NO ONE “GAVE” ISRAEL TO THE JEWS

FOR PEOPLE LIKE FRANCE’S MACRON, A LITTLE KNOWLEDGE OF HISTORY WOULD GO A LONG WAY.

Someone’s turning his nose up at the history book.

Emmanuel Macron, the French president, did one of those things politicians and others sometimes do — in a moment of self-righteous umbrage, he exposed his profound ignorance of the subject he was addressing.

It’s one thing to make a misstatement. It’s another to do it while tumbling from a high horse of moral superiority.

The French president was making the point that Israel should adhere to United Nations resolutions in its conflicts with Hamas and Hezbollah because Israel is a product of the UN.

There’s a bit of wrapping to unpack here before we get to the burger.

Should Israel adhere to UN resolutions? Well, in a perfect world, sure. But since the UN General Assembly, which passed these resolutions, has repeatedly proven itself to be a circus of tyrants whose primary goal is not advancing peace, coexistence or making the world a better place but sticking it to the Jews (I synopsize), Israel is probably justified in giving the UN the middle finger.

There is a fundamental schism between the demonstrated objectives of Israel and the demonstrated objectives of the UN.

Israel’s goal is to keep Israeli civilians from being murdered individually and collectively. The UN’s goal is to hysterically denounce Israel for every step the country takes to advance that objective. (Again, I encapsulate for brevity.)

When maniacs enter your home, murder your wife, rape your daughter, behead your son and burn your parents alive, the UN are the police who show up to tell you to exercise some judicious restraint in dealing with the intruder. But anyways.

What Macron said was that the Israelis have a special obligation to adhere to UN demands because of something that happened in 1947.

“Mr. Netanyahu must not forget that his country was created by a decision of the UN,” said the French guy. “Therefore this is not the time to disregard the decisions of the UN.”

Plenty of Macron’s political opponents choked on their croissants upon hearing this.

The idea that the UN “gave” Israel to the Jews is a common misperception but this guy is the leader of France. He’s not a dumbass freshman in a keffiyah.

Macron’s opponents (and apparently some of his allies) think Macron should take a first-year history refresher.

Maybe I can dumb it down for him with an analogy he can understand.

The UN didn’t promise the Jews a state and then give it to them. It was more like the deadbeat dad who tells his kids he’ll take them to Disneyland Paris then never shows up.

On November 29, 1947, the UN passed the Partition Resolution, setting the stage for two states in the erstwhile British-mandated territory of Palestine. All the Arab and Muslim member-states voted against the motion because they wanted the Arabs to have all the land and viewed a Jewish state as uppity infidels infringing on the God-given right of Muslims to dominate the land and its people. (I summarize.) Nevertheless, the vote passed, 33 to 13, with 10 abstentions.

From that moment, the Jewish people were on their own. They were entirely abandoned by the world, including the UN. The British wiped their hands of the problem and withdrew their troops at midnight on May 14, 1948, despite Arab promises of rivers of Jewish blood the moment they lowered the Union Jack. As soon as the Partition Resolution passed, skirmishes had begun and all-out war erupted at the moment of Israel’s birth. Israel was invaded by the combined militaries of Egypt, Transjordan, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia and Yemen.

Where was the UN? Concerning itself with other affairs by that point. Where were the 33 allies who voted for the Partition? Moved on. Their single vote at the UN was the sum total of their contribution. Where were the countries that had collaborated with the Nazis and perhaps had a moral obligation to lend a hand? Absent.

So let’s disabuse ourselves of the adorable idea that the UN (and, by extension, the world in a humanitarian gesture of solidarity with the surviving remnant of the Jewish people after the Holocaust) did a damn thing to help the Jews. No. They stood by while the combined armies of the Arab League explicitly promised to do to the Jews of the Middle East what the Nazis had done to the Jews of Europe. 

The world did exactly what the world had done a decade earlier. They stood by and watched.

The lesson of that moment — the lesson that made me a Zionist — was the necessity of the Jewish people to have the ability to collectively defend themselves when half the world seeks to kill them and the other half fills bowls with popcorn. That’s why Israel matters and the UN doesn’t.

(Side note: For Zionists like me, I highly recommend the book In The Lion’s Den, by Danny Danon, Israel’s former ambassador to the UN. A Likudnik who is no dupe when it comes to the failures of the UN, Danon warns against throwing out the baby with the bathwater. The UN has its value. So let’s avoid the blanket calls for disbanding the entire United Nations. Fix it instead.)

In any event, a little knowledge of this history can go a long way to avoiding embarrassment and moral incoherence for people like the acknowledged leader of Europe. It should encourage world leaders to skip the self-congratulatory idea that the UN “invented” Israel and their tsk-tsking about Israelis defending themselves now.

Macron’s stupid comments were just more noise in the global dogpiling we hear every time Israel has the audacity to defend itself. Since October 7 last year, these comments have exploded like beepers on Hezbollah belts. They are upsetting to overseas keyboard warriors like me. For Israelis, I suspect, they are just more background noise above the din of howling jihadis and bloodthirsty peace activists marching around the world.

Israel should — and will — keep doing what it needs to do. Macron and the marching millions who have a problem with that can keep doing what they do: telling Jews they should make nice with the kidnappers, beheaders, immolators, rapists and genocidal mass murderers.

At least we know which sides we’re on.