Roy Exum: The End Of ‘Hep! Hep!’

  • Friday, December 8, 2017
  • Roy Exum
Roy Exum
Roy Exum

My love and allegiance to the Nation of Israel can be completely explained in five simple words – my Jesus is a Jew. On Wednesday, when President Trump officially recognized the dity of Jerusalem as the capital of the country, the impact of the decision swept across the Middle East. Today the United Nations Security Council will meet in emergency session over “grave circumstances” but in “The City of David,” there is unbridled rejoicing. I adore that Trump has repaired the strong allegiance with our most loyal ally.

Amichai Chikli is a no-nonsense guy who is a major with Israel’s Special Forces, He’s trained in reconnaissance and dabbles around with a guerrilla counter-warfare unit that doesn’t flinch. In an interview with writer Justen Charters, he called Trump’s decision to recognize Jerusalem as the nation’s capital as “very, very exciting.”

In recent years Jerusalem has not been recognized as the capital by the international community because Palestine considered the city’s East area as its nation’s capital. To just give an example of how confusing things are, the city is among the oldest in the world. Jerusalem dates back to 9th century BCE (Iron Age II), and in the 8th century the city developed into the religious and administrative center of the Kingdom of Judah. During its long history, Jerusalem has been destroyed at least twice, besieged 23 times, attacked 52 times, and captured and recaptured 44 times.

What makes Trump’s declaration so important can be found in this portion of a speech by Geert Wilders:

* * *

“There is one Western country that has been forced to fight the forces of jihad for its values since the very first day of its existence, and that is the State of Israel … I love Israel. However, in Europe being pro-America and being pro-Israel makes you almost an endangered species. But Israel, ladies and gentlemen, is a beacon of light in an area – the Middle East – that is pitch black everywhere else.

“Israel is a Western democracy … The so-called 'Middle East conflict' is not about land at all. It is not a territorial conflict. It's a conflict about ideologies; it's a battle between Islam and freedom. It's not about some land in Gaza or in Judea and Samaria. … To Islam the whole of Israel is occupied territory. They see Jerusalem and Haifa as settlements too. … Islam forces Israel to fight, and Israel is not just fighting for itself. Israel is fighting for all of us. We all are Israel. Israel fights for the entire West.”

* * *

Now let’s return to the conversation the writer Charters had with the Israeli major. “I’ll start with the facts,” Chikli said in the Independent Journalism Review interview. “There was a famous insult that was used and said to Jews all over Europe, so if you wanted to insult a Jew, you would shout at him ‘Hep! Hep!’ which is, in Latin, the letters of ‘Hierosolyma est perdita,’ which means ‘Jerusalem is lost.’”

“And so tonight, when I’m thinking of all these young Jews, who went to a café in Vienna, in Berlin, or in Moscow, and some bullies shouted at them ‘hep, hep!’ When I’m thinking about them and I’m thinking look where we are now.”

For Israel, Trump’s move was a huge shift in foreign policy. “Some people say it’s not news, you know Congress had already decided in 1995 that Jerusalem is the capital of Israel. But the spirit was not there,” the Major explained. “The spirit was not there and now after eight years of agony, of Obama, who was so anti to Israel, who was anti to Jerusalem, but to the legacy of Israel, the Judeo-Christian legacy, it is so refreshing, and it’s empowering, as an individual and as a Jew.”

Chikli believes, “This is a change in the course of history. It is a change of the spirit, and that’s what’s important.”

Is he concerned that Palestinians have declared ‘three days of rage?’ “To the Palestinians and the Arabs who think this will lead to war, every other day for them is a rage day. They have these rage days all the time,” he scoffed. “We don’t really care about these rage days."

"Far more important, fear is no strategy. Especially when you have a violent barbarian enemy. And we all know when you show a barbarian that you are afraid of them, it only causes them to be much more aggressive. So there is nothing to fear. And we are willing, if need be, to fight.”

"On the strategic diplomatic level, I think this is a clear message to all the tyrants, to the Iranians, to the Palestinians, that lies cannot exist for long. And our Israel, the state of Israel, is here to stay forever.

“This is a great moment.”

* * *

“Peace for Israel means security, and we must stand with all our might to protect its right to exist, its territorial integrity. I see Israel as one of the great outposts of democracy in the world, and a marvelous example of what can be done, how desert land can be transformed into an oasis of brotherhood and democracy. Peace for Israel means security and that security must be a reality.” -- Martin Luther King, Jr., March 25, 1968 (less than two weeks before his death.”

“Let me tell you something that we Israelis have against Moses. He took us 40 years through the desert in order to bring us to the one spot in the Middle East that has no oil!” -- Golda Meir (the only woman to ever be Prime Minister of Israel 1969-1974)

royexum@aol.com

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