Wishful Thinking

Despite increasing worldwide outbreaks of the world’s oldest virus, there are still far too many Jews who prefer to remain in blissful denial.

“Wishful thinking” is defined as a “cognitive bias or self-deception where desires influence reality, often leading to unrealistic expectations or naïve optimism.”

Quite frequently, this condition manifests itself in an inability or unwillingness to acknowledge that there is a problem. It results in complete silence and a refusal to even discuss the subject.

Psychologists would no doubt explain that by ignoring the problem, the person concerned believes that it does not exist and therefore does not need to be confronted.

This phenomenon has afflicted Jews over the millennia with disastrous results. One would have hoped that past history might have alerted most to the dangers of ignoring impending perils, but unfortunately, that is not the case.

Attempts to raise awareness are often met with hostility and admonitions to “drop the subject.”

We do not have the luxury of pretending to live in a make-believe universe anymore, and therefore, I make no apologies for continuing to refuse to avoid uncomfortable realities.

The tsunami of Jew and Israel hate that is now a standard feature of life on every continent cannot be countered by keeping a low profile and abandoning all manifestations of identity. Taking mezuzot off doorposts and covering up identifiable personal items will not make the problem disappear. The age-old solution of assimilation and disassociation from Jewish communal affiliation is also a failed strategy. The haters will eventually find you.

Today, as so often in the past, some think that joining the detractors and haters guarantees them immunity. It is amazing how those who have had absolutely no connection with anything meaningfully Jewish, other than perhaps the occasional matzah ball or hummus, suddenly develop an intense hatred for Zion. They should remember the fate of similar self-loathers during the Soviet era who ended up dead or exiled to the gulag.

This past week has produced another crop of vintage vitriol and warped assertions that we cannot ignore. Exposing fallacious rhetoric and mendacious intentions is increasingly important.

The United Nations, together with most of its associated bodies, has outlived its usefulness. It’s continuing one-sided obsessions with Israel and its tolerance of UN officials who distort and malign the Jewish State has placed it beyond the pale.

Recent events irrefutably prove that this organisation’s “use by date” has well and truly expired and that a replacement, untainted by insidious bias, needs to be put in its place.

The Islamic Republic of Iran has been elected Vice Chair of the UN Commission for Social Development. This group’s primary objectives include democracy, gender equality, tolerance and non-violence. The fact that no objections were raised to Iran’s appointment proves how corrupt and rotten the UN has become. Given Iran’s human rights record, the fact that it has been unanimously elected to this position speaks volumes about how low it has sunk.

Meanwhile, Francesca Albanese launched off into another one of her anti-Israel rants. She declared, “Instead of stopping Israel, most of the world has armed, given Israel political excuses, political sheltering, economic and financial support. We, who do not control large amounts of financial capital, algorithms and weapons, we now see that we as humanity have a common enemy.”

In plain and unambiguous language, she cast the nation-state of the Jewish People as the age-old enemy of humanity. Following the protests, she unsuccessfully tried to backtrack. However, this latest slanderous claim against Israel is just one of many previous outbursts. It has become such a poisonous pattern that even the French Government felt moved to call for her removal. The fact that she continues in her position merely reinforces the UNis irredeemable corruption.

The UN Secretary-General has sent a letter of congratulations to the Islamic Republic of Iran on the anniversary of its assuming power. Anything more detached from reality, given current circumstances, would be hard to find. It reinforces once again how low the UN has sunk.

The Iranian foreign minister is scheduled to address the UN Human Rights Council. This piece of news is not surprising when one realises that its membership comprises the world’s worst abusers of human rights.

Despite these examples of idiocy, democratic UN members continue to fund and support it in the naïve belief that it is humanity’s only hope for a safer and better world.

That is wishful thinking on a grand scale.

New Zealand’s Foreign Minister, who showed remarkable perception when he refused to extend recognition of a fake Palestine, obviously felt he had to redress the situation. In a recent pronouncement, he joined all the other lemmings in condemning any sort of Jewish presence and connection to Judea, Samaria and Jerusalem. Trotting out an International Court of Justice decision from 2024, he stated that Jews are illegally in these places and must leave immediately.

Presumably, these deniers of history would also have censured Moses and Joshua and condemned King David for declaring Jerusalem as the Capital of Judea.

The British Foreign Office thundered that “any unilateral attempt to alter the geographic and demographic makeup of ‘Palestine’ is wholly unacceptable and against international law.” This piece of chutzpah, coming from a colonial power that altered the geographic and demographic makeup of colonised territories, is priceless. It should be treated with the contempt it richly deserves.

Most Israelis no longer tremble at the rote-like ranting of those who find Jewish sovereignty in their historic homeland an affront and an abhorrent crime. The fact that seemingly intelligent politicians succumb to prevailing historical hoaxes and pander to jihadist revisionist myths is a sign of the twisted times now confronting us.

A recent poll in Poland found that the proportion of Poles who “dislike” Jews has risen to 40%. This is not a surprising result given that a steady stream of anti-Israel and anti-Jewish invective has been flooding the media. The trend is utterly predictable, taking into account that such biases are endemic in Europe, where the soil of most countries is soaked in Jewish blood.

Those who still pretend that Jews have a glorious future in that continent are suffering from a bad case of “wishful thinking.”  The same malady is unfortunately also present in many other countries where the steady drumbeat of hate, incitement and delegitimisation is an everyday phenomenon.

The best example of this wishful blissfulness can be seen in those who think that the Mullahs of Islamic Iran can be somehow seduced into abandoning their support for jihadist war against “infidels.”

In a candid moment on Lebanese TV, the grandson of the late Ayatollah Khomeini stated that “Muslim nations have a duty to erase the Zionist State.” He went on to declare that “they (i.e. all Muslim nations) will do to Israel what Hamas did when they get the chance.”

The message couldn’t be any clearer.

I have yet to hear a definitive and loud refutation of this clarion call for genocide from all those who are currently convulsed by the fake genocidal situation in Gaza. The silence from Islamic religious and political leaders is likewise deafening.

This example of ignoring inconvenient facts in the hope that they will disappear is an exercise in futility.

It raises the question as to whether those enveloped in silence are either consciously supportive of the agenda or too scared to actually make a public denunciation.

Either way, the international community is once again complicit in refusing to challenge evil when it is so clearly articulated.

Shades of appeasement recycled from the past are surfacing again.

Michael Kuttner is a Jewish New Zealander who for many years was actively involved with various communal organisations connected to Judaism and Israel. He now lives in Israel and is J-Wire’s correspondent in the region.