In their epic eleven volume “The Story of Civilization,” Will and Ariel Durant devote a full chapter to the persecution of Jews throughout Europe for centuries. “The Age of Rousseau” notes that the French philosopher marveled at the Jewish people’s resilience and brilliance despite being banished, murdered, and robbed of a home land, “…Zion, destroyed, has not lost its children; they are preserved, they multiply, they spread throughout the world…they mingle with all people yet are not confused with them; they have no rulers, yet they are always a people…” The authors point out that almost every nation and group in Christendom at one time or another had persecuted the Jews as heretics “by wholesale massacre, inquisitions or pograms” by the 18th Century.

In that century, the Jews had no civil rights in France before the Revolution. Jews had to pretend to be Christians if they hoped to survive in Spain, where they would be killed. The Inquisition in Portugal burned 27 Jews in 1717 for refusing to convert. Rome banned Jews from most trades, which is how the Jewish tailor stereotype was born: that was one of the few occupations open to them. By 1700, 75% of Jewish adults in Rome were tailors. In 1775, the Pope, Pius VI, decreed that Jews could not ride in carriages or erect tombstones over their dead. Austria banned Jews from owning property, holding office, or engaging in crafts. Russia’s empress in 1742 ordered that every Jew must be deported from the country unless they agreed to become Christian. Poland had 621,000 Jews in 1766, and they were taxed at a higher rate than Christian Poles, and also prevented from building new synagogues. There were massacres of Jews in Poland in 1734, 1750, and 1768.

Jews were banned from universities in every European nation, so they were forced to educate themselves.

Germany in the 18th Century was one of the least oppressive places for Jews to live, which is why the Jewish population there became the largest in Europe by the time Hitler was looking for scapegoats. They still were taxed at higher rates than Christians. England was also relatively accommodating to Jews, though they could not hold military or civil office without taking a Christian oath. The Jews had to establish their own hospitals because the English hospitals wouldn’t treat them. The Durants wrote that “jewbaiting was a popular sport.” In 1754 there was an outbreak of intense anti-Semitism, with people wearing badges reading “No Jews.” This was in the European nation where Jews were relatively welcome.

The Durants end their chapter by saluting the armies of the French Revolution and Napoleon, which brought freedom and civil rights to the Jews in France in 1789, Holland (1796), Venice (1797), Rome (1810), and Frankfort (1811). “For the Jews the Middle Ages had at last come to an end,” the historians conclude. Well, at least for a while. “The History of Civilization” ends with “The Age of Napoleon.” The Durants died before they could write “The Age of Hitler.”

It is often noted that as the signs of the approaching Holocaust seemed, in hindsight, to be obvious, Germany’s Jews refused to believe that the clock could be turned back to the Middle Ages, when they were driven out of nations or massacred in them. This will pass, they believed, and their people would, as always, persevere, suffer, and eventually survive and flourish because of their vigorous culture. It did not pass, however, not before millions of Jews had been exterminated and every nation, including the United States under Liberal icon FDR, deliberately engaged in wilful blindness to their existential plight.

Zionism is typically described as Jewish nationalism, a movement that holds that
the only solution to anti-Semitism is for Jews to have a permanent state where they govern themselves, defend themselves, and welcome all Jews who seek refuge there. The only explanation for non-Jews opposing Zionism is outright ignorance of history, or a desire to see Jews marginalized, persecuted or killed. (The explanation for Jews opposing Zionism is estrangement from their religion and culture and a desire to signal their progressive virtue.)This is, as Rousseau correctly observed, a practical, astute, resilient culture. It would be stunningly obtuse, after the experience of the centuries since Christ’s crucifixion, for Jews not to conclude that the rest of the world cannot be trusted, and that the only safe option is a separate nation that is ready, willing and able to defend itself against the bigots, blood libelers and haters who clearly go into strategic passivity from time to time, only to emerge again with their deadly animus intact.

The Hamas terrorist attack in 2023 succeeded in one of its goals, which was to awaken virulent anti-Semitism around the world. In this respect the Palestinians won, making it clear to all but the most naive (or anti-Jewish) that Israel’s only responsible course is to destroy Hamas or force an unconditional surrender. The Mad Left, which has in its simple-minded reduction of human relations to Bad Whites vs Good People of Color, somehow decided to cast the Jews as “whites” and so-called Palestinians as “people of color” though they are genetically indistinguishable. Israel is not “apartheid,” for non-Jews can live there, are not partitioned from the rest of the population, can become citizens, and have all civil rights. The war against Gaza is not “genocide,” any more than the U.S.’s war with Japan was genocide, in fact even less so, since Hebrews and Arabs are not different races. Israel is not an “occupation,” not after nearly 80 years as a sovereign nation.

Perhaps the Jews should start reciting land acknowledgments.

Those words—genocide, apartheid, occupation—and statements that one is anti-Zionist or “Pro Palestine” are markers of the anti-Semitic, the knee-jerk progressive, and/or the historical and ethical dunce. Only the Jews among all the peoples of the Earth have had the long nightmare of hate and persecution world-wide based on who they are rather than what they have done. To not be Zionists following such lessons of history would mark them as a race of fools, and that they most certainly are not; if anything, the Jewish people are the opposite, one of the most brilliant, ambitious, creative, productive cultures extant. They know what is in their best interests, and it should be obvious to any fair-minded human being that their conclusion is beyond debate. The current outbreak of world Jew hate is evidence; the treatment of the Israeli Prime Minister at the U.N. is evidence; the fact that a major American political party is on the brink of taking over the government while infected by anti-Semitism is evidence.

For the Jewish people, Zionism is survival, and nothing less.