Dittoville

UPDATE 3/22/18: Even paradise can always use some improvements.

UPDATE 1/29/18: Daily Israeli log, appropriately titled VeryGoodNewsIsrael.blogspot.com, subtitled “News of Israel’s Achievements and Heartwarming Stories from the Jewish State.” From medical breakthroughs to improved dog training and good deeds on the street, clearly the most civilized society in the Middle East and right up there in the top 10 worldwide.

ORIGINAL POST 12/25/17: During a recent visit to Israel, this writer was witness early on to  an enthusiastic tour guide (an Australian-born Israeli citizen) announcing that the President of the United States had just unambiguously announced support for Israel’s choice of Jerusalem as its capital and was moving the U.S. Embassy accordingly to that capital! This unabashed fan of Israel was about to applaud and whoop but instantly sensed that none of the other strangely silent, almost exclusively American tourists shared that enthusiasm. Somewhat later, one-to-one, a hand was offered with “Let me be the first American to congratulate you on the good news!” Gesture and sentiment gratefully accepted!

The good news is that, thanks to Donald Trump, America is again a fortifying presence in Israel and the Middle East, brooking no blackmail and threats of violence from the same Mafia  types who perpetuate the Israeli-Arabic (“Palestinian”) conflict for their own evil power-for-profit racket. The so-called “peace process” has been nothing but phony demands for “a Palestinian homeland” (yielding up billion$ in aid supposedly earmarked for said “cause”) followed predictably by refusals to take any steps toward establishing that mythical “homeland.” Why take responsibility for building a homeland when screaming for one as an end in itself is so profitable?  The time is long overdue for serious answers about how and why all those billions in foreign aid end up in the Swiss bank accounts of an Arafat and his slimy successors while the purported “victims of Israeli aggression” remain impoverished and routinely stirred up in seedy “Palestinian” outposts like Bethlehem, East Jerusalem and Gaza. Visit these slums to get an idea of what, currently, a “Palestinian” homeland looks like.

At one point, Muslims in these run-down spots were offered Israeli citizenship, an offer now effectively withdrawn. The Israelis, looking at Europe in immigration crisis, realize full well the proven risks of a burgeoning Islamic occupation in their midst. Already nearly a quarter of Israeli citizens are Muslims. Those young, educated, working Muslims who are not naturalized Israelis regret their rootless status, realizing full well the profound advantages of living in and under the laws of an orderly, genuinely diverse Western society. Blame the corrupt leadership (Arafat & the PLO, Hamas, Hezbollah) and their refusal then and now to recognize Israel’s right to exist as a nation for that.

The Israelis, like America, offer peace and opportunity. The Palestinian Mafia, largely controlling the narrative on the other side, offer another Holocaust and continue to profit from that. There is no solution until the Muslims rid themselves of this cancer. The PLO/PA godfathers have nothing to gain from peace or a homeland. The people themselves are in permanent waiting mode. So it is with the hopeless inhabitants of our own dismal Inner Cities and their mysteriously wealthy “advocates” like Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton and their cronies in the UN, in Congress and, until recently, in the White House.

American apologists and Israel haters with boring predictability invoke the hot-button word “settlements” to decry the alleged victimization of  “Palestinians” supposedly driven off their ancestral lands. This narrative conveniently fails to acknowledge that historically, the Jewish presence in the region, Jerusalem specifically, goes back thousands of well documented years B.C. Then on the timeline comes Christ and the Christians with Mohammed only making the scene in the 7th century A.D. Phony claims notwithstanding, the Koran makes NO mention of Jerusalem, so the bogus claims of Israel being a “Palestinian” (radical Muslim) homeland ring totally false.

Just as the Jews uprooted themselves from all corners of the earth to migrate to their historical homeland, the  dissatisfied Muslim residents of Israel might do the same: moving to Jordan, Gaza, Egypt, Lebanon, Syria… OR remain as Israeli citizens (and practicing non-Sharia Muslims) enjoying all the perks of living in a civilized, modern, law-abiding society and playing by the rules of that generous society, not subverting it.

In America, the mention of Israel evokes all the usual disapproving, empty cliches. The steady drumbeat of negative buzzwords from the MSM has had its effect: Israel/Netanyahu as “warmonger;” the condemnation of  cruel “settlements;” the romanticization of “Palestine,” “Palestinians,” and “Palestinian lands;” labeling Israelis “cold and hard.”

To “Palestinians” and their riled-up champions in the West (including clueless American Jewish Liberals): take your pick.

Oh, it’s all so “complex.”

Except it isn’t. Any more than stating with unshakeable conviction that America is not merely exceptional but great, probably the greatest nation in history. But such appreciation and gratitude is not politically correct, de rigeur, in sophisticated circles. Except it is, now that an American leader has earned the right to be called a leader and has joined another true leader, an outspoken Israeli who has been, in the absence of principled American leadership, the true Leader of the Free World. Now he has an outspoken American for an ally, and we celebrate.

Part of Making America Great Again (MAGA!) is restoring her ties to kindred nations around the world that put freedom and individual  rights above all else. Is it any accident that such nations as America and Israel are the wealthiest, the most productive, the source of progress in all areas of life: science, the arts, medicine, technology….?

Visiting a place like Israel, enjoying every conceivable comfort of modern life, reveling in its youthful creativity, its civility, its opportunity, its sanity, genuine diversity,  extraordinary natural and man-made beauty:  it makes one believe in miracles. From out of vast stretches of empty, arid spaces, despite continuous opposition from 1001 hostile quarters, there has emerged within our lifetimes another beacon of freedom, an inspiration, (to repeat) a miracle.

Miracles seem to be more than happenstance in that place. There is a story of a Jewish baby born under humble and dangerous circumstances in Bethlehem, just on the outskirts of Jerusalem, who grew up to affect the life of man on earth as no other solitary life ever has. That was 2017 Christmases ago, and as much as anything, we celebrate today two effects of that remarkable life, and they are called America and Israel.

May God continue to bless them and all of us.