THEY HAVE DECLARED WAR ON US

By José Antonio Artusi

 Hamas, other jihadist terrorist organizations and the Iranian regime have declared war on us.

To the republican democrats who believe that the only legitimacy of governments and their laws arises from the freely expressed popular will and not from supposed sacred writings interpreted by supposed prophets and their self-declared interpreters, they have declared war on us.

To those of us who believe that Jews have the right to defend themselves, that the State of Israel – the only liberal democracy in the Middle East – has the right to exist and protect its territory and its citizens, they have declared war on us.

To those of us who believe in the inseparable universality of human rights, beyond cultural, ethnic and religious particularisms, they have declared war on us.

To those of us who believe that women and homosexuals (and whatever gender identity comes to mind) have the same rights as men to perceive themselves however they wish, to show their hair however they want, to study, to work, to listen to the music that they like, to drink whatever they like and sleep with whoever they want as long as they do not harm others, they have declared war on us.

It is not new (we Argentinians especially should know this well), but the barbarity of the brutal terrorist attack on defenseless people last weekend - among whom were our compatriots - has made it evident, has shown it clearly, has exposed it to sunlight.

The attack is not only against Israel. Let's imagine for a second what would happen if Hamas and Hezbollah carry out to the letter what they themselves have been saying they are going to do for decades and erase the State of Israel from the face of the Earth. Let's try to visualize what would happen if ISIS took control of a vast territory and created a caliphate in which the rule of law would not govern but Sharia, Islamic law. Let's think about a scenario in which the Iranian regime (calling it a “republic” is a cruel mockery) manages to have a nuclear arsenal. We have no right to be so naïve as to believe that they would stop there. The fact that there are ideological, religious, political and strategic differences between these terrorist organizations and that they sometimes massacre each other does not hide their fundamental similarities. They do not believe in republican democracy, they do not believe in freedom or the universality of human rights. They are united by anti-Semitism and contempt for the values ​​of Western modernity. They are reactionaries, fundamentalists, misogynists, totalitarians, fundamentalists, messianists and terrorists. And they often openly display their ideology and their macabre principles and objectives. If they cannot be accused of anything, it is that they did not notify us.

The main victims of these governments are their own people. The Palestinians who live under an oppressive and bloodthirsty regime, which does not hesitate to use its own civilian population, often children, as a shield for its war actions. The Iranians in exile who had to abandon their land to preserve their lives. Iranian women who fight to exercise a right as basic as being able to show their hair, among many other violations. Homosexuals who are hung from cranes by the Taliban for the sole fact of being gay. Afghan girls who are deprived of the right to education. Palestinian children who are indoctrinated in an ideology of hate and death. The list could be very long.

That is why it is essential to permanently refute the fallacies and lies that are and will be used to relativize and justify barbarism and to demonize the State of Israel in the conflict that will inevitably take place. The effortful pirouettes and argumentative contortions of a certain left no longer cause astonishment, we have become accustomed to it, but they do cause anger and indignation. Between stupid and complicit, this increasingly fascist “left” resembles cuddly kittens of the ayatollahs, who obviously would not hesitate for a second to have their throats cut if they dared to raise their “progressive” slogans in their domains. We must not stop exhibiting the insurmountable incoherence of those who seek to defend and justify Hamas from internationalist, secularist and feminist perspectives. And we must not cease in our condemnation and repudiation of terrorist barbarism.

It is absolutely valid to criticize specific policies of the Israeli government, and in fact its citizens fully exercise that right, but this criticism cannot be transformed into a questioning of the legitimacy of the State of Israel or into claiming that its population cannot defend itself. Much less can it mean supporting their aggressors, who also make a perverse use of the legitimate aspirations of the Palestinian people and a sinister misappropriation of Islam, a religion as respectable as any other if it is limited to the area reserved for religions in pluralistic and tolerant societies.

The people and the State of Israel deserve the support and solidarity of all democrats in the world. They are not alone. But in the war that is currently being fought, yes, they are alone.

In other times it was a widespread custom to put canaries in coal mines to quickly detect when oxygen begins to be lacking, since in that case these birds die before the miners can realize it with their own senses. That is why the metaphor of Jews as the canaries of the West has been resorted to. When innocent Jews fall it is an unmistakable sign that the oxygen of freedom and peace is beginning to run out, not only for them.

Israel will prevail. And we will owe to Israel eternal gratitude and recognition for it. Unfortunately, it will not be without pain, blood, sweat and tears.-

Illustration: Elías Wengiel