People are quickly forgetting history and labeling Israel as the oppressor - opinion

Almost everyone remembers the iconic picture of half-starved Jewish men in striped pajamas, standing behind a barbed-wire fence or the truly grateful man, sitting on the ground in tears, grabbing and kissing the hand of his liberators who came to extricate him from the hell of the concentration camp where he had suffered unimaginably, wasting away to nothing.

These were the visual portraits that captured the plight of the Jewish people in 1945, finally emerging from their torment and making their way to what, some three years later, would officially become the Jewish homeland, many literally arriving with nothing but the clothes on their backs.

Yet, unbelievably, today, this same homeland is being labeled an oppressor – considered a country that somehow forgot its own history and turned into the new wicked taskmaster, subjugating its neighbors to the point of perpetrating genocide.

If that sounds unbelievable to you, it’s because it is untrue. 

The vicious lies and smears campaigns aimed at an entire ethnicity, have consisted in the effective demonization of the State of Israel, as well as of the Jews living outside the land, in an attempt to cast them as the real tyrants, rather than as the victims who managed to shed that underdog status by successfully rebuilding their lives and their land – and climbing to the top.

Apparently, the realization of self-determination and the desire to rise above the ashes of their horrific past is seen as too much of a threat to a world that prefers the outcast, the disenfranchised, and the underprivileged. It is those groups who help inflate the world’s need to feel virtuous and righteous, even though nothing of consequence is ever done to alleviate the suffering of such marginalized people. The hard work and ongoing burden needed to make a real difference would be too taxing, so why even bother?  

Israel represents everything the world despises 

Here’s the dirty secret. The Israel of today represents everything the world despises – self-determination, advancement, technological superiority, breakthroughs into every sector of society, and the ability to fight our own battles.

Ironically, the greatness achieved by Israel, which should have been viewed as a triumph, is, instead, viewed as having the earmarks of an oppressor. Among others, that is the opinion of the former Chicago School Board of Education president Rev. Mitchell Ikenna Johnson, who was recently forced to resign just seven days after being appointed to his position as a result of his highly inflammatory attitude.

Johnson’s antisemitic and anti-Israel stance came to light when he expressed his disturbing sentiments, saying, “People have an absolute right to attack their oppressors by any means necessary. People should stop blaming Hamas.” (“Chicago education chief, blasted over antisemitic remarks, succumbs and quits,” The Jerusalem Post, November 3). 

In other posts, Johnson said, “My Jewish colleagues appear drunk with the Israeli power and will live to see their payment...  The Nazi Germans’ ideology has been adopted by Zionist Jews” (“CPS Board of Education president resigns,” wbez.org, November 1).

In dissecting those very incendiary statements, one can see that Johnson does not reserve his criticism solely for the State of Israel, but applies his racist criticism to Diaspora Jews, many of whom have no direct association with the homeland but whom he, nonetheless, labels as Zionists. Johnson, cleverly, finds a way to paint them as evil Nazis by tying them to the same power utilized by the real oppressors of the Third Reich.

Rather than recognize the ability of Jews to lead in their fields of endeavor, he uses any evidence of achievement to yoke them together with past evil actors, in an attempt to shame them for excelling at whatever it is they have accomplished. This is the strategy of calling others out (for their great efforts and good performance) before being called out oneself (for one’s own lack of success or downright laziness).  

What is clear is that hard work, real diligence, and attaining great things cannot be synonymous with oppressor status, but it’s all they have to try to tear down the nation of Israel and the people who are loath to remain victims.

UNFORTUNATELY, it is this kind of dangerous rhetoric that is co-opted and disseminated by ignorant, uninformed, and lazy young people, who find it so easy to follow social media trends. Reading a post is, after all, effortless in comparison to doing their own research or even talking to a Jew to discover that what has been said is nothing but slander by those who unjustifiably hate them.

Although Johnson apologized, an act which was probably unavoidable given that allowing such remarks to remain on his record would have amounted to career suicide, his defense was that his comments were “clearly reactive and insensitive” (“CPS Board of Education president resigns,” www.wbez.org, November 1). 

One can only wonder what he meant by saying they were reactive, because his disgust at seeing Hamas blamed for their savage acts of October 7 is, indeed, a reaction, but not one that is normal when considering the slaughter they perpetrated upon innocent families. 

Johnson claims to have since interacted with “Jewish friends and colleagues,” who have “helped him to be more thoughtful as he addresses these sensitive matters.” What exactly does that mean? That he will totally change his ideology or that he will continue to express it, albeit with less hostility and more carefully nuanced? 

It is rare that someone who holds such toxic and vile opinions of the Jewish people is able to completely overhaul his or her thinking to the point of becoming a reasonable individual, who suddenly accepts the very same people he once depicted as the devil incarnate. In this case, we can assume that Johnson’s desire to continue his occupation has superseded his need to vilify the Jewish people and their homeland.

Johnson has a very compelling reason to backtrack and recant his vicious sentiments, but what of the university campus students whose leftist/woke viewpoints, coupled with their lockstep ideologies of other like-minded peers, cause them to dig down even deeper, with no pressing urgency to mitigate their beliefs?

We can likely expect more of the same from them because the strength of Israel and the Jewish people, to these dimwits, appears as a negative and relegates them to the role of the oppressor. 

How sad and misguided that anyone would misinterpret greatness for tyranny. 

The writer is a former Jerusalem elementary and middle school principal. She is also the author of Mistake-Proof Parenting, available on Amazon, based on the time-tested wisdom found in the Book of Proverbs.