Kehilat Middlesbrough Newsletter No 15 October 2002 page 5
Roma and I want to wish you all a Happy and Healthy and Peaceful Year. We have been in contact with many of our friends during the last year and they know our news. To the others we're still here and alive.
Rebecca is now in her second month in the Intensive Care Department at the Childrens' Hospital in Melbourne. She seems to be finding her feet and even went out with the Flying Doctor Service!!
Natty and Racheli returned from their year in London where Racheli got a masters degree at LSE of which we are duly proud. They have rented a flat in Netania and have both found good jobs. Lets hope that their employers continue to flourish. Danny starts at the Hebrew University, Jerusalem next month. And Yaeli is working hard to raise the cash to go and visit Rebecca in Australia.
In November I am moving my surgery/office back home to where we had it. I've been in the present place 14 years and have greatly enjoyed it. With financial restrictions I now find I also have to cut back. Roma and I have been busy getting the place ready.
Today is the first anniversary of the World Trade Tragedy. Looking at the films last night it is still unbelievable. It makes us even more aware of the state of Jews in the World and the wonder of the State of Israel. We received the following note from friends of ours who live here in Herzliya. They came from England. I think it is well worth reading what they have to say. Roma and Melvyn Brooks Israel
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Another year has passed and it has not been a good year for Israel and the Jewish people and for the Western World in general.
The anti-Israel rhetoric being generated world-wide is bringing with it a rise in overt anti-Semitism not seen since before WW II and every effort is being made to de-legitimize the State of Israel and to deny the rights of the Jewish People to their own tiny country. Logic and truth have been jettisoned in favour of Moslem and Arab propaganda, lies, distortions and half-truths which are daily accepted as fact.
It seems frighteningly reminiscent of the 1930s . The Jews are once again fair game and Israel is as expendable to Europe as Poland once was. The most popular books in the Arab world, after the Koran are Mein Kampf and the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. If you are outside Marks & Spencers or Selfridges in Oxford Street, on a Saturday you will be met by demonstrators who will tell you how the Jews run the banks, are responsible for everything bad occurring in the World, torture poor Arab children etc, etc and will be pleased to call you a Nazi Jew if you argue back. Strong Arab web sites promote boycotts of Israeli products, British Trade Unions promote boycotts of contacts with Israeli institutions, even against Israeli youth football games. British Universities invite known Arab terrorists as speakers, The British Foreign Office tolerates a Saudi Ambassador who openly praises suicide bombing, the BBC vies with the other media to see who can produce the most distorted view of Israel. The United Nations is a farce, always ready for condemnation of Israel but never once condemning any terrorist organization by name for attacking Israeli citizens. Terje Larsen, the UN envoy for the Middle East actually lies about Israel on TV . ‘Politically correct’ Jews rush to jump on the Israel Bashing bandwagon, encouraging distorted one-sided views of their own, with voices far louder than their meager numbers, encouraged and lauded by media looking for any possibility to denigrate Israel and the Jews further.
If or more likely when, America decides to attack Iraq, Israel will be blamed whatever the outcome. The media are already hinting that Israel controls American foreign policy. No-one notices that the last thing that Israelis want is to be attacked with unthinkable weapons.
What have Israel and the Jews done to deserve this? Why is the world turning against us in this way? After 80 years of trying, the Arabs realized that they had not yet beaten Israel by war and terror, so they turned to the pen . For the past 20 years, millions of petro-dollars have been poured into paying for PR campaigns. These campaigns are now bearing their poisoned fruit. Israel has offered peace to its Arab neighbours , since its inception. What have the Arabs offered except for terrorism and war?
After the signing of the Oslo Accords when Israel was giving land for peace, terrorism against Israelis rose to an unprecedented level. In 2000 an offer of almost all Palestinian demands was answered with another unprecedented wave of attacks against Israelis. The truth must be faced, whatever Israel does, whatever Israel offers it will not be enough, only the disappearance of the Jewish State will fulfill Moslem aspirations. Radical Moslems are looking to spread Islam across the entire world, their battle is not only against the Jews, on the contrary, it is against any other religion than their own, yet how much publicity is given to the massacres (real massacres- not imagined) of Christians or Hindus, by Moslems, in comparison to the coverage of the accidental killing of a Palestinian child by the Israelis.
What can we do in the face of such hostility? We should keep ourselves firmly grounded in the truth. We must look at what Israel does, not in the light of the TV reporters’ opinion, but into the facts and at the cause and justification for her actions.
We must remind ourselves that Israel may not be perfect but it struggles against overwhelming odds to be fair and just, to walk the tightrope of survival over the chasm of annihilation. We must constantly remind ourselves of what Israel and the Jews give to the world. We must stand strong and proud and look at our history of faith and survival but most of all WE MUST STAND UP FOR OURSELVES and WE MUST STAND UP FOR ISRAEL.