BY GARY MCGHEE
At 2 am on the 8th September 1959 a baby boy was born in Stoke Newington Jewish maternity hospital. The mother was a working-class gentile from London of Irish extraction. Having a child out of wedlock at a time when illegitimacy was much frowned upon and abortion was outlawed in her milieu, a Catch 22 if ever there was one, meant that she chose to have her baby there. It was the best decision she ever made.
All the other women on her ward were Jews. They had no problem with her being there. They understood her predicament, supported the fact that she wanted to have her baby. Two of them were child survivors of Auschwitz. They thought that they would not live to be adults, to have children and families. They told her about their experiences, about how most of their relatives were murdered by the Nazis for the simple fact of being Jewish. She listened to their harrowing stories, gained insights into the horrific reality of what they went through, things that she had never been directly exposed to by those who went through it. It had a profound effect on her, changed her view of the world. Made her into a strong advocate for the Jewish people and very pro-Israeli from then on to this day.
That baby boy was me.
I can claim to have been pro-Jewish from the womb.
My mother went on to tell me these stories as a child, she remembered them in some detail. She bought me books to read, one of the most memorable of which was Exodus by Leon Uris. I was enthralled by it, the epic story of a journey. The story of the Jews coming back after ‘centuries of abuse, indignities, torture, and murder to carve an oasis in the sand with guts and with blood’. There are many memorable characters but the one that has stayed with me was that of Dov Landau, who escaped the Warsaw Ghetto and Auschwitz. A small, blonde Jewish boy fuelled by anger at the murder of his entire family by the Nazis, who went on to help form a Jewish homeland that could free itself from persecution and Jew hatred and became a Captain in the Israeli army. Later I read If Not Now, When? by Primo Levi, another survivor of the Shoah who questioned, in a very moving and profound way, the existence of God in the midst of the atrocities he had witnessed.
I am now reading the excellent The Lion’s Gate. On The Front lines of the Six Day War in 1967 by Steven Pressfield. This is a brilliant account mainly told in the first person by those who fought in and won this incredible battle for the survival of Israel against huge odds. This of course changed everything, because Israel asserted itself in no uncertain terms and went on to thrive as a successful capitalist, secular and liberal democracy. No wonder the enemies of freedom hate them.
There are many more great reads. I am writing this now amidst the latest chapter in the attack on Israel by her enemies, who are still legion, to their eternal shame. The existential struggle that Israel has always faced is ongoing, the threat to its right to exist ever present. Alas, we are witnesses to yet another pogrom.
I would have lived in peace, but my enemies bought me War. (Pierce Brown) is as true of Israel’s plight now as it’s ever been.
The list of shame these days is on the Left, whose hatred of Jews, couched in the language of support for the ‘underdogs,’ sees them support the murder of families in unspeakable ways that contradict any ounce of moral justification, let alone the agreed rules of combat or International Law. If you justify or excuse this, you will excuse anything and are an enemy of humanity itself.
The list also includes those on the Right who believe the conspiracy that Jews rule the world and believe in the Blood Libel and various other pernicious tropes like the anti-Semitic diatribe that is The Protocols of the Elders Of Zion. The historical connection between Islamists and Fascists is well-documented and persists to today. Their racism and Jew hatred is undisguised.
Also on the list are the Islamic forces reigned against Israel, who have always rejected attempts to broker a peace because they want neither peace nor an acceptance that Israel has a Right to exist. They teach their children to hate Jews and how to murder them. Where is the peace in that? Add to that list the ongoing supply of weapons to Israel’s enemies by the Russians, with their long-standing hatred of Jews.
Jewish blood is on all their hands. Mossad and the Israelis have long since learned not to trust any of them, and rightly so. As a result, Israel charts its own course.
I suppose I am a Zionist. I always have been since the day I was born in that Jewish hospital. I always will be. My support for Israel’s right to exist is unwavering. Israel’s problems are our problems – if Israel did not exist then these problems would be on our doorstep instead.
Shalom.
Gary McGhee is a semi-retired screenwriter, loving the outdoor life with his partner in the Norfolk countryside. Gary was ‘red-pilled’ before it became fashionable, and believes in liberty, freedom, modernism, and defying herd-mentalities.