It seems like every day is dragging Israel deeper into the mud of a regional war that it will have a hard time getting unstuck from.
World leaders opened the 79th opening session of the United Nations General Assembly this week.
These included Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, all locked in talks of ceasefires, casualties, nationalities, and borders.
What was perhaps surprising was the lull in protesters outside the UN building in New York. It reminded of the intensity and heat of pro-Palestinian protesters that we have seen over the past year.
These protests, at one point or another, made some Jewish students feel unsafe and begin to question their ties to Zionism, to how they are perceived, and to their place in the countries they live in, as well as to Israel.
These nuanced and hard questions hit everyone in the Diaspora Jewish community, and have been following them since October 7, and continue to, as the conflict is nowhere near over, and in fact, the heightened activity in Lebanon has only intensified all around.
These experiences have been somewhat out of the news – as its bandwidth can only stretch so far – but this discomfort has not assuaged, not really.
Israeli military and political leaders will tell you that Israel is fighting roughly on seven fronts right now – all backed by Iran, but the insidious eighth front remains, and may rear its ugly head at any time: animosity towards Diaspora Jews – psychological, emotional, and physical – based solely on their being Jewish.
Security officials have confirmed to The Jerusalem Post that the number and volume of terrorist attacks planned against Jews worldwide has doubled in the past year. The Mossad prevented at least 50 such attempts.
The full report from the Post’s military correspondent Yonah Jeremy Bob appears in this week’s Magazine.
“The fact that this number has at the very least doubled shows how motivated Tehran has been to harm Jews and Israelis across the globe and the vast resources it has poured into that goal,” he writes.
Israel’s resources stretched to the max
Meaning, that while Israel’s resources are stretched to the max – from military, budget, finances, and human compassion to mental health – the Jewish State must stretch a bit more to make room for our Diaspora brothers and sisters.
What they are going through may be different, look greener in its grass that is farther away, perhaps more removed. But, in reality, it is just as hard, it just expresses itself in a different way; the hardships, mental loads, and traumas are different.
They are perhaps even harder to quantify, as they are not measured in homes destroyed, casualty counts, or statistics of a rise in prescription treatments for mental health – as they are in Israel. But they fester under the surface.
And has the potential to affect Jews and Israelis even in places where they would normally feel safe.
Some of these attacks, Bob notes, were prevented by cooperation with spy agencies from foreign countries that are either partially hostile to Israel or have no established diplomatic ties with Jerusalem.
And it is not out of a great love for Jews or for Israel that these agencies cooperated, it was “ the idea that a foreign actor like Iran would carry out a terrorist operation on their sovereign territory, regardless of the target victim.”
These threats are real and they cross borders and national sentiments. They are as much a threat to Israelis looking to fly away for a few days for some quiet, as they are to Diaspora Jews traveling abroad for a break or a holiday.
The world is not a terrible place, there are people working towards achieving peace and making active efforts to restore a sense of calm and security to this region, but these dangers exist.
So, regardless of where the winds of government and policy flow – as they are always changing – and regardless of how they affect the rise and fall of the relative safety of Israelis and Jews worldwide – this core value and characteristic that is in the very DNA of the Jewish State will stand strong. We have your back.
Jesus Christ is King
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