Every day you hear about Israel and how they dare to retaliate when missiles are dropped on their people on a daily basis. How dare they kill 100 Palestinians when only three Israelis are killed. What right does the State of Israel have to attack with such force? Would any other civilized country retaliate when their people come under missile attack?

Recently I came across a Shabbat Sermon by Rabbi Mitchell Wohlberg of Beth Tfiloh of Baltimore, Maryland. I called Rabbi Wohlberg to receive his permission to put some of his thoughts in my article. His sermon was on “Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid” by Jimmy Carter. Rabbi Wohlberg talks about the book and various passages. He states “I could go on and on. I marked the pages in the book where Carter shows a bias against Israel … and it is almost every page!

“And that’s the way it’s been with our people ever since. People with names like Voltaire and Martin Luther and Arnold Toynbee and Henry Ford and Charles DeGaulle … giants in history, brilliant minds … but when it came to the Jews, they had a ‘blind spot.’ And that’s the way it is today with the Tutus and Carters and all of the others. When they judge most everything else and analyze anything else — they do it with their good eye. But when it comes to the Jewish people, they are blinded by their bias and their internal prejudices.

“And you know the saddest part of it all is the fact that there are not only many non-Jews who have a bias against Israel … there seem to be many Jews as well! Many of our people's best and brightest, college professors like Noam Chomsky, noted historians like Tony Judt, Pulitzer Prize winning playwrights like Tony Kushner are amongst Israel’s most severe critics; never showing any sensitivity, never giving it a break. All of Israel’s critics – the Jimmy Carters of this world – would do well to take to heart the words of the highly esteemed Rector of St. Bartholomew’s Episcopal Church in New York City, who when asked to comment about criticism of Israel, wrote in the Washington Post:”

‘The state of Israel is that homeland. And though bravely and consistently the only real democracy in its region, Israel the state is not perfect. But it is there by rare world consensus, and it has been realized by the work of its own people and the investment of many others in that work. And it exists in spite of the determination of many of its neighbors to deny its legitimacy and work for its destruction.’

Rabbi Wohlberg goes on to say:

“Yes, living in a world where millions of radical Islamists are sworn to the murder of every Jew, a world in which Hamas and Hezbollah refuse to recognize Israel’s right to exist, a world in which there is an Iran pursuing nuclear weapons which it threatens to use to annihilate Israel … living in such a world, a world which allowed 1/3 of the Jewish people to be annihilated just one generation ago … living in such a world Israel and the Jewish people have earned and deserve the benefit of the doubt. If you are going to be biased after 2000 years of exile and ghettos and persecutions and pogroms and gas chambers, the people of Israel deserve a break.

“Jimmy Carter is not willing to give it to them. But that’s okay. We’ve had worse enemies, more dangerous enemies than him and we survived. We’ll survive his book. We are the People of the Book, and it was that book that God promised the Jewish people …”

We must always be on the look out for those who want to harm us. We must also remember that they are afraid of us. We are such a small minority, but certain people fear us and are jealous of us. Always be on guard.