STEVE PIECZENIK TALKS

Bibi Netanyahu, the Presumptive Leader of World Jewry Refuses to Accept Devastated Syrian Civilians. 

Ironic, that the egotistical leader of a country that was created entirely by refugees (Jews, Muslims, Druze, Christians and even VietNamese Buddhists) will not open the doors to a single soul in one of the worst refugee crisis in history. No Israeli leader has shown less compassion, empathy or historical knowledge than the son of a Cornell Professor whose family was granted refugee status by America as Jews fleeing the Holocaust. No Israeli understood less about the beneficent nature of many Muslim Countries who gave many of us, Ashkenazy Jews, sanctuary during the WWII Holocaust. 

Part of my family comes from Algeria, where they had lived in the African Muslim culture for hundreds of years before they were thrown out during the French/Algerian War. At that time, there were thousands of Jews who lived in Morocco under the direct protection of the Royal Family. Even when the Sephardic Jews were chased out of Morocco because the nascent state of Israel created conflict points to force the Jews to leave to Israel; King Hassan always wanted to make certain that ‘his Jewish children’ would be well taken care of in this new state. Distant cousins in Turkey came from the Ladino refugees who were protected by Turkey for over 500 years. I can go on about how different Muslim countries, even ones that are perceived as hostile to Israel, have welcomed Jews throughout centuries of wandering about this earth seeking a homeland. Only a few years ago, I remember that in Isfahan, Iran, I encountered thousands of young and old Jews praying on a Friday morning under the bridge that was called in Farsi, “The Bridge of Jews.”

In contrast, it’s interesting to note that during WWII, Ben Gurion and the Jewish Council refused to save the lives of thousands of Jews incarcerated in the Nazi death camps. Instead, they insisted that Heydrich [father was an Austrian Jew] and Eichmann send cows and not Jews to Israel. Israel’s history is not great when it comes to saving the lives of the Polish Jews who literally created that state from its inception in Warsaw, Lodz, Bialystok. However, in the tradition of true Judaism [ a la Rabbi Hillel], Begin and the others of the Likud brought into Israel-- Ethiopians, Eritreans, Russians and  Vietnamese refugees.

Now we ask Israel to bring in those Syrian civilians tortured by war that was not of their making. I ask the youth of Israel to demonstrate against your presumed leader, Bibi, and demand that once again, Israel show mercy to those whom we consider our neighbors and friends.

I have been in Syria during the best and worst of times and I have never witnessed any Anti-Semitism against their own Syrian Jews. Yet I have seen Bibi attack with venom and graceless disrespect the very country that made and nurtured him and his arrogant family – The Great American Society of Christians [primarily]. Americans did not ask what you could do for them. They simply wanted to extend a hand to those in need.

Never Forget: America saved thousands of us Diaspora Jews when all others turned their back on us, even the nascent land of Israel.

The youth of Israel, who fight for it’s very existence, must show the compassion that your leader can never possess because he is too consumed with his arrogance, ignorance wrapped in layers of self-delusional paranoia. I am certain that his brother, the true hero of Entebbe, Yonatan Netanyahu who died to liberate hostages in Uganda, would have welcomed everyone in need to his homeland. That’s why he is a Jewish Hero and Bibi can never be! It’s up to you, the youth of Israel, to reclaim the future by truly understanding our past in the real diaspora.

“Treat others as you may want to be treated.. that is all you must learn in the Talmud”  Rabbi Hillel.