A Rant About Israel, the Jews, Idealism, and Cynicism

We can no longer afford to gloss over those who peddle fiction and “make believe” prophecies, regardless of our political persuasions or anything else that tugs at our heart strings.

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I used to be an idealist. Then I lived in Israel for 10 years.

Nowadays, I am ruthlessly cynical — like many Israelis, and not necessarily proud of it — but such is the realpolitik environment of the Middle East, an utter antithesis to the Los Angeles “bubble” in which I grew up.

Cynicism does not invariably correlate with pessimism. I remain bullish on Israel and the Jews. Both are still around and doing relatively well for themselves after thousands of years of existence, despite all of our enemies and their complicit friends. The robust Jewish “sample size” gives me unrefined confidence and hope.

But Jews, on the whole, cannot afford to be idealists who instinctually relegate themselves to thinking that somehow, some way, it will all just be okay. That if we just contribute a tad bit more to the world, if we ruffle a few less feathers, if we become even more law-abiding, quieter, and more productive citizens in other countries, everything will work out.

The “sample size” in this regard is also robust, and it does not lend itself to be particularly agreeable with Jewish idealism.

Rather, the reality is that, even though the Jews were among the first groups to civilize themselves, to establish a rules-based and humanitarian society, and to lay the groundwork for other civilizations that we cherish today, the Jews are not as powerful as many people across the world presume. In fact, we are rather weak compared to our enemies and the bystanders.

The Arabs, for example, have one-sixth of the world’s wealth, concentrated into a single region, and some of it strapped to deep-seated murderous theology, whereas Jewish wealth is not only far less abundant; it is also more fragmented and spread throughout the nations, thus hampering whatever influence it could have.

Israelis learned that they could make peace — initially with the Egyptians and the Jordanians, and more recently with the Saudis, the Emiratis, the Bahrainis, and the Moroccans — by helping these governments via the Jewish mind. Namely: intelligence, defense, national security, and technology and innovation.

Frankly, Israel could not put anywhere near enough money on the Arab table to tickle their fancy, so helping these regimes stay in power, defend their borders, and diversify their investments (in Israeli startups, for instance) is the only plausible way to butter their bread.

Meanwhile, the Qataris and perhaps even the Iranians dictate much of the Western world because many of the West’s politicians and decision-makers — such as in, but not limited to, France, the UK, and the United States — sold off whatever leadership and morality they had to the Arabs.

For example, former U.S. President Jimmy Carter grew up as a peanut farmer in America’s notorious South, yet somehow became one of the Arabs and Muslims’ greatest champions in the West. Idealism will tell you that he saw the “multiculturalism” light in his later years. Cynicism says lots of Arab money paved the way. Sometimes I wish I was still naive enough to think it was not unquestionably the latter.

The same can be said about the UN and its agencies, the Red Cross, and other so-called humanitarian organizations. At first it was a complete shock that so many of them explicitly and implicitly sided with Hamas, the world’s fifth-most active terror group, following the October 7th massacre and mass kidnapping in Israel.

Now, it appears checks were already written, or have since been written, to ensure they follow the anti-Israel (really, the anti-Western) program, which means supporting the perpetrators of or finding a way to justify unequivocal terrorism.

And that is putting it lightly. At worst, they all have Islamist extremist death threats hanging over their heads to guarantee they do or say the “right” thing.

Sure, some of the people in these organizations are deeply antisemitic and understand that it is not socially acceptable, following the Holocaust, to be antisemitic, so they call themselves the more fashionable “anti-Zionist.” But many of them are probably frightened to no end about upsetting terrorists in Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis, the Islamic State of Iran, or Qatar — and the consequences that could bring about. You and I would be scared shitless too.

Terrorists are relentless, and they have “colleagues” in many places, as well as the internet to indoctrinate and then rally supporters at moment’s notice. Just look at what happened two weeks ago in the British Parliament: Politicians were scared to vote against an obviously premature ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, for fear of the Islamist mob running amok in the UK’s streets.

And there is precedent: British Member of Parliament Sir David Amess’ life was so cruelly cut short by an Islamist in 2021. More recently, British Member of Parliament Mike Freer, for the heavily Jewish constituency of Finchley and Golders Green, announced he will be quitting politics because Islamists and “anti-Zionists” across the country keep threatening (and trying) to kill him. A few weeks ago his offices were burnt down in a “suspected arson attack.”

Perhaps the difference between idealism and cynicism can be best described in one sentence: Idealism is the way we wish the world would be, while cynicism is a view of the world as it is. I don’t know about you, but I prefer fact over fiction and reality over “make believe” prophecies when attempting to confront the world’s problems — and, in Israel’s case, existential ones.

We can therefore no longer afford to gloss over people and institutions that peddle fiction and “make believe” prophecies, regardless of our political persuasions or anything else that tugs at our heart strings.

We have to acknowledge what is (even when it is troubling, painful, embarrassing, or unpopular) as opposed to what should be in a proverbial perfect world, and we have to defend the truth at all costs, even if it means putting family and friends in their place (respectfully, of course). Otherwise, we will continue down the path of a world that is marred by so much disinformation and all that comes with it, and we will end up miserable and hopeless.

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You may have heard about the Israeli filmmaker who recently debuted his documentary, “No Other Land” — about a Palestinian who refuses the “forced displacement” of his people by Israel’s military in the West Bank.

Even if there is a true story about a Palestinian of this nature, it is not reflective of Israel’s historical policies in the West Bank, it is not an accurate indication of most Israelis’ views about Palestinians there, and it grossly ignores the comprehensive past in this region.

At best, this film is an over-exaggeration and over-simplification of the nuanced, complex, decades-long issues. At worst, the filmmakers are psychologically troubled and do not know how to channel their issues, so they decided it was a good idea to make a film. That is not art. That is propaganda, funded by Israel-despising Palestinian and Norwegian producers to boot. Even Israel’s most liberal film funds — and trust me, they are quite a few — would not touch this film because it is so out of touch with reality.

I get it, though, this Israeli (Jewish) filmmaker, Yuval Abraham, is an idealist who subscribes to coexistence. But subscribing to ideas that have zero basis in realism does not magically bend the world to your will. If anything, it makes the world a worse place because naivety and wishful thinking only strengthen the hands of nefarious actors, of which there are many, no less in the Middle East.

At the 74th Berlin International Film Festival a few days ago, “No Other Land” won two awards, so Abraham went on-stage with Palestinian activist Basel Adra and said:

“We are standing in front of you now, me and Basel are the same age. I am Israeli, Basel is Palestinian, and in two days we will go back to a land where we are not equal. I am living under civilian law, Basel is under military law.”

“We live 30 minutes from one another, but I have voting rights. Basel does not have voting rights. I am free to move where I want in this land. Basel, like millions of Palestinians, is locked in the occupied West Bank. This situation of apartheid between us, this inequality, it has to end.”

People in Israel and even a couple of German politicians called this speech “antisemitic” — which it is not. If it was antisemitic, Abraham would have said that he hates Jews and considers them the scum of planet Earth, or that we are the world’s disingenuous puppeteers.

Instead, Abraham did something more disgraceful than spew antisemitism. He chose, while Israel is fighting an existential war, to completely ignore Jewish and Palestinian history, and to make an ill-conceived speech that defames the Jewish state and puts Israelis and Jews across the world at the mercy of profuse untruths peddled by a disgruntled, ignorant, self-hating Israeli Jew who really just wants to get a few more people to watch his film and brag on social media about the great “humanitarian work” he is doing.

“A right-wing Israeli mob came to my family’s home yesterday to search for me, threatening close family members who fled to another town in the middle of the night,” wrote Abraham on X. “I am still getting death threats and had to cancel my flight home.”

The idealist in me says: Wow, what a bummer. The cynic in me says: What the hell did you expect? That Israelis, in the middle of an existential war Israel is fighting, would not be irate about you slandering our country and then promoting it on social media? Neshamah, get your head out of the Palestinians’ arse.

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