Politics 2.0

GO TO HELL IRAN


The Iranian President’s recent comment of wiping Israel off the map was outright disgusting and unacceptable. Following this verbal abuse on Israel, The UN condemned President Ahmadinejad and the Iranian government. However, as the weeks have progressed, the comment unfortunately has been sidelined from the international media. Even though the outcry from the international community has subsided, the underlying issue of ant-semitism still remains.

It would be naïve to believe that there is no link between Ahmadinejad’s comment, terrorism and nuclear proliferation. In fact, his remark reaffirms Iran’s intent to promote violence and terror against Israel. Such an idea is not new and in many ways it echoes the Nazi propaganda of the 1930’s. It is a sad reality that anti-semitism, through the form of anti-Zionism or whichever term is fashionable, is still alive in the 21st century despite the lessons learnt in the past century.

The gravity of this statement, naturally, has been downplayed by sympathisers towards Iran and somewhat trivialised in global politics. But as Jews, we know that the intent behind this comment is still there and that such a remark cannot be ignored. In light of the comment, this resurgence in anti-semitism and the constant threat of global terrorism, I wonder what type of society will govern the future generation. The previous generation of Jews was defined by the miracle of the Six Day War, and the generation before that was defined by the building of the State of Israel out of the ashes of the Holocaust. In the future what will define our generation? Will it be a society governed by terrorism and anti-Semitism where suicide bombings and the threat of nuclear war are the norm? Or will we be a generation that will be defined as the ones who stood up to terrorism and injustice against our people? I sincerely hope that we will be the latter.