I Can’t Believe It’s Not Israel

Daniel Greenfield

In times past the Forward newspaper celebrated the fast of Yom Kippur with a feast and in keeping with that tradition it celebrated Israel’s Independence Day by rewriting its anthem to remove the word “Jew” from it. The linguistic purge from the notoriously anti-Israel paper was meant as a way to help Muslims feel better about singing the Israeli national anthem.

The yearning of the Jewish soul becomes the yearning of the Israeli soul and the eyes turned east no longer long for Zion, but the generic “our country”. The proposal made by a self-proclaimed linguist seems rather devoid of understanding when it comes to the origin and meaning of words. Purging Jewish souls from the anthem and replacing them with Israeli souls doesn’t actually solve anything.

Jews are Judeans, dating back to the Kingdom of Judah, contrasted with the breakaway Kingdom of Israel and its tribes. The Jews are also Israelites, being sons of the patriarch Israel, a category that still does not encompass Muslims. Rewriting Jewish soul as Israeli soul still leaves one with Jews, and as the Forward has discovered, Jews are rather hard to get rid of. Shoot them, gas them and write them out of their own anthem and they still pop back up.

It will take more than a few switched words to write Jews out of Hatikvah. Even if we were to no longer call them Israelis, but perhaps Homo Sapiens or oxygen breathing mammals, so as to leave no one out at all, there is the eastern problem. Why were these carbon breathing lifeforms looking east, when most of the region’s Muslims look westward to Israel? And why were they longing for a country for 2000 years when the only Arabs around then were Roman mercenaries carving up Jewish refugees and searching for gold in their stomachs?

A proper post-Jewish anthem must also be post-Israeli. It must be generic, humanistic and tolerant. It must not be associated with anyone’s national striving, only the striving for social justice, complete equality and brotherhood. Fortunately such an anthem already exists and it’s called The Internationale and it happens to be quite popular among the sort of people who think Hatikvah is too Jewish.

There’s even a few Israeli versions, like “Nivne Artzenu Eretz Moledet”. The latter, with lyrics like, “We shall build our country despite our destroyers” has gone out of style and sounds too much like those right-wingers who insist on building houses and farms, instead of protesting over the cost of condos in Tel Aviv. Try strumming up lyrics like, “It is the command of our blood” or “The end to malignant slavery” in the wrong place at the wrong time and you might just be hauled in for incitement. These days the only ones building the country or “marching toward the liberation of our people” are the ones being kicked out of Migron and Hevron by the destroyers of the left.

Move over Abraham Levinson for Doron Levinson and “Lay Down Your Arms” with inspirational lyrics like, “Somewhere deep inside the soldier, There’s a dreamer dreaming of a world of peace, Lay down your arms, Let Time heal every wound, And Love will someday set us free!” It could easily do for the anthem, but sadly it doesn’t represent Muslims any better than Hatikvah does. The only people still dreaming of peace in the Middle East are the ones being ethnically cleansed from their anthem.

Love has yet to heal every wound, but someday it might. All we have to do is lay down our arms, purge ourselves of any selfish nationalistic traits and wait for the other side to return our love. It’s bound to work and if it doesn’t, at least we will know that we tried and died trying.

For those who find songs with more than one lyric too demanding too remember amid the clouds of pot smoke, there’s always the ubiquitous “Od Yavo Shalom Aleinu” better known as “Shalom, Salaam”. The proper way to sing it is with an impassioned wail. Like “Lay down your arms”, it promises that peace is coming, but doesn’t specify a date, just hopeful optimism best expressed by national surrender and out of tune singing.

Peace songs are a cottage industry in Israel. Hardly any peacenik twenty-something wannabe with a pick, a dream and rich parents, or jaundiced professional musician still living down his disco days and his coke habit hasn’t produced his or her own peace song. Often more than one. If peace songs were oil, then Tel Aviv would outdraw Saudi Arabia in the energy market.

You don’t need to know much about music to write a peace song, just as you don’t need to know much about the history of the Jewish people to write them out of their own anthem. All you need is a cheerful message, vague hope and nothing else. Having hope makes you better than those awful people who seem to want war to go on forever, instead of laying down their arms and finding the beautiful dreamer floating in their bidet of hope.

Sadly despite the obligatory Salaams, the Muslims don’t particularly feel represented by all the peace song. The occasional Arab singer will join in a duet with an Israeli to the delight of the peace dorks against a backdrop of flying doves and clasping hands, but seem more energized by Fidai, the anthem of the Palestinian Authority, which like everything else about it shows its commitment to peace.

“Palestine is my fire, Palestine is my revenge,” Fidai shrieks angrily, “my fire and the volcano of my vendetta.” There is no talk of peace, of laying down arms or letting love solve things. Instead there is the eternal war. “I will live as a revolutionary, I will go on as revolutionary, I will expire as revolutionary.”

Back in 2004, Hamas held a contest to select an anthem, but it’s not clear if the contest yielded any results. It does however have plenty of songs, which you can recreate mentally by tossing words like “Death”, “Martyrdom”, “Jihad”, “Blood” and “Victory” into a pile and rearranging them in any order accompanied by various geographical locations and a disco beat. Take any pop album from ten years ago, throw something in about Allah and killing the Jews, and you’re all set.

While the Israelis Salaam, the Muslim Jihad, and while both sets of songs sound like bad Europop, they reveal the character of their respective peoples. Salaaming, in the pre-politically correct jargon, used to mean performing acts of obeisance. It is a pity that this definition has grown dusty as it would save us all a lot of time, trouble and bad music.

Aslim Taslam, Mohammed told his enemies, accept Islam and we will have peace. Singing Salaam to a Muslim without laying down arms and reciting the Shahada is a waste of everyone’s time. For the Israeli National Anthem to properly represent Muslims, it would have to lose the Jewish and Israeli stuff, throw in something about Allah, conspiracies of outside foes, a struggle for liberation and the wise leadership of our benevolent tyrant.

Take the Egyptian National Anthem whose singer proclaims that his purpose is to repel the enemy while relying on Allah, or the Syrian National Anthem which namechecks Arabism and mentions that its flag is written in martyr’s blood or the Libyan National Anthem, which fulminates about enemy conspiracies and boasts of marching with the Koran in one hand a gun in the other.

None of these anthems are concerned with inclusiveness or how non-Muslims feel while singing it and compared to them, Hatikvah is as pacifist as any peace song. Why it doesn’t even mention war, enemies or guns. And if anyone doubts that this attitude is representative of the region, they need only look to the Muslim Brotherhood goosestepping to power in Egypt.

Dejudaizing the Israel National Anthem fools no one, it only makes fools of those who do it. The best way for Israel to maintain the loyalty of those Muslims who have chosen to throw in their lot with the Jewish State is by being strong, not by being weak. In a region where alliances are based on strength, the worst possible message to send is the one that says you aren’t in it for the long haul.

Jews may give their allegiance to a Jewish State too weak to defend itself and too lacking in pride to assert itself, but Israeli Muslims will not. The most right-wing member of the Israeli cabinet is not Avigdor Lieberman, as Anti-Israeli pundits think, but Ayoub Kara, a Druze Muslim. Kara isn’t just right-wing, he makes every Likud Prime Minister look like a bleeding heart liberal. Those Israeli Muslims who do support Israel want it to be strong. Those who do not, will not be bought off by selling out the Jewish soul and the longing that built the state.

Some time ago, a series of radio ads for Baron Herzog wine dubbed it, “The wine that just happens to be Kosher”. There are some who would like to reimagine Israel as a state that just happens to be Jewish. Behind words like that lurks a shame at Jewish labels, the “ASHamed Jews” of Howard Jacobson’s Finkler Question, who are proud to be ashamed of being Jewish, proud to rewrite the anthem of the striving of their people until their striving, their hope and their soul are stricken from the page.

Israel is not an accident, it exists because of those who fought and strived for it, who built and labored for a Jewish State, who sang the Hatikvah because it represented their mission. A mission that is at odds with the “I Can’t Believe It’s Not Israel” agenda of the left to hollow out the country, destroy its sense of purpose, its heritage and its identity, and leave it with a flag, an anthem and a state that no longer stands for anything at all.

May 2, 2012 | 62 Comments »

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12 Comments / 62 Comments

  1. @ yamit82:

    “J guy and Christianity is a myth concocted by Constantine. Some even theorize it was the Flavians.”

    Oh, please. Constantine wasn’t smart enough to concoct that ‘myth.’

    On the other hand, the very notion that he was

    — is apparently another myth

    that PresentCompany IS stupid enough to believe.

    Even the Church admits that most of the NT is made up ‘Jargon’.”

    Even the Church”?

    You make the RCC out to be some kind of ‘authority’ in the matter

    — your foremost go-to for the last word on the subject.

    LOLROF.

  2. @ L Mansfield:

    “Now if get get to know what we previously did not know than all will be known.

    Do you know what I mean?”

    So you don’t get out much these days, eh?

    Do you know what I mean?

  3. @ yamit82:

    You’re blowing smoke up my ass, Yamit.

    “The REASON I can’t agree is that we can’t be sure that the Tanakh of today is the same one in existence before the First Jewish War [AD 66-73]. There are just too many possibilities that the original scrolls — which the NT writers relied upon in narrating & writing their own works — were lost or destroyed or damaged in the burning of the Temple…” “

    “[W]e do have evidence from several sources primarily from the dead sea scrolls and the over 200,000 documents from the Cairo Ginezah to which only a small few have yet to be researched and examined.”

    You’re saying the Genizeh contained fully intact-&-entire Temple-era scrolls of Tanakh?

    “The dead sea scrolls contain fragments from every book in the Tanach except the Book of Esther.”

    What use are “fragments” in matters of this nature?

    “…empirical data that is known and seem sufficiently complete to discount your theory of the unknown.”

    WHAT ’empirical data’ specifically? — data that conclusively show that Temple-era & post-Temple-era Tanakh are identical?

    “The Vatican holds a treasure trove of manuscripts never released… The Russians likewise are said to hold the largest collection of ancient Hebrew manuscripts in St. Petersberg never shown or given to independent researchers. The British and the French also have large collections. How many are still in private collection one can only speculate but they will turn up eventually…”

    Fine. And when any of those collections adduces reliable evidence that Temple-era & post-Temple-era Tanakh are identical, your postulate will be established.

    However, until that time, the mere fact that these caches exist tells us nothing.

    And it isn’t ‘sophistry’ to make that observation; it’s simple rationality.

    “The Israel Antiquities Authority unveiled a rare ancient seal that underscores the bond of the Jewish people to Jerusalem…”

    Irrelevant to this discussion. The matter of the Jewish people & Jerusalem was never at issue here.

    In re the specific problem of establishing an identity betw Temple-era & post-Temple Tanakh — the presence of seals, cartouches & remains of physical structures is an off-point distraction.

    Nor is there any value to drawing archeology into this particular brew — except insofar as it contributes directly to confirming or denying that precise proposition.

  4. @ bernard ross:

    “Are you saying that Christian scriptures might have existed without Jewish scriptures?”

    Of course not.

    “Are you saying there are no Jewish scriptures that the NT relies upon?”

    Asked & answered.

    Move on, counselor.

    “Or, are you saying that Not all of the NP bases are rooted in Jewish scriptures?”

    If this is an important question to you, and you want a straightforward answer, Bernard, then you’ll have to rephrase it for me

    — because I frankly can’t tell what you want

    or where you’re going with it.

    “We cannot assume that the Jewish scriptures of the Temple era are identical to the Jewish scriptures of the post-Temple era.”

    “I dont think they need be IDENTICAL for yamits statement to be true.”

    They ABSOLUTELY have to be identical for his postulate to be true. No way around it.

    OTOH, if we can somehow establish with reliability that they are identical, then I’ll have no problem signing on to the postulate.

    But not until.

    And not unless.

    “Why would I ‘desire’ the discomfort of uncertainty? — the notion is silly.”

    “I believe your psyche needs this uncertainty in order to avoid the subconscious emotional implications of the truth of Yamits statement.”

    Identify the “emotional implications.”

    “PLease give an example of a possible ‘humongous import’ which would nullify Yamit’s statement.”

    If you truly want an answer to that (as opposed to merely seeking an excuse to continue with more of this endless mind-forking), then I suggest you read any number of Yamit’s posts over the years — posts which have persistently attempted to show a radical disconnect between the NT & Tanakh. Any one of those purported incongruities could pass for “an example of a possible ‘humongous import’ which would nullify Yamit’s statement” if it turned out to be mistaken, as indicated in a divergence between a Temple-era scroll and a post-Temple one.

  5. @ yamit82:
    Agreed- We know what we know but then again we don’t know what we don’t know. Now if get get to know what we previously did not know than all will be known.

    Do you know what I mean?

  6. @ dweller:

    The REASON I can’t agree is that we can’t be sure that the Tanakh of today is the same one in existence before the First Jewish War [AD 66-73].

    There are just too many possibilities that the original scrolls — which the NT writers relied upon in narrating & writing their own works — were lost or destroyed or damaged in the burning of the Temple [AD 70] and other horrendous events of the era.

    geneza in cairo
    Ever the Sophist!! Well the answer to your sophist response is that we do have evidence from several sources primarily from the dead sea scrolls and the over 200,000 documents from the Cairo Ginezah to which only a small few have yet to be researched and examined.

    The dead sea scrolls contain fragments from every book in the Tanach except the Book of Esther. The oldest scroll is dated 250BCE.

    So your out of the box theory does not hold up to empirical data that is known and seem sufficiently complete to discount your theory of the unknown. The Vatican holds a treasure trove of manuscripts never released to researchers and I suspect it’s because many would put Christianity to pasture if the truth were let out of the vaults. The Russians likewise are said to hold the largest collection of ancient Hebrew manuscripts in St. Petersberg never shown or given to independent researchers. The British and the French also have large collections. How many are still in private collection one can only speculate but they will turn up eventually for a price.

    In short there is one thing you can be assured of when it comes to Jews in the preservation of their holy writings and that is their preservation and burial when they become worn and no longer Kosher for use. There must be more Genisahs not yet discovered but the method of rabbinic transmission has proven through the centuries to be faultless based on the exactness of our written texts from country to country and irrespective
    to ethnicity.

    Second Temple Era Seal Unveiled
    The Israel Antiquities Authority unveiled a rare ancient seal that underscores the bond of the Jewish people to Jerusalem

    ‘Matanyahu’ Seal Found near Solomon’s Temple
    Seal with name similar to Prime Minister’s found in the physically closest structure to King Solomon’s Temple ever unearthed.
    AAFont Size
    By Gil Ronen
    First Publish: 5/1/2012, 12:50 PM

    Matanyahu seal
    Matanyahu seal
    Israel Antiquities Authority

    Another amazing find on the Temple Mount: Archeologists digging under Robinson’s Arch in the archeological garden next to the Kotel have found remains of a structure from the late First Temple period, under the base of the drainage ditch currently being exposed.

    This is the closest structure, geographically, to King Solomon’s Temple ever unearthed.

    On the floor of the ancient structure, the diggers discovered an ancient Hebrew seal from the late First Temple period. It is made of semiprecious stone and bears the name of the owner of the seal: “To Matanyahu Son of Ho…” (the rest of the name is not legible).

    The name Matanyahu appears twice in Chronicles 1:25, in a section listing names of Hebrews whom King David had appointed to sing G-d’s praise and perform other functions at the Holy Tabernacle. A few lines away, the name Netanyahu also appears. Both names are etymologically very close and mean the same thing: “Gift to [or from] G-d.”

  7. dweller Said:

    Then you begin to realize that the jury’s actually still out.

    For you, what is the jury out on? We are discussing Yamits simple statement and the proof should emerging with your statement:
    dweller Said:

    No, I definitely cannot agree with the second either. (It’s impossible for the Jewish Scriptures to be based on the Christian ones; that would be an absurdity.)

    Are you saying that Christian scriptures might have existed without Jewish scriptures? Are you saying there are no Jewish scriptures that the NT relies upon? Or, are you saying that Not all of the NP bases are rooted in Jewish scriptures?
    If it is the last it is like a disscussion of the elephant having one toe or ten toes wherein both cases it is stil a creature of massive proportion that is known by all to be an elephant. Unless you believe that Christian Scripture has NO basis in Jewish scripture, or is not an outgrowth from Jewish scripture, I would have to agree with Yamit’s statement. The elephant appears too large to be discussing whether the elephant has one or twenty toes. we know that the toes have no existence without the elephant but the elephant can exist without the toes.dweller Said:

    we cannot assume that the Jewish scriptures of the Temple era are identical to the Jewish scriptures of the post-Temple era.

    I dont think they need be IDENTICAL for yamits statement to be true.
    dweller Said:

    Why would I ‘desire’ the discomfort of uncertainty? — the notion is silly.

    I believe your psyche needs this uncertainty in order to avoid the subconscious emotional implications of the truth of Yamits statement. You have turned the obvious existence of the elephant into an philosophical uncertainty but the elephant has not agreed with your conclusion. If the elephant jumps up and tramples you your “uncertainty” will disappear.
    dweller Said:

    The losses might be of minor significance — or they might be of humongous import.

    Again, until we know what it is that we don’t know

    — we won’t know what the significance of that is.

    So it has to remain an open question.

    I can almost hear your subconscious saying “whew, thank goodness we got out of that one”. PLease give an example of a possible “humongous import” which would nulllify Yamit’s statement>

  8. @ bernard ross:

    “All he said was that the Xtn scriptures rely on the Jewish ones [viz., the Jewish scriptures], but not vice versa.”

    “Do you agree with this statement?”

    As I said earlier, it works in theory.

    But when I think about it, it becomes clear that I cannot agree with it for a certainty.

    The REASON I can’t agree is that we can’t be sure that the Tanakh of today is the same one in existence before the First Jewish War [AD 66-73].

    There are just too many possibilities that the original scrolls — which the NT writers relied upon in narrating & writing their own works — were lost or destroyed or damaged in the burning of the Temple [AD 70] and other horrendous events of the era.

    “Are you saying that perhaps it is vice versa, that the Jewish scriptures rely on the Christian ones? If you cannot agree with the first and agree with the second then I would have to say that ‘we are talking past one another’.”

    No, I definitely cannot agree with the second either. (It’s impossible for the Jewish Scriptures to be based on the Christian ones; that would be an absurdity.)

    But we cannot assume that the Jewish scriptures of the Temple era are identical to the Jewish scriptures of the post-Temple era.

    So we don’t know that the Christian scriptures don’t actually reflect something in the original, Temple-era scrolls which is NO LONGER there in the ones which WE have.

    — We just don’t know; I wish we did know.

    “Focusing on some trees enables ignoring the gist. I maintain that the removal of a few trees in no way affects the overall forest.”

    Maybe so.

    Depends on which trees we’re talking about; and that’s something we don’t know.

    The losses might be of minor significance — or they might be of humongous import.

    Again, until we know what it is that we don’t know

    — we won’t know what the significance of that is.

    So it has to remain an open question.

  9. @ bernard ross:

    “My take on the argument is that the elements in which you are ‘uncertain’ is irrelevant to Yamits argument…”

    Why, ‘irrelelvant’?

    “I’m not interested in ‘refuting’ some argument here. I merely acknowledge that I don’t know what I don’t know.”

    “On the contrary, you appear to be grasping at straws to refute a simple self evident statement.”

    To me, Bernard, the only thing about Yamit’s postulate that’s evident is that he (as well as, apparently, yourself) has chosen to believe it.

    I find it, however, less than ‘evident,’ that it’s true.

    I’m always willing & ready to be shown.

    But the more I think about that particular claim, the more clear it is to me that it can’t be taken on its face without something more substantive to warrant it.

    It works in theory — till you start taking the history into consideration.

    Then you begin to realize that the jury’s actually still out.

    “Your argument seeks to attempt to justify the very argument you can’t refute by direct evidence.”

    “I’m not interested in ‘refuting’ some argument here. I merely acknowledge that I don’t know what I don’t know.”

    “I think it is you who desires to be ‘uncertain’.”

    Why would I ‘desire’ the discomfort of uncertainty? — the notion is silly.

    What’s more, there won’t be anything to ‘refute’ till the jury comes in.

    “I’m not afraid to endure uncertainty.”

    “dramatic!”

    No, Bernard, actually enduring uncertainty tends, more often than not, to be quite boring

    — anything BUT ‘dramatic.’

    That’s WHY there’s a discipline in being willing to tolerate it.

    “Boasting is unatractive…”

    Yes, it is; but why are you telling me that now?

    It’s not ‘boasting,’ Bernard, when there’s no pride in it.

    I soberly stated a fact.

    And also offerred the observation by way of exhortation to Yamit.

    It wasn’t a boast.

    There IS a special discipline in consciously resolving to maintain an open mind.

    Are you suggesting there’s something wrong with my telling him that?

    Because I’d say the same thing to you as well.

    The most solid, the most reliable way of obtaining certainty

    — is by keeping an open mind in the face of uncertainty. . . . until Certainty comes to you. . . . in its own time, and on its own dime.

  10. dweller Said:

    All he said was that the Xtn scriptures rely on the Jewish ones [viz., the Jewish scriptures], but not vice versa.

    Do you agree with this statement? Are you saying that perhaps it is vice versa, that the Jewish scriptures rely on the Christian ones? If you cannot agree with the first and agree with the second then I would have to say that “we are talking past one another”. Yamit did not mention removing the Jews from the christian narrative; I did. This was mentioned in order to increase the ability to discern the “elephant in the room”: the extent of the Jewish component of the Christian narrative and the effect of removing that component in all its aspects. It is the picking apart of the “trees” which blocks the vision of the “forest”,and the “elephant’ therein. Focusing on some trees enables ignoring the gist. I maintain that the removal of a few trees in no way affects the overall forest.
    dweller Said:

    “I’m not sure we can ASSUME that everything on which the NT asserted its basis would necessarily have survived the traumata & upheaval of the ‘First Jewish War’ intact.”

    If you DO believe we can make that assumption, then tell me why.

    Yamits statement does not rely on EVERYTHING on which NT is based being derived from Jewish scriptures which is why I postulated the question about removing the Jewish scriptures.