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Israel in World History Lev Navrozov A fantastic rumor (that turned out to be true) spread around Russia in the late 1960s: Anyone who considered himself or herself to be Jewish because one parent was Jewish could apply for an exit visa to go to Israel! According to my internal Soviet passport, I was Russian and bore my Russian father's family name. But on my mother's side there had been 24 generations of rabbis, and so I applied for an exit visa for myself, my wife, my son, and my mother. My father had been killed in World War II, for which he, a writer, had volunteered as an ordinary infantryman. In Vienna I told the representative of Israel (a charming young lady) that I wanted to go to the United States, where the destiny of Israel would finally be decided. She sent us to Rome to go to the United States. In New York I began publishing articles in Commentary, at that time a highly prestigious and pro-Israel monthly. One year after we arrived in 1972, we saw Israel's victory over Egypt and Syria in the Yom Kippur War. The ensuing epoch of wars reminded me of the joke about how the Knesset decides to declare war on Western Europe, the United States and Soviet Russia so that they defeat Israel, occupy it, and feed its population. A voice in the Knesset: "But what if WE defeat THEM?" Apart from publishing in Commentary, I lectured, in particular at the East Side Conservative Club, to which Donald Trump donated premises for the lectures. One day I was warned that some anti-Semites in charge of a certain society or club wanted to invite me for a lecture in order to demonstrate to the rank-and-file members that Israel was diabolical and I was its Jewish apologist. Nevertheless, I gave the lecture, and when the time for questions began, those in charge went on the offensive. Their strongest argument against Israel was its retention of some disputed territories. "Look," I said, "Russian Alaska was ‘sold' to the United States by the tsar. Now, suppose the Soviet government declared that the tsar's deal was invalid. Besides, it was not a sale, but a lease. I still would be against the return of Alaska. Why? Under American constitutionalism, colloquially misnamed ‘democracy,' Russians are better off in Alaska than under any Soviet dictatorship, though all Soviet dictators after Stalin are as Russian as vodka or cabbage soup. Non-Jews, mostly Arabs, account for about 20 percent of Israel's population. They do not leave it, and they are better off than they would be in any Islamic country." Story Continues Below
The audience rose in ovation – the plot against me had failed. As for Commentary, I told its executive editor that when Germany had consisted of different principalities, early in the 19th century, it was said that their troops existed to enhance the military glory of France. But after the reunification of Germany, the latter invaded France in 1940, and on the third day of the invasion, the commander-in-chief of the French army notified Paris that he could not vouch for its defense. The executive editor told me that there could be no such reunification of the Islamic world because it had never been unified and hence could not be reunified. Today, about a quarter of a century later, I doubt his comfortable view. The Roman Empire made Israel its colony, but a national-liberation uprising began, which the Empire suppressed with characteristic ruthlessness. As far as I know, no one at that time foresaw that 1. Those Jews who were not killed because they had nothing to do with the uprising would be driven by Rome out of Israel, called thereafter by the Latin name "Palestine." 2. Having crucified Jesus Christ under the Roman law as a dangerous religious and hence political agitator, and after centuries of persecution of Christians (who were originally called "Jews" because Christ's disciples were Jews, and Christ was born to a Jewish woman), the Roman Empire would adopt Christianity, and the Holy Bible, consisting of the "Jewish" Old Testament (more than 1,000 pages) and the "Christian" New Testament (less than 300 pages) would become the most important book of the West. 3. Rome, called the Eternal City, and the Roman Empire as a whole, would be destroyed by tribes of barbarians who would occupy its territory, and some of them would represent themselves as Greek- and Latin-speaking descendants of the Greeks and Romans. 4. Possibly 6 million, and no fewer than 4.5 million, Jews who settled in Western Europe, after their banishment from Israel by the Roman Empire, would be annihilated by Hitler's Reich for no reason except Hitler's fear that his subordinates would, after his defeat at Moscow in the winter of 1941-42, begin to betray him to the "Anglo-Saxons," to save themselves at his expense; hence Hitler's wish to make his subordinates so guilty that the "Anglo-Saxons" would not spare them even if they did betray Hitler. 5. Not without the tragic impact of this massacre, some Jews decided that the only country to live in would be their historical Israel, from which the Roman Empire had deported them. But moving for centuries into the territory and adjacent areas were Moslems, who had founded many countries, today numbering in toto about 1 billion inhabitants. So let me repeat my question to the executive editor of Commentary in the 1970s: "What if the unification – no, not reunification, but unification – of the Islamic world does occur?" No one has publicly expressed this conjecture, just as no one has publicly conjectured in the past 57 years China's development of assassin's mace weapons, as post-nuclear superweapons are called in China. Of course, the local dictators of Islamic countries resist the unification of the Islamic world, for it means the loss of their local absolute power. But more and more rank-and-file Moslems believe more and more stubbornly in a united Islamic world. Would the U.S.-led Coalition have dared to invade Iraq if the latter had been part of a united Islamic empire? The Western officials and officers suggesting such an invasion would have been sent away for a psychiatric checkup. The dictator of the united Islamic world would have been received in the United States as a dear guest of honor. There are Roman numerals, but we in the West prefer Arabic numerals. Before the Renaissance in Europe, Arab science and technology were more advanced than their West-European counterparts. The united Arab world would restore its erstwhile scientific-technological glory and be developing superweapons. Katyusha rockets were built in Soviet Russia for World War II. They are 64 years old. Yet used by Hezbollah against Israel, they have been perceived by all eyewitnesses as the key weaponry, and the new generation in the West learned the word "Katyusha," which they have heard daily. Imagine the united Islamic world using the latest superweapons and not Russian World War II museum scrap. Will the dictatorship of China take advantage of its lead in superweapons and annihilate the united Islamic dictatorship, or will they ally to crush the West? Originally, the Nazis planned (see the diary of Goebbels) to resettle Jews on Madagascar. Indeed, it is asked today, why on earth did Jews go to live in Israel, surrounded by Islamic terrorists? Well, Israel is sacred not only for Jews but also for the entire Judeo-Christian West after the Roman Empire adopted the teaching of Jesus Christ, called Rabbi by his disciples. Alas, history makes no allowances for such views of the day, but creates its own unpredicted world, in which superweapons seem to be destined to play an ever greater role. You can e-mail me at navlev@cloud9.net It is a pleasant duty to express my gratitude to my assistant, Alan Freed (a retired Lutheran pastor), for his valuable suggestions in this column.
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