Parsha Va’eira 5784 — Why are people, and countries so obsessed with Israel?

Jeffrey Levine
7 min readJan 11, 2024

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Why are people, and countries so obsessed with Israel?

When their own countries are in such a mess!!

Currently, we are in the midst of a trial at the International Court of Justice initiated by the country of my birth, South Africa, against my country, where I have lived for the last 28 years, Israel. I chose to return to our Homeland because that is a tenet of our belief over 3000 years of history, prayer, mission, and longing.

What is disturbing about this is that South Africa, which has so many problems is that they have time to devote to denouncing and worrying about what Israel and the Jews are doing. For example, In South Africa, over 18 million people are living under the extreme poverty line of $1.9 a day. And there are over 25,000 deaths a year caused by criminal activities, never mind robberies and other things, never mind the fact of state corruption, that there are problems with infrastructure, problems with water, electricity, and so forth. But they choose to devote their resources to this.

And they say nothing else is worrying them in the world. And then, the president of South Africa has the cheek to invite one of the leaders of Sudan, who is responsible for one of the most brutal civil wars and genocide and war crimes going on at the moment.

Astonishingly, we see the calls for free Palestine from genocide, free Palestine from that.., from this occupation. I will not go into the lack of merits of these accusation in this blog, but I want to highlight:

There is no campaign to free the world from other genocides and other war crimes and displacements.

In this little blog, I’ve done some research and listed some of these researchers. This makes interesting and sad reading. (see Part 2 of this blog)

So, what is the single obsession with the Jews?

Throughout history, From the Biblical story, the church, the crusades, the Inquisition, the pogroms, Islam, Marxism, Communism, Nazi Hitler, and The UN, The Jews are always singled out and judged. And we see this today in many countries and the United Nations.

And you see this in Pharaoh in our Parsha, where he singled out the Jews for slavery.

And it’s an interesting awareness in our Parsha this week, where it says on many occasions,

“God hardened the heart of Pharaoh”.

What does that mean?

I like this explanation found on the internet.

“The point of the story is not to tell us that God engineers evil. Rather, it is a cautionary warning saying, “Don’t be like Pharaoh!” Strange things happen in the human heart and mind when we let the evil urges of our broken nature go unchecked.”

We can see that today. God is hardening the hearts of these leaders around the world, and they’re not able to see the truth. The truth is that we as a country want to live in peace and have made many efforts to live in peace and provide prosperity to our neighbours and the Arabs who dwell here. But the events of 7 October left us with little hope. And there is little hope for security, both in the south (Gaza)and in the north, where Hezbollah have no real claim against Israel, but is just a continual proxy of Iran, with the goals of capturing Jerusalem, Global Jihad and colonization. And that is a sad truth.

And there’s a famous saying that Rabbi Sacks said,

“Those who are confident in their faith, are not threatened but enlarged by the different faith of others.”

There’s no reason why that cannot be.

Unfortunately, Israel thriving and living in its historical Homeland of 3,000 years makes their religion, identity and ideology false.

Instead of applying Rabbi Sack’s doctrine, they seek to destroy us. Gaza Hamas is more fanatical than Nazi Germany in that the whole country has one purpose — reason for existence and we see this in the billions siphoned from Intl Aid to build the most elaborate Tunnel system, build and fire rockets, procure weapons, spread false propaganda in one aim and that this is the destruction of the Jewish state. Imagine if these funds were used to develop the country and economy instead. (and now the world asks to us to continue providing Humanitarian Aid — How Sic!) Ask Egypt, Ask Iran, Ask Qatar, Ask Turkey etc to take responsibility. But their hearts are hardened.

When looking at all these civil wars and the displacement of people, there has been a relocation of 4.2 million Syrians in their civil war. Relocation is and has been a part of solving world crises since time eternally, WW1, WW2 and other conflicts.

Yet, the doors of emigration are closed by Hamas-supporting countries.

And if these countries desire peace, then they should welcome to accepting these Arabs in their countries.

If the “Palestinians” in Gaza and the West Bank are not willing to accept Israel, then they need to be moved out, I’m sorry to say that. Maybe Kahane was right.

But in order for our security, for the peace, there should be a population transfer. And if they can do this to 4.2 million Syrians, then other countries around the world which are supporting the Palestinians and the Gazans, should take them as refugees. And they could go to Jordan, Egypt, Iran, Qatar, Turkey, and even some African/European countries that want them. And then maybe we can have some peace and normalcy.

And unfortunately, that’s what’s got to be done.

Time for moral clarity and truth.

Part 2 — Sources / References / Facts / Truths

After suing Israel at the Hague: South African President hosts mass murderer

South African Pres. Cyril Ramaphosa tweets of meeting with Sudanese warlord whose militants are accused of rapes and mass murders.

https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/383143

South Africa

As of 2023, around 18.2 million people in South Africa are living in extreme poverty, with the poverty threshold at 1.90 U.S. dollars daily.

Violent crime in South Africa has spiked over the past decade after a period when it decreased substantially. There were 27,494 killings in South Africa in the year to February 2023, compared with 16,213 in 2012–2013

Sudan

Sudan’s two warring factions remain locked in a deadly power struggle after more than six months of fighting. The conflict has killed more than 10,000 people and displaced 5.6 million, 80 percent of whom are internally displaced and hundreds of thousands of whom have fled to unstable areas in Chad, Ethiopia, and South Sudan

https://www.cfr.org/global-conflict-tracker/conflict/power-struggle-sudan#:~:text=The%20conflict%20is%20primarily%20a,Rapid%20Support%20Forces%20(RSF).

Yemen — Houthis

According to a February 2015 Newsweek report, Houthis are fighting “for things that all Yemenis crave: government accountability, the end to corruption, regular utilities, fair fuel prices, job opportunities for ordinary Yemenis and the end of Western influence.”

Yemen’s civil war began in 2014 when Houthi insurgents — Shiite rebels with links to Iran and a history of rising up against the Sunni government — took control of Yemen’s capital and largest city, Sana’a, demanding lower fuel prices and a new government. Following failed negotiations, the rebels seized the presidential palace in January 2015, leading President Abd Rabbu Mansour Hadi and his government to resign. Beginning in March 2015, a coalition of Gulf states led by Saudi Arabia launched a campaign of economic isolation and air strikes against the Houthi insurgents, with U.S. logistical and intelligence support.

Meanwhile, the conflict has taken a heavy toll on Yemeni civilians, making Yemen the world’s worst humanitarian crisis. The UN estimates that 60 percent of the estimated 377,000 deaths in Yemen between 2015 and the beginning of 2022 were the result of indirect causes like food insecurity and lack of accessible health services. Two-thirds of the population, or 21.6 million Yemenis, remain in dire need of assistance. Five million are at risk of famine, and a cholera outbreak has affected over one million people. All sides of the conflict are reported to have violated human rights and international humanitarian law.

Syria

According to estimates from the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, more than 600,000 people have been killed since the start of the war. In its 2023 Global Appeal, the UN reported that more than 6.9 million are currently internally displaced, with more than 5.4 million living as refugees abroad. Many refugees have fled to Jordan and Lebanon, straining already weak infrastructures and limited resources. More than 3.4 million Syrians have fled to Turkey, and many have attempted to seek refuge in Europe.

Turkey

Approximately thirty million Kurds live in the Middle East — primarily in Iran, Iraq, Syria, and Turkey — and the Kurds comprise nearly one-fifth of Turkey’s population of seventy-nine million. The Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), established by Abdullah Ocalan in 1978, has waged an insurgency since 1984 against Turkish authorities for greater cultural and political rights, primarily with the objective of establishing an independent Kurdish state. The ongoing conflict has resulted in nearly forty thousand deaths.

Ethiopia

In 2021 alone, 5.1 million Ethiopians became internally displaced, a record for the most people internally displaced in any country in any single year at the time. Thousands also fled to Sudan and other countries in the region. By the time the Pretoria agreement took effect, the Tigray War and its associated humanitarian disaster had killed approximately 600,000 people.

https://www.cfr.org/global-conflict-tracker/methodology

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Jeffrey Levine

Jeffrey Levine provides CFO, Director, ESG Advisory Services through www.persofi.com and is a promoter of ideas and trends where Innovation meets ESG