Israel is a reflection of the hatred of those attacking her.
I admit that I did not read the Harry Potter books. But I did see the movies, so I am not a complete ignoramus of JK Rowling’s magical world. One of the most interesting creatures described is a Boggart. It has no intrinsic form but rather lives in a closet and appears as whatever the greatest fear of the one facing it has deep down. It might be his grandmother or snakes, ants or Voldemort. The Boggart’s shape is completely determined by another.
I thought about the Boggart when I listened to the endless Israel-bashing from various talking heads. Theo Von asked Joe Rogan how long Israel would “let us live”. I live here in Jerusalem and I have never heard of any plot to wipe out people with lots of hair but no brains. One of the methods of Von and other grifters is to throw out things that have no basis in reality. Once the accusation or claims are made, then it is turned into a “fact” which cannot be either unheard or proven wrong. When Von asked his question (while strangely not wearing traditional Qatari dress as he did in Doha), he made a vile accusation against the state of Israel, its leaders and its supporters. Even if Israel has nuclear weapons, which is assumed to be the case, it has neither the means nor interests in using them against its strongest partner and friend, the United States. But if Von asks the question, then it now falls to somebody in Israel or someone Jewish to explain that there are no plans to kill anybody—to the disbelief of the listener.
But Von is not alone. Candace Owens is raging about the French trying to kill her—of course, using an Israeli assassin. No proof has been put forth to date, but once again, Israel becomes the lurking killer, waiting to do in somebody fighting for truth, justice, and ratings. Tucker Carlson makes it sound as if the entire Congress does nothing but serve Israel. One can look at the little time that our representatives actually spend governing, and probably less than 1% of it is related to Israel. AIPAC spends a lot less than the Qataris, Saudis, and others in influencing Congress. Did you know that the Palestinian Authority (PA) drops a pretty penny to use Patton Boggs as both its lawyers and lobbyists in the United States? As they are the number one lobbying firm in Washington, they don’t come cheap.
So why do people make unfounded and unprovable accusations against the Jewish state? Out of hatred. We again return to the theme that it is bad manners to say that one hates the Jews and wishes them to die like they did in the Holocaust. So, he moves into second gear and starts claiming that “Zionists” and “Israel” are doing horrible things against Christians, Americans, and the interests of the United States. Carlson particularly likes to attack Ben Shapiro and Mark Levin: if they support Israel, then they do so specifically at the expense of the United States. I know of no comment that either has made to suggest that Israel’s interests supersede those of the United States. It’s like a person being a Cubs and Bears fan: how dare he! He must choose one, as by supporting both, he is really proving that he only loves the Bears and is trying to hurt the Cubs—by means unknown. For Carlson, Owens, and their ilk, Israel is the Boggart. They make claims against the state that have no relationship to what actually happens in reality. Rather, their claims reflect their own hatreds of Israel, Zionism and by extension Jews. Israel did not drag the US into the Iranian war. Rather, it wiped out much of the Iranian air defenses so as to set the stage for the spectacular B-2 attack on the underground nuclear facilities. Carlson particularly accused Israel of dragging the US into World War III, with tens of thousands of American casualties expected. When such an outcome did not come to be, did he apologize or say that he had been mistaken? No, the Boggart just went back into its cabinet until Carlson says that Christians who like Israel are violating their faith.
Candace Owens was quick to associate Israel with the assassination of Charlie Kirk. If one looks at the publicly available information, the murderer was local, there was video of him going to and leaving the venue, and his father aided in turning the criminal over to the police. No Israeli consular official flew to Utah to meet with the shooter and Israel did nothing before or after the murder to suggest that it played any role in the tragic killing. Kirk was a great friend of Israel and was insistent that he did not want Nick Fuentes and his antisemitism in his movement. When one stands in front of the Boggart cabinet, all reality vanishes and only one’s own personal hatreds and prejudices come out and are expressed in the monster. Von also suggested that Israel was behind the killing of JFK. Again, no proof, but simply Von expressing his hatred of Israel/Jews by claiming that they did evil that cannot be disproven.
Even as I write, Tucker Carlson once again opens the Boggart door: “Zionism is an attack on Western civilization”. How so? That Jews in the diaspora created a movement to return to a biblical homeland—how exactly is this an affront to the West? It was the British who put it in writing in the Balfour Declaration. It was Harry Truman who recognized the nascent state of Israel a mere 8 minutes after it was declared. If Israel were an Arab part of Egypt or Syria, the West would have no place for reliable intelligence, technology, and cooperation. People like Carlson like to throw things out in order to sow in people’s brains ideas against Israel and Zionism. He walked back his “I hate Christian Zionists” statement, but he continues to claim that Zionism is evil, and as such, he went on to claim that Bibi Netanyahu is the “main enemy” of the West.
A Hamas network was rolled up in Europe due to Israeli intelligence. Though the Nazis murdered millions of Jews, Israel is a reliable partner and friend of the modern state of Germany. Again, Carlson’s statements on Zionism and Netanyahu do not reflect the objective reality in which you and I live. They are a testimony to his hatred of Jews and Judaism, which, for religious reasons, he loathes. He can’t say the same, so he uses “Zionists”, “Zionism”, “Netanyahu”, “Levin”, and “Shapiro” as his props. Let’s say I hate my mother’s cooking. But saying so would mean that I would be breathing out of the back of my head. So I rail against the oven, the supermarket where she buys food, and the utensils we use. I can’t come out and say what I really want to say, so I attack all things closely associated with the same. Just as the head of the Auschwitz camp could honestly say that he personally never killed anybody—and thus received a life in prison sentence instead of hanging—Carlson can say that he never said a word against Jews. Rather, he said that Donald Trump’s friend Bibi is an enemy, that Levin and Shapiro are foreign agents, and that Zionism is a plot not only to take over Israel but the whole world.
How do you conquer a Boggart? You laugh at it and scream, “Riddikulus!” at it. And this must be our approach to the demented right in their baseless hatred of Israel and Zionism.