{"id":763,"date":"2016-03-03T07:09:41","date_gmt":"2016-03-03T12:09:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/isittheendoftheworld\/?p=763"},"modified":"2016-03-03T07:09:41","modified_gmt":"2016-03-03T12:09:41","slug":"jews-can-defend","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/isittheendoftheworld\/2016\/03\/jews-can-defend.html","title":{"rendered":"When Jews Can Defend Themselves"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In 2015, a German court convicted a former SS guard at Auschwitz of complicity in the murders of 300,000 people. At 94, the guard admitted his crimes. In the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2015\/07\/16\/world\/europe\/oskar-groning-auschwitz-nazi.html?smid=fb-share&amp;_r=0\">New York Times article <\/a>about the trial, a remarkable tidbit surfaced:<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;As the judge took the court on a journey to what he described as a seemingly distant past, the only sound in the makeshift courtroom \u2014 a meeting hall converted to accommodate interest in the trial \u2014 was the low background buzz of interpreters working in English, Hungarian and Hebrew.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><em>And Hebrew.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Remarkable. Remarkable.<\/p>\n<p>The world has changed dramatically since 1945, when the war ended and thousands of living skeletons staggered out of the death camps of Europe. A high number of them were Jews targeted for death by the demons who ran Germany for 12 long years.<\/p>\n<p>I remember visiting Prof. Benzion Netanyahu, the acclaimed scholar. He was also controversial, because he believed passionately in Zionism and the right of Jews to defend themselves. Isn&#8217;t that amazing&#8230;his views were considered &#8220;controversial&#8221;? Well, such is the world we live in in 2016.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/isittheendoftheworld\/files\/2016\/03\/gun-2.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-769\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/237\/2016\/03\/gun-2-225x300.jpg\" alt=\"gun 2\" width=\"225\" height=\"300\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>In any event, Netanyahu once told me that &#8220;Russia hated the Jews before she knew them.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>This is a profound statement, and shows the level of madness present in those who are Jew-haters. Anti-Semitism is an irrational sickness that has plagued man for 4,000 years.<\/p>\n<p>Happily today, though, the state of Israel exists, and Jews there can and do defend themselves. The famed Israel Defense Forces is such a deterrent in the Middle East that the Jewish state survives and thrives despite constant threats, and a neighborhood that has been burning down for years.<\/p>\n<p>Here&#8217;s to the remarkable family known as Israel. May you always be vigilant, and may you live forever.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In 2015, a German court convicted a former SS guard at Auschwitz of complicity in the murders of 300,000 people. At 94, the guard admitted his crimes. In the New York Times article about the trial, a remarkable tidbit surfaced: &#8220;As the judge took the court on a journey to what he described as a&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":392,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17,5,19,16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-763","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bible-prophecy","category-holy-land","category-israel","category-the-middle-east"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>When Jews Can Defend Themselves - Is it the End of the World?<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/isittheendoftheworld\/2016\/03\/jews-can-defend.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"When Jews Can Defend Themselves - Is it the End of the World?\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"In 2015, a German court convicted a former SS guard at Auschwitz of complicity in the murders of 300,000 people. At 94, the guard admitted his crimes. In the New York Times article about the trial, a remarkable tidbit surfaced: &#8220;As the judge took the court on a journey to what he described as a&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/isittheendoftheworld\/2016\/03\/jews-can-defend.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Is it the End of the World?\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2016-03-03T12:09:41+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/isittheendoftheworld\/files\/2016\/03\/gun-2-225x300.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Jim Fletcher\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"When Jews Can Defend Themselves - Is it the End of the World?","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/isittheendoftheworld\/2016\/03\/jews-can-defend.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"When Jews Can Defend Themselves - Is it the End of the World?","og_description":"In 2015, a German court convicted a former SS guard at Auschwitz of complicity in the murders of 300,000 people. 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