Why I Stand With the Jews

06/13/2021

The current attack on the Jews even in Ottawa, New York or London is only a small sign of a larger struggle to come, a 'last territorial demand' that presages a wider conflict. The 'Woke' Neo-Marxists and other ideologues who have made common cause with Fundamentalist Muslims and their like have other objectives, but in reality they mean to topple our whole civilization and replace it with something 'better' -- we've been here before and it killed tens of millions of people.

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Like it or not, a time of crisis has stolen up on us, and the battle lines are becoming clear. I might not be much of a warrior anymore, but after a life spent in the study of history, things are becoming clear. Right now, in this time, I am going to stand with the Jews. Join me.

It is a simple choice, and cuts clear through the fog of Israel vs Hamas/Palestine that seems to have allowed an evil we thought was nigh-banished to re-appear. The battle is far more important than that. Like it or not, the battle is really about the future of civilization - and the survival of humanity.

Since the Greeks and the Latins shuffled out of the darkness of prehistory into the light, there have been certain characteristics that the infant Western civilization adopted and carried through. Don't take my word for it... you can read Will and Ariel Durant's multi-volume work "The Story of Civilization", Victor Davis Hanson's early work, or even the essays of Thomas Cahill in his "Hinges of History" series. There is a lot of other work you can pursue, if you have the time, while you are still permitted to read for yourself.

Humanity is flawed, imperfect, and often cruel. The record of history is grimy with all manner of sins and frequently blood-splattered. Yet... The Greeks had a spirit of restless inquiry; in a very few centuries, an illiterate barbarian people were fast forging ahead with the study of philosophy, mathematics, natural science, and much else. The Romans evinced a rough pragmatism that lent itself to engineering, law-making, and war.

At a time when God-Kings were dominating the river civilizations of China, India, Mesopotamia and the Nile, the Greeks and Romans had arrived with a different notion of power: The authority to govern comes from the consent of the governed, and politics must be consensual. This underlay the foundations of the Athenian Democracy and the Roman Republic, and no subsequent European king or emperor in the next 2,000 years who forgot this ruled easily or for long.

Then there were the Jews... who saw so much differently. Their relationship with God was uniquely defined, reciprocal and purposeful. There was a point to creation, to morality, and to law. In time, the Greeks and Romans wanted what the Jews believed and knew. Our ethics, laws, and the institutions derived from them are rooted in Judaeo-Christian morality and traditions.

It has taken many centuries to grow, and we have many imperfections (but we have a civilization that can even acknowledge this and feel guilt or sorrow for it - which is telling in itself). We ended slavery, are probing into the mysteries of the universe, and almost ended thousands of years of humanity's main existence as subsistence farmers living under untouchable elites. We have generated incredible wealth, comfort, and technology.

Yet, in every time and age, there are the barbarians... those who would overthrow our civilization and substitute something different. What we forgot is that the urge to barbarism lies within us all, and the behaviour of the 'Mob' is an old story - even to Athens and Rome. There are beliefs that can muster the barbarian who yearns to storm the cities and throw down the high towers there; to supplant customs, traditions, institutions or laws that they cannot control with something of their own devising.

Thus came the Bolsheviks and the Nazis - who both aimed to 'transform' civilization into something new. For them, the easiest part of erasing the old order was to first start with the Judaeo-Christian tradition. Lenin and Stalin started with the Churches, the Nazis started with the Jews, but both had the same object in mind. Both still linger, and the Marxists have managed to promulgate a new - and even more insidious - doctrine of 'Postmodernism' and infiltrate some key institutions.

The Muslim World grew outside the Western World, but even then was slowly coming around to accommodating it. Yet two things happened; the spiritual and political fundamentalists of the Salafist Muslim movement appeared and grew, and then the Jews regained their ancient homeland in 1948 - which still gnaws at those Muslims who believe in the supremacy of their beliefs above all. They yearn to topple the West, and to destroy the reborn Israel first.

The current attack on the Jews even in Ottawa, New York or London is only a small sign of a larger struggle to come, a 'last territorial demand' that presages a wider conflict. The 'Woke' Neo-Marxists and other ideologues who have made common cause with Fundamentalist Muslims and their like have other objectives, but in reality they mean to topple our whole civilization and replace it with something 'better' -- we've been here before and it killed tens of millions of people.

Post-modernism has also blinded our elites to their duties and responsibilities to save what we have spent 3,000 years building; Neo-Barbarianism can have that effect. Marxism and Nazism were trendy in their time, and the flashy new 'values' of Wokism have mesmerized too many politicians and business leaders to put your trust in them.

So that leaves the likes of you and me, and I know where I am standing. The defence of Jews against Salafist Muslims and the Woke is a good rallying point to start the defence of our entire civilization. Join up, if you believe the traditions of rational inquiry, pragmatic science, consensual politics and Judeo-Christian morality are worth protecting.

-- John Thompson was a soldier, is a historian, a Catholic, and descends from Irish and Scottish fishermen, stone-cutters and tenant-farmers, including those who took ship to Canada in search of a better life.