jews have suffered over the centuries.
He tried to prove that Israel is pushing out the Christian community, using Bethlehem as an example. He obviously didn’t realize that the town Christians value as the birthplace of Jesus has been controlled by the Palestinian Authority since 1995 under the Oslo Accords. The PA control accelerated the decline of the Christian population.
Within Israel, the Christian population, by contrast, continues to grow in absolute terms (although, it has dropped as a percentage of the overall population). Carlson’s claim that Qatar has more Christians than Israel ignores the fact that the Christians in Qatar are mostly foreign workers, not citizens, and lack many basic human rights. He might not have noticed that it is one of several countries where converting from Islam to Christianity is illegal.
Carlson’s assertions that Jews are descended from converts of European descent and therefore have no right to the biblical Land of Israel are also not new. But this was the first time I heard a suggestion that Israelis take DNA tests to prove they are descended from Abraham.
Jews have survived forced dispersion for millennia – and always returned to the Land of Israel (Zion). It’s one of those things that clearly drives our enemies like Carlson mad. And I’m not sure if it was ignorance or blind hatred that allowed him to ignore that more than half the Israeli Jewish population is not Ashkenazi.
I doubt he’d expand his genealogical testing to other religions – it might be uncomfortable to discover how many Muslims and Catholics are descended from Jews converted under duress during the Muslim spread from Mecca and the Spanish inquisition. Monty Python declared “Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition!” Now we’re meant to expect a reverse inquisition under which the Jews have to prove their right to identify with their faith.
Regarding Mecca, under Saudi law (and the Quran), non-Muslims are not permitted to enter the Holy City because their presence would defile it. For the 19 years Jordan controlled the Old City of Jerusalem – from 1948-1967 – it similarly banned Jews from visiting Temple Mount, Judaism’s holiest site, and the Western Wall. No wonder the PA believes it can get away with banning Jews from Judea and Samaria (the West Bank).
Although life goes on in what passes for normal, Israel is taking precautions against the possible renewed hostilities in which missiles, rockets, and killer drones could be launched by Iran and its proxies: Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis. Israeli hospitals are preparing underground parking areas to serve as rocket-proof wards in the event of war. This is the exact opposite of the Hamas strategy of building terror tunnels and weapons facilities underneath hospitals, to use the medical centers as shields.
In another topsy-turvy phenomenon, Israel – the victim of a terrorist invasion and mega-atrocity on October 7, 2023 – is being accused of an ongoing genocide against its attackers.
Something doesn’t add up – or rather adds up to hypocrisy. In the Islamic Republic of Iran, a reported 30,000 demonstrators against the regime have been killed since the end of December. That’s 30,000 people fighting for freedom who were murdered by their own government within less than two months. This is what a massacre looks like – but the silence of the liberal and leftist elites is haunting.
Contrast this to the situation regarding Israel and Gaza. Israel went to war after the Hamas-led, Iranian-backed terrorists slaughtered 1,200 people and abducted 251 on one dreadful day. The Palestinians perpetrated a very deliberate act of genocide, an unprovoked assault on the Jewish state.
After two years of war, Hamas is quietly admitting that it hasn’t been the victim of “genocide” and “mass starvation” – the buzzwords that have become the bon ton of our times.
As Commentary’s Seth Mandel noted, “Those who have participated in the ‘genocide’ Big Lie have not made an honest mistake. A mistake – but not an honest one.”
Mandel points to Hamas claims that it suffered 68,800 deaths, of which 25,000 were acknowledged as fighters (i.e. terrorists.) The remaining approximately 44,000 include some 10,000 natural deaths and the rest of the 34,000 includes civilians accidentally killed by Israel as well as those killed by Hamas and other terrorist organizations in rocket misfires, turf wars, and other internal violence.
There is no sign of disproportionate numbers of deaths among women and children. In fact, the Palestinians might be the only case of “genocide” where the population grew.
Israelis and Jews are being labeled “baby killers” – in mass rallies, on campuses, at sporting and cultural events, and in violence perpetrated against Jews in synagogues, restaurants, schools, and on the streets. Words kill, as antisemitic attacks in Australia, the US, and the UK show. But according to Hamas’s own figures, Israel’s civilian-to-combatant death rate is extremely low for an urban-war setting. And when Hamas finally released the last hostages last October, Israel stopped fighting.
Jews are used to being demonized. We are not masters of the universe but have mastered the art of survival. We’ve been there, done that, and got the proverbial T-shirt. We can wear it with pride on Purim.