by Abraham Cooper and Harold
Brackman
Vice President Biden, speaking at J Street a few days
ago, voiced the Obama Administration’s “overwhelming frustration” — at Israel for the lack of Mideast peace.
Well, “frustration” seems to be the Middle East’s middle
name these days. Has the Administration or the Media bothered to inquire about
the “overwhelming frustration” of millions of displaced Syrians, ethnically
cleansed Iraqi Christians, disappearing Yazidis, and dare we say it: the
citizens of Israel.
Many Israelis are “overwhelmingly frustrated” by the
world’s stony silence, as their fellow citizens were literally being
stabbed in the back by (primarily) young Palestinian terrorists.
They are "overwhelmingly" angered by a suicide
bomber who failed to kill himself but who succeeded blowing up a Jerusalem bus
and injuring 21 innocents at the height of rush hour.
How to gauge the level of their frustration at the
contemptuous CNN.com headline that
labeled the terrorist attack as “a bus fire.” And this is not the first dubious
headline from the world’s supposed leading source of objective news. (See-courtesy
of activist John Sutz: Why is CNN Wrong
About Israel So Often? | Paula R. Stern | The Blogs | The Times of Israel, San Bernardino:
CNN Asks Widow If Her Christian Husband Provoked Terror Attack - Breitbart, CNN anchor: Jews
carried out terror attacks, should they be barred from entering US? - Diaspora
- Jerusalem Post, CNN's Sciutto
Frets Israelis Using 'Excessive Force,' Shooting 'Unarmed Protesters' ).
Imagine the “overwhelming frustration” of Jews
in Israel and the world over at UNESCO- the international agency whose
mandate is to preserve historic sites—when its executive board
voted to erase The Western Wall (Kotel), as Judaism’s Holiest
site, and instead reclassified it as Islamic!
How do we measure Israelis’ “overwhelming frustration” at
a European Union, many of whose member states fail to even track anti-Semitic
hate crimes against Shoah-remnant Jewish communities, who do nothing to
disabuse old and new Muslim immigrants of deeply embedded anti-Jewish animus?
This is the very same European Union that labeled Israeli products from
the West Bank, while member states pour biilions in aid to the coffers of
the utterly corrupt Palestinian Authority.
And speaking of Europe— France--whose Islamist
terrorist-targeted Jewish citizens flee in the thousands to safe haven in
Israel, is taking the lead in launching an obscene anti-Israel Resolution at
the UN Security Council. It would pressure the Jewish State to retreat to its
pre-1967 “Auschwitz Borders” ( a term coined by the later Abba Eban, founder of
the Israel Peace Movement). Such a move would set the stage for the West Bank’s
transformation into yet another launching pad for missiles and terror tunnels
targeting at Israel’s population centers at point blank range.
Forgive Israelis if they feel an “overwhelming
frustration” and a foreboding sense of deja vu as they witness yet again the
ugly stain of “double standard” when it comes to the so-called global war
against terrorism.
While world leaders bemoaned the innocent victims of San
Bernardino, Paris, Brussels, and Lahore terrorist outrages, Jerusalem and Tel
Aviv rarely passed their lips. Israelis sense eerie echoes dating back to
the 1970s, when governments cut secret deals with terrorists to secure the
safety of their streets and threw Israel under the international bus while
European media pounded Israel as the Middle East’s (sometime Nazi-like)
Goliath.
And in 2016, Palestinians see that no one, not
Washington, Brussels, or Paris, let alone Moscow or Beijing is going to hold
them in any way accountable for their terrorist atrocities. As for the other
major European players, with President Obama ensuring the nuclear-linked
sanctions are ended, the stampede to renew business ties with the Mullahocracy
is led by Berlin and Vienna, human rights be damned. Imagine Mr. Vice
President, the “overwhelming frustration” felt by the long-suffering Iranian
people…
Bottom line: Israelis don’t need more lectures about the
importance of a Two-State Solution. The vast majority hope and pray that one
day that will be possible. But now? Tragically it is impossible. Not with
100,000 missile-laden Hezbollah on its Northern border. Not with with Iran and
its lackeys trying to open a direct front opposite the Golan Heights. Not with
Hamas’ terror tunnel construction continuing unabated. And not with a
Palestinian Authority that praises terrorist attacks against its Israeli
neighbors and whose bottomless corruption has destroyed its legitimacy with its
own people .
So please Vice President Biden, spare the people of
Israel another lecture. It will only add to their “overwhelming frustration”
with their closest friend and ally.
Rabbi Abraham Cooper is Associate Dean of the Simon
Wiesenthal Center. Dr. Harold Brackman, ahistorian is a consultant to the Simon
Wiesenthal Center