Meshugena Jews

Peloni:  The path which led to October 7 and the attempt to force Israel to stand down against the existential threats attacking her was the cumulation of divisions within the Jewish people, both within Israel and within the US.  Indeed, the consequences of these misjudged movements saw the attack on the Gaza envelope to be broadened into an attack against Jews throughout the Diaspora as well.  The contrasting unity which saw individuals marching to the defense of the Otef on October 7, as well as the historic rise in voluntary enlistment in the IDF from Jews within Israel and from around the world, demonstrated the reality that Jewish unity around the resolve to survive, both as a people and a nation.  It also marked the defiance of Jewish youths in the US to demand accountability for official sanctioning of antisemitism on US campuses.  It is this unity of spirit which will preserve both the Jewish people as well as the Jewish State, and any call to divide the resolve for such unity should be shown the scorn of society as being the leadership of Meshugana as Block describes so well.

By Walter E. Block

Hanay, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikime dia Commons

There is a lot of mishegas floating around in the Jewish community, both in Israel and in the United States.

Let us document this, first, in the Middle East.

What was occurring before October 7, 2023, a day that Hamas has put on the calendar to represent atrocity? I’ll tell you what was taking place in Israel in the weeks and months before that infamous date: there were massive protests occurring. Mobs in the tens of thousands, perhaps in the hundreds of thousands, maybe even in the millions, were on the march. They were blocking roads and highways. They were putting a massive crimp in that nation’s GDP. There were even army officers pledging not to fulfill their military obligations in these remonstrations. What in blue bloody blazes were they all so upset about?

They were enraged that the Likud government, under that “Hitler,” Benjamin Netanyahu, was trying to reform to Israeli Supreme Court. Was he trying to disband it? No, of course not. Maybe, he was in the process of compelling the Justices to eat pork along with their matzo? Not a bit of it. Instead, he was attempting to place this institution more on the footing of the US Supreme Court.

In the latter case, whenever a vacancy occurs on the bench, the President of America appoints a replacement, with the “advice and consent” of the third branch of government, the legislative. In the Jewish state, in sharp contrast, the present members of the high court themselves, all on their own, choose their next colleague. In a word, the Prime Minister of Israel was trying to combat a version of political incest. Under the Israeli system, the political economic philosophy of the Supreme Court never changes. The present members replicate themselves, and have been so doing ever since 1948, the inception of this anti-democratic system.

Why is this actually anti-democratic, the views to the contrary of the Israeli mobs notwithstanding? Because the electorate simply have no input, no matter how indirect, in the personnel of the Supreme Court. Israel voters, all of them, could have undergone a 180 degree change in perspective, and its Supreme Court would have been able to go on marching in the old direction, completely unaffected.

To be sure, popular vote never directly determines the makeup of the US Supreme Court. But the voters do have at least an indirect effect, in that they elect the president, and members of the legislature, who together appoint new high court judges.

But perhaps half of the Israeli populace, the meshugena part, were adamant that this was undemocratic!

Did Hamas invade Israel on October 7, 2023 in part because they saw a weakness on the part of their enemy? In their eyes, perhaps, Israel was in the early process of a civil war. When better to attack than at the time the enemy is disunited? And the fact that members of the IDF were publicly claiming they would not fulfill their military obligations might well have been the icing on the cake for Hamas, Hezbollah, and other Iranian proxies. If this is not mishegas on the part of a large part of the population of Israel, there is no such thing as mishegas. These people endangered their own country.

How do their American cousins stack up in the meshugena sweepstakes? Not too well. In case some of you were not paying attention, the US recently held a presidential election. Donald Trump won. He did so by making inroads in segments of the US electorate that had not been supporters of his in the past.

For example, support for Trump on the part of black and Hispanic men markedly increased. Then there is the case of young voters, male and female, of all races: “The youth vote, often seen as a vote staple for left-leaning parties across the western world, was its worst for the Democrats in this election, with data showing Kamala Harris leading Trump 52-46 within this demographic. That six-point advantage compares to Biden’s 25-point buffer over Trump in 2020, and Hillary Clinton’s 18-point lead in 2016.”

A similar phenomenon arose with women of all ages and with members of the working class. Harris beat Trump in the categories, too, but by much smaller margins than Democrats have prevailed against Republicans in the past

What about the Jewish vote? Oy vey, don’t ask! Here’s where the mishegas manifests itself.

“Despite rhetoric and a track record that would suggest a strong preference for Israel over the Palestinian cause, President-elect Donald Trump lost the Jewish vote by a larger margin than he lost the Muslim vote.  Thirty-four percentage points separated Trump from Vice President Kamala Harris among Jewish voters, according to Fox News Voter Analysis. Harris won their support 66% to 32%.

Despite Republican attempts to paint Democrats as inconsistent on Israel, Jewish voters only narrowly shifted toward Trump. In 2020, 69% voted for President Biden, 30% voted for Trump.”

To add insult to injury, Mr. Trump did slightly better amongst Muslim than Jewish voters. This is a real shonda.

What is going on here? What does Mr. Trump have to do to attract voters of the Hebrew faith? He moved the US consulate from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. That was not enough to make much of a dent in the Jewish electorate. He was responsible for the Abraham Accords, which made peace for Israel with many Arab states. Saudi Arabia was on the verge of signing up, when Hamas struck (that might well have been another motivation for the Hamas pogrom). The next president of the United States was helpful to Israel in recognizing its rights to the Golan Heights as well as Judea and Samaria. He pledges, over and over again, that Israel never had a better friend then himself.

In very sharp contrast, the Democratic Administration of Biden and Harris have been a continual thorn in Israel’s side. Always calling for a pause, for a cease fire, for peace, which would have strengthened the enemies of the only Jewish state on the planet. (Hey, if we need a “Two State Solution” how about a second Jewish state? Maybe in Amsterdam?!) At pretty much every point, they have acted so as to make it more difficult for Israel to defend itself: don’t go into Gaza! Certainly don’t clean out Rafah. Give more food, electricity and medical supplies to Gazans, otherwise we will cut off military aid! When Netanyahu addressed the US congress, who boycotted him? I’ll give you a hint: it was not members of the Republican Party, who were too busy giving him standing ovations. Who gave the back of his hand to the Prime Minister of Israel when he visited Washington DC? Barack Obama, to his shame.

And yet for all this the Jewish pointer on the dial hardly moves in the Trumpian direction? Mishegas!