What Will Survive?

What is it that Nazis, Holocaust deniers, bigots, Muslim terrorists, Palestinian propagandists and their supporters all have in common?: They rely on that which is most base in human nature, using all that is most evil, wrong, despicable and immoral in the arsenal of human traits to pursue their godless goals.

First and foremost, they lie.

The Nazis created a myth of pseudo-scientific claptrap to convince themselves of their superiority. They were ubermenschen: super heroes. The truth was that they and all their supporters were quite ordinary except for perhaps some pronounced genetic traits of violence, stupidity, arrogance and avarice.

The deniers brazenly, stupidly, arrogantly lie about things incredibly well-documented, recorded,photographed and witnessed by millions. Moslem extremists lie that they are following a religion that is really peace-loving and hospitable and kind. Yet, like Nazis, they’ve created a new religion, a new world whose foundation is a lust for blood, for world dominance, for the subjugation of women, for the exploitation of all those who don’t ascribe to their world view. The co-opting of anti-Semitism too, is their own. Their adoption of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, their social stereotyping of Jews are all a chapter taken from a Western book, the same West they pretend to despise.

The PLO lies about almost everything. Who they are. What they really want. What they believe in. What their true goals are.

Second: these groups never underestimate the power of the lies they tell to the vulnerable, wishy-washy, uncommitted masses looking on from the sidelines. They know that as a minority, the success of their struggle lies in convincing the mildly confused majority of ordinary, lazy, not too bright human beings (including most who consider themselves “intellectuals” and hold degrees from undemanding institutions of higher learning ) that it would somehow be to their advantage economically or socially to adopt their vision and agenda .

Third: These groups are tireless, consistent, committed. They know what they want and have tried and true methods to achieve their goals: As an SS officer told author Ella Lingens-Reiner in 1944: “It is quite possible that we shall lose this war and all the wonderful things Adolph Hitler has created will be destroyed by the unholy alliance of our enemies. But there is one achievement that will stand, and future generations will thank us for it- there is one fact which will never be reversed: except in small neutral countries, there are no Jews left in the European continent. ….We have freed Europe from Jews for good.”

Fourth: They are ignorant.

They get their world view from two-bit demagogues and ten second CNN sound bites and catch phrases: occupied territories. Refugees. After all, to read a book takes time. To think critically about the news takes brains. How much easier to construct an ideology and world view in ten seconds?

What do free-thinking, moral people, democracies, supporters of human rights, of goodness, of truth, equality, justice,compassion, life, home, and family have in common? First of all, their beliefs must be nurtured because they are delicate and fragile, unlike the hearty poison of mindless hatred. It is so much more convenient to believe that mankind deserves no compassion, so much more self-serving to deny others rights. It takes intelligence, sensitivity, education -–all qualities more difficult to come by—to love our fellow men, to sacrifice for them.

And so, the evil are always more numerous, always more powerful, always more popular – and always doomed to destruction in the end.

Why is that? Why didn’t Rome and Greece last? Why didn’t The Reich—which was supposed to be around a thousand years at least—last longer than a cheap sweater?

The answer is simple: There is a God in heaven who rules the universe. Evil people will always exist and will always lose, taking those who follow them --the lazy, the ignorant, the cowardly -- down with them. That is why God doesn’t insist on destroying an entire city. He knows that it’s impossible to expect the majority to be good, given human nature. He doesn’t ask for even one hundred, or fifty or even ten good people to save the city. All He asks is that there be one good man or woman worthy of saving.

All we can do is to try to be that one person wherever we may be. To resist the herd instinct which drives men and women again and again towards the hatred and destruction of their fellowmen, bringing pain and catastrophe into their own lives, and homes and countries and families.

Because – let there be no mistake about it—there is retribution. We don’t know how long it will take because God’s clocks and calendars are not human. A thousand years is like a day to God who sees past, present and future unfolding simultaneously; sees Hitler’s corpse even as the crowds still cheer him; sees the crowd in tatters , their cities bombed, their families starving even as they put into motion those unjust laws that will cause others to be bombed, starved, and destroyed.

The Muslims too will have their day of reckoning. Those who kill innocent people, those who support a culture in which the death of innocents is a necessary, commendable means to an end, those who commit outrage after outrage and those who support them will find their own homes bombed, their own children dead.

The fact of history teaches us this is true, because we Jews are still here when Greece, Rome, the Ottoman Empire, the Spanish Inquisitors have disappeared; when the Nazi Reich is but an ugly footnote in the dusty, dead pages of history books.

Goodness, compassion, justice, righteousness, truth – all these fragile, precious qualities of humankind will prove the most indestructible in the end because this is the will of our Creator—the miracle of His creation.

As mankind works its way through history, squandering all the magnificent potential of being human—of being just a little lower than angels—blessed with creative powers, intelligence and skill, God will always be there to referee—to see that these gifts somehow survive, and those that misuse them do not.

Copyright: Naomi Ragen 2002