As far as vaccinating its population, Israel is leading the world by such a huge margin that the country in second place, the UAE, is just over half as successful as Israel, and the United States, where the vaccinations are manufactured, is at a distant no. 5, with a vaccination rate that is eight times slower than that of Israel, per capita. Astounded world leaders send delegations to Israel to learn what it is that we are doing right. But while leaders are in awe, the rest of the world is far less impressed, and, stranger still, the infection rate is not declining despite the vaccinations and despite the closure. Why are the vaccines not working?
Instead of admiration, we’re getting admonition from all sides. People are blaming Israel for denying vaccines to the Palestinians. It’s not true, of course, but the truth doesn’t matter. If the Palestinians were to get them first, before any Israeli person, people would say that Israel is trying to eliminate them. Since they’re not getting them fast enough (in some people’s opinion), people are saying that we want them to die of Covid. Either way, their woe is our fault. That’s how it’s always been, and that’s how it’ll always be until we start doing what we must.
Our success in vaccinating the population is remarkable, but it’s not something we should brag about. If we were smarter, we would have done it more quietly and not showed off the numbers.
Generally, I don’t see any cause for pride; we’ve created a huge national debt, a huge deficit, and I don’t think that the hope that in a few months the economy will recover thanks to the vaccines and we’ll be able to pay off the debt has any legs to stand on.
It’s great that we’re vaccinating the population but we didn’t do the most important thing, so the vaccines will not help. As long as we don’t follow nature’s laws, nature will keep steering the nations against us. Nature’s laws dictate that Israel will set an example of unity, but we are busy declaring new political parties every other day. We are not an example in the eyes of the world; we are a mockery. A typical comment by a non-Jew to a tweet that one Jew wrote against another stated: “I was told that it’s usually Jews who hate Jews the most.” They look at us with pity.
It’s not as if they don’t know what they want from us. Deep down, the most rabid antisemites feel what they are looking for in Jews. When they blame us for causing all the wars, as did Mel Gibson, for example, they are actually saying that we could prevent these wars. And indeed we could, if we only set an example of unity. But when we set an example of mutual disgust and hatred, this is what the world absorbs from us. Will it be a wonder then that at some point the nations will decide to get rid of us?
It’s not as if we never did anything right. Judaism is based on the most laudable values. We are the only people who became a nation only after they committed to love one another “as one man with one heart”; we are the only nation whose motto was “Love your neighbor as yourself”; and we are the only nation that was tasked with being “a light unto nations,” to set an example of love of others and mutual responsibility.
This is the example that antisemites want us to give. Henry Ford, clearly one of the most notorious antisemites in American history, wrote in his book The International Jew—the World’s Foremost Problem, “Modern reformers, who are constructing model social systems, … would do well to look into the social system under which the early Jews were organized.” Likewise, Vasily Shulgin, a senior member of the Russian Parliament before the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution, was known for his rabid antisemitism. In his book What We Don’t Like About Them…, he wrote about Jews: “Let them … rise to the height to which they apparently climbed [in antiquity] … and immediately, all nations will rush to their feet. They will rush not by virtue of compulsion … but by free will, joyful in spirit, grateful and loving, including the Russians!”
There are more examples but the message is clear. Our job, the job of the Israelis, and the job of every Jew, is to set an example of unity. Whenever we do anything else, it is interpreted as an act against the nations, and we interpret their counter reaction as antisemitism. Therefore, if we want to eliminate antisemitism, we must eliminate division among us. This is what nature’s law demands of us. If we do this, we will inoculate ourselves against any misfortune, including viruses, wars, economic crises and every other misfortune, since we will be in congruence with nature.
[COVID-19 vaccination doses administered per 100 people, Jan 14, 2021. Source: Our World in Data.]
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