The name Howard Gutman has been in the news recently. He is the Jewish lawyer whose work for Obama in the 2008 presidential campaign was rewarded with an appointment as Ambassador to Belgium. He made a speech on November 30 at a conference in Brussels entitled “Fighting Anti-Semitism in Europe: What is Next?” If you haven’t read it, here is a link.

Ambassador Gutman has been roundly criticized in the American Jewish community for the content of his speech. In it, he claims that the widespread animosity – which has increasingly spilled over into violence – of the European Muslim community toward Jews is not an instance of historic anti-Semitism. Rather it is purely a consequence of the unsettled dispute between Israel and the Arab/Muslim world. That is, according to the esteemed Ambassador, the hate-filled, bigoted and vicious slurs – accompanied too often by physical attacks – directed by Europe’s Muslim community toward their Jewish brethren is due solely to the discomfort the former experience because the latter’s cousins in Israel refuse to play nice with their Arab neighbors.

It boggles the mind. Is Ambassador Gutman stupid? Perhaps naïve? Brainwashed by his less than Hebrewphile European hosts? Suffering from some sort of Stockholm syndrome?

I shan’t dwell on the many unsurprising accusations that have been hurled at Ambassador Gutman. He has been accused of being a self-hating Jew, a Jewish anti-Semite, a water-carrier for the President’s blatantly anti-Israel policies and a naïve dupe. I suspect that he is merely a very confused person who cannot believe that, only two generations removed from the virulent anti-Semitism that killed his father’s family, such unpleasantness could rear its ugly head in Europe once again.

Instead I wish to focus on one sentence in his dastardly speech and point out an awful aspect of his twisted reasoning that has escaped attention. Commenting in his myopic confusion about how events in Israel arouse the anti-Jewishness of European Muslims, Gutman asserts:

… every new settlement announced in Israel, every rocket shot over a border or suicide bomber on a bus, and every retaliatory military strike exacerbates the problem and provides a setback here in Europe for those fighting hatred and bigotry here in Europe.

So in addition to myopia, apparent self-hatred and Stockholm syndrome, Guttman is suffering from the affliction of moral equivalence. He cites four specific incitements: suicide bombings, rocket attacks on Israeli soil from Arab territory, Israeli military retaliation, but first of all – new settlements. Thus the premeditated assault on and murder of innocent Israeli civilians is as much a cause for concern as any Israeli attempt to defend its citizens or – heaven forbid – set up a kitchen on holy Arab land. Aggression is morally equivalent to self-defense. Murder is morally equivalent to building housing projects. Jihad is morally equivalent to the pursuit of Zionism.

The Israelis just agreed to swap more than a thousand Palestinian terrorists for the kidnapped Israeli soldier, Gilad Schalit. Schalit, his family and friends – indeed all Israelis – have suffered under the terrible burden of his captivity over the last five years. It is wonderful that he will at last be free. But the price is fearfully and unacceptably high. For there is no question that other Israeli blood will be spilled by some of the terrorists that Israel is releasing. The torment that future victims of this wicked deal will bear might exceed those borne by the Schalit family – at this point one only lacks the names of the victims. Furthermore, the Arab terrorists learn from this deal that kidnapping Israeli soldiers pays a handsome dividend in the form of the eventual release of scores of their bloodthirsty comrades. It will only increase their incentive for carrying out more kidnappings. Israeli soldiers will be taken – we lack only their names.

These thoughts are explored more fully and eloquently by Caroline Glick in the Jerusalem Post. Here is just a portion of her thoughts:

It is a statistical certainty that the release of 1,027 terrorists for Schalit will lead to the murder of untold numbers of Israelis. It has happened every single time that these blood ransoms have been paid. It will happen now.

Untold numbers of Israelis who are now sitting in their succas and celebrating Jewish freedom, who are driving in their cars, who are standing on line at the bank, who are sitting in their nursery school classrooms painting pictures of Torah scrolls for Simhat Torah will be killed for being Jewish while in Israel because Netanyahu has made this deal. The unrelenting pain of their families, left to cope with their absence, will be unimaginable.

This is a simple fact and it is beyond dispute.

It is also beyond dispute that untold numbers of IDF soldiers and officers will be abducted and held hostage. Soldiers now training for war or scrubbing the floors of their barracks, or sitting at a pub with their friends on holiday leave will one day find themselves in a dungeon in Gaza or Sinai or Lebanon undergoing unspeakable mental and physical torture for years. Their families will suffer inhuman agony.

The only thing we don’t know about these future victims is their names. But we know what will become of them as surely as we know that night follows day.

Think of the average beleaguered Israeli as he contemplates his environment during any period in recent times. On the north, south and east he is confronted by blood thirsty enemies (Hezbollah, Hamas, Iran) who make no secret of their intense desire to kill him, his family and his countrymen. Other neighbors (Syria, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Iraq) harbor the same thoughts but are more circumspect about expressing them. And of course there are the two neighbors (Egypt, Jordan) with whom he is “at peace”; but it is a frigid peace, not supported by those country’s citizens whose attitude, he believes, could easily blossom into hostility and belligerence.

When he casts his eye further abroad, he finds a European continent that – a mere 70 years after the Holocaust – has reverted to virulent anti-Semitism, now expressed openly as anti-Israel opinion and policy. He takes some solace that his country has established successful economic and political connections with distant, but important nations like India, Japan, Australia and even China. But these nations are unlikely to provide significant aid in any forthcoming conflagration. Worst of all, he is tortured by the thought that his long-time friend, benefactor and protector, the United States of America, is now led by a man and an administration that is hostile to his country and its interests. He senses that the people of the US are still with him, but it is the treacherous, Moslem-praising leader who will make the critical decision on any day that the Israeli Prime Minister has to call for help – God forbid!

Most demoralizing of all is the weak nature of his country’s leadership. Barak, Livni, Olmert and all the other left-wingers act as if they are ready to surrender and move to New Jersey. Even Netanyahu continues to disappoint. He talks the talk, but repeatedly fails to walk the walk. How he allowed himself and his nation to be completely humiliated by Obama was disgraceful. And Bibi seems to have bought into the Oslo delusion that has wreaked political havoc on his nation for 18 years. Where is King David? Israel needs him desperately.

Now, on top of all the above, the region has been racked by political convulsions whose origins are unclear, whose leadership is mysterious, whose meaning is uncertain and whose outcome for relations between Israel and its neighbors is unpredictable. Given the history of the Middle East, what little we know of what is transpiring and who is driving, it and with the proclivities of the Arab street as measured in recent polls, it is virtually impossible to be optimistic that any of these upheavals will prove beneficial to Israeli-Arab relations.

Furthermore, the situation is so confusing that it is difficult for Israel to prepare contingency plans. Will Egypt revert to a frontline state of military confrontation? Will Abdullah survive? If Assad falls, could what replaces him be even worse? How shall Israel deal with simultaneous attacks from Hamas, Hezbollah and perhaps Syria or Iran? Might Egypt or Jordan or even Saudi Arabia join the fray? What to do about nascent Iranian nuclear weapons? Can Israel hang on until the back-stabbing Obama administration is dismissed; and will a new US administration restore formerly friendly relations?

In light of all this, it would not be surprising if the state of apprehension of our beleaguered Israeli were indeed very high. And yet, Israel and its citizens appear to go about their affairs seemingly almost oblivious to the sea of troubles that engulfs them. Business is humming – especially in the technology sector. The arts are flourishing. Social life is vibrant. The IDF exudes confidence. Immigration continues at a modest, but steady pace. Morale has not plunged. Are their heads up their derrieres? Or is there some reasonable explanation?

I believe that there is, and I will attempt to provide it – although in the end, the reader may wonder about its reasonableness. Yes, there are grave causes for concern. The threats are real, exigent and existential. The ability to meet them demands wisdom and courage – qualities that have not always been present in sufficient quantities among Israel’s leaders. The consequences of a failure to deal with any of the threats that might materialize could be cataclysmic.

So what! What’s new! Our average Israeli responds: “We’ll deal with it. Ain Breira!” In short, the more things change, the more they stay the same. From before its birth, Israel has constantly faced overwhelmingly negative odds and insurmountable obstacles:

• In the 30s and 40s, while millions of its potential citizens were slaughtered in Europe, a rag-tag bunch of settlers had to cope with murderous Arab raids and pogroms, a hostile British administration, a fragile economy, severe internal political schisms and a lack of international support. Yet the State was created.
• In the 50s, the young nation faced marauding fedayeen, the absorbtion of more than a million extremely poor and unsophisticated immigrants, a socialist economy and the extreme enmity of its neighbors. Yet the foundation of the State was laid, the Army was formed and the desert began to bloom.
• In the 60s, the crises were Pan-Arab nationalism, betrayal by their French benefactor, an indifferent world grown Holocaust weary, Nasser and another betrayal – this time by Lyndon Johnson. Yet Israel triumphed in the Six Day War and emerged a regional power.
• The 70s brought the devastating Yom Kippur War, a UN resolution declaring Israel to be a racist entity, an even more socialist economy and hyperinflation. Yet Israel underwent its first peaceful transition of power to a political party other than Labor and the Sephardic community was nearly completely integrated into society.
• In the 80s and 90s, Israel had the misfortune of the first intifada, the first Lebanon debacle and the Oslo calamity. Yet Netanyahu (as Prime Minister and later as Finance Minister) broke the socialist yoke and opened Israel to free markets and entrepreneurial activity befitting its populace, and the results have been spectacular.

Now the 00s and 10s bring all that was mentioned earlier. But in fact throughout the entire 80-year scenario: the enmity of the Arab/Moslem world has been constant; the support of the rest of the world has been tepid at best and totally absent at worst; and existential threats have been ever present. Yet Israel and its people have survived – even prospered. As if to highlight that assessment, after a century of Jews bemoaning the fact that Moses selected the one parcel of land in the Middle East devoid of oil, Israel has recently discovered abundant quantities of natural gas in its offshore environs.