Chutzpah, Thy Name Is Zionism

Maidhc Ó Cathail

Chutzpah, a Yiddish word meaning "shameless audacity," has been famously defined as "that quality enshrined in a man who, having killed his mother and father, throws himself on the mercy of the court because he is an orphan." Considering Israel’s increasingly outrageous behaviour, perhaps it’s time for a new definition. The one that springs to mind is "that quality enshrined in a state, which having induced its 'allies’ into a disastrous invasion of Iraq, then urges them to attack Iran."

At a recent dinner in honour of visiting Italian premier Silvio Berlusconi, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu took yet another rhetorical swipe at Tehran. "Humanity stands before one of its most difficult tests since World War II," Netanyahu intoned. "The radical Islamic regime threats [sic] the well-being of the state of Israel, the region, and all of humanity."¹

Sounding more like an Israeli envoy than the head of a sovereign nation, Berlusconi responded, "My job is to make sure that world leaders do not commit the same error of the past, the error of indifference that brought about the greatest tragedy in history."

In Defamation, a highly revealing 2009 documentary on anti-Semitism by Israeli filmmaker Yoav Shamir,² Professor Norman Finkelstein noted this strategy of invoking past Jewish suffering to justify future wars. "The irony is that the Nazi holocaust has now become the main ideological weapon for launching wars of aggression," said Finkelstein, the author of The Holocaust Industry. "Every time you want to launch a war of aggression, drag in the Nazi holocaust."

Or, to be more precise, every time Israel wants other countries to launch a war of aggression on its behalf, it drags in the Nazi holocaust. In the build-up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq, Netanyahu was one of many Zionists who did just that. In a September 20, 2002 Wall Street Journal op-ed titled "The Case for Toppling Saddam,"³ Netanyahu laid on the guilt trip: "We now know that had the democracies taken pre-emptive action to bring down Hitler’s regime in the 1930s, the worst horrors in history could have been avoided."

And as he and other Zionists are now doing with Iran, Netanyahu was in 2002 hyping a non-existent Iraqi nuclear threat. Saddam Hussein, he claimed, was "feverishly trying to acquire nuclear weapons." Moreover, "the deadly material necessary for atomic bombs," the then former Israeli Prime Minister speculated, could be produced "in centrifuges the size of washing machines that can be hidden throughout the country—and Iraq is a very big country." To uncover Saddam’s hypothetical "portable manufacturing sites of mass death," Netanyahu warned that "nothing less than dismantling his regime will do."

One might think that with over a million people dead and almost five million others displaced in Iraq—and not a weapon of mass destruction to be found—that Netanyahu might be showing some remorse. Instead, he’s beating the drums loudest for an even more catastrophic war with Iran.

That should tell us a lot not only about the man but about the nature of the ideology that drives him. Zionism, like the fictional Jewish parenticide, shamelessly attempts to turn reality on its head.

Instead of acknowledging that it is the only nuclear-armed state in the Middle East,⁴ Israel and its supporters focus the world’s attention on imaginary threats from its regional rivals.

Rather than apologizing for their crimes against humanity—most notably, the dispossession and virtual imprisonment of the Palestinian people— Zionists arrogantly portray themselves as the defenders of humanity against Islamic aggression.

And instead of admitting that they lied about Iraqi WMD, Iraqi ties to al-Qaeda, Iraqi mobile biological weapons laboratories, Iraqi yellowcake uranium from Niger, and Iraqi meetings in Prague, Zionist propagandists are busy concocting similarly brazen lies about Iran.

If world leaders are indeed committing an "error of indifference," it is hardly their supposed resistance to Zionist scaremongering. Rather, it is their indifference to the suffering of Arab and Muslim peoples. Foremost among them are the Palestinians—the ultimate victims of the shameless audacity of Zionism.

Liel Kyzer, "Netanyahu to Berlusconi: You show courage in backing Iran sanctions," Haaretz, February 7, 2010. [↩]

Yoav Shamir, Defamation, 2009. Watch film online. [↩]

Benjamin Netanyahu, "The Case for Toppling Saddam," Wall Street Journal, September 20, 2002. [↩]

Israel is not alone in not wanting to acknowledge this fact. Watch President Obama dodge Helen Thomas’ question, "Do you know of any country in the Middle East that has nuclear weapons?" "President Obama’s first press conference—Helen Thomas gets to at least ask a question," You Tube video. [↩]