People live by their biases and ideologies. Truth and facts are simply a waste of time for most.
If a Jew makes a quick trip to the Holy Land, he or she might make a point of visiting three key sites. The first is the Western Wall, the most visited destination in Israel. The Kotel, as it is known, is a portion of the retaining wall around the Temple Mount, where—lo and behold—the two Jewish Temples stood long ago. No, Abu Mazen, they were not in Yemen, as you so ignorantly suggested. The first was destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar and the second by Titus—Titus Arch in Rome memorializes the victory. The Kotel is like a magnet, and oftentimes, a person simply starts crying for no apparent reason when touching the ancient stones. If a person only had half an hour in Israel before having to go home, he’d head to the Western Wall.
The second site is the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron. Jewish tradition has it that the founding fathers and mothers of Judaism are buried there. The massive building on the site was built by King Herod, and certain parts of the structure, including the underground burial areas, are off limits. This past Sabbath had 50,000 people visiting the Tomb in memory of Sarah, Abraham’s wife.
The final stop would be Rachel’s Tomb in Bethlehem. I am old enough to remember when it was a very simple stone structure on the Bethlehem Road. One would pass it and the olive tree in front of it, park, and run inside to pray before the massive stone placed over the grave of Rachel, Jacob’s wife. It is a very popular location, and on the day that marks the anniversary of her passing, thousands come to pay their respects and pray for their needs at this holy site.
From downtown Jerusalem to Bethlehem is 20 minutes by car. Approaching the site is somewhat depressing. After an army checkpoint and massive gate, one passes through ten-meter cement walls on either side with watch towers dotting the path. On top of the security barrier is a smaller fence and cameras are everywhere. The old, simple building has been expanded and modernized to look like a fortress. Inside, one can see the original entrance and sign. Everything else looks like a US army base in Sadr City during the Second Iraq War.
The reality of Bethlehem is the reality of the West. Before Israel turned the city over to the Palestinian Authority (PA), it was 85% Christian. The city looked forward to Christmas and massive tourist income. Today, the city is only 20% Christian. Those massive walls are unpleasant but necessary: they keep out the suicide bombers, stabbers, car attackers, and drive-by shooters that are present among Palestinian Arabs. Just this week, two terrorists ran over and stabbed Israelis near Hebron. One man was killed and three were wounded. Arafat was irate when Ariel Sharon built the separation wall, as his trump card—suicide bombers on demand—would be much harder to play. The area immediately around Rachel’s Tomb is ugly but necessary. Either Israel would cede the space to the PA and no Jew could visit and expect to see his kin again, or it could build a complex and ugly set of walls and emplacements in order to allow Jews to go to a Jewish holy site safely. The PA claims the place to be a Muslim grave, and of course, the UN agreed. Those walls are meant to keep out the same people that Europe and the US welcome directly into their communities.
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If a person goes to his doctor and is told that he is pretty much healthy but has a very small cancer in his little toe, he would not go home to tell his wife that he is 99.99% healthy. He would be terrified that the little problem could become a life-ending problem. The fact that not all Muslims coming—mostly illegally—to Europe are active terrorists means nothing. Just this week, it was announced that the Muslim Brotherhood branch in the US was cutting checks for $1,000 for pro-Hamas agitators on campus. How many students had their studies and lives disrupted by people demanding the right of Hamas to rape and kill Jewish civilians? The people being kept out of Israel are being welcomed directly into Western cities. Does a day go by without a report of women being harassed in some European city by illegal immigrants? Have we not heard many times from Muslims that their goal is to establish Sharia states where liberal democracies currently exist? Recently, the tenth anniversary of the Bataclan massacre was observed. Reports from the time had French officials vowing an end to illegal immigration. Nothing was done there or anywhere else in the Western world. Why? “The more things change...”
The simple answer to the importation of people who hate the importers is ideology. The desires expressed by Muslims to create a caliphate fall on the deaf ears of those who want borderless societies. The left is enthralled with endless illegal immigration and throws enormous resources at people who refuse to assimilate and often state their outright hatred for their hosts. Locals in England are told not to bring their dogs into Muslim enclaves. In Houston, a restaurant owner was warned not to serve pork. Because much of the West has no religious conviction or belief in the goodness of their countries and values, they have no reason to fight back against their demise and conversion into Muslim Country 732. Because the West became enamored with lies, it cannot grasp the truth in order to fight back against its own demise.
- Jews have no relationship with the land of Israel; see three examples above, all centuries before Mohammed was born
- Israel committed a genocide in Gaza. The Gaza population has grown since October 7, 2023, and the vast majority of those killed were terrorists.
- There were no cases of rapes on October 7, 2023. Forensic data, first responders, and eyewitnesses demolish this lie
- Islam is just another religion; unlike other religions, strains of Islam come to conquer, if by war, if by peaceful means.
- Uncontrolled immigration is a boon; in both the US and Western Europe, illegal immigration has destroyed the social fabric and led to the macabre situation in which the locals play second fiddle to those who broke the law in order to enter the country
And this is only a tiny speck of the lies that are accepted as dogma. For decades, Israel has based its PR campaign on endless data showing that the IDF is the cleanest army in the world, that Israel does not starve civilians, etc. But it all means nothing. Where truth is not the final word on a given subject, proofs and evidence are meaningless. The Oxford Union recently voted last week that Israel is a greater threat to regional peace than is Iran. Israel has never threatened to wipe any country off the face of the Earth; Iran has done it frequently with respect to Israel. Iran hangs gays; Israel gives them parades. Again, in a real world of real truth, the proposition would have lost in a landslide. In a mind-virus third-tier university, Israel was found to be the bad guy before the debate even began.
The West is committing suicide. I wish that I could say that I’ll just sit here in Jerusalem and watch, but Israel’s future is intimately tied to that of Europe and the US. The freedoms and rights that we take for granted are going to be snuffed out because the ugly barrier that Israel needed to build in Bethlehem did not make the West understand what it was importing into its midst.
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