Publisher’s Point: “The Enemy Of Your Enemy Is Your Enemy”

On Tuesday, March 3, 2015, a historic speech was delivered to the House and Senate by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. In my view, there will be a number of phrases that appeared in the speech that will become part of our vernacular, some of which may be, “a deadly game of thrones,” as well as, “the enemy of your enemy is your enemy.” The reference was to Iran and ISIS, about which he said, “In this deadly ‘Game of Thrones,’ there is no place for America or for Israel. No place for Christians, Jews or Muslims who don’t share the Islamist medieval creed …So when it comes to Iran or ISIS, the enemy of your enemy is your enemy.”

That statement drew the crowd to its feet, which happened several times. To a reasonable person, the common sense of stating the obvious folly of allowing Iran the capability to have nuclear weapons was inarguable, and the legislators seemed to agree. If you have an Ayatollah actually tweeting that Israel should be annihilated, you might want to take him seriously, and not give him the opportunity to do so.

Recently the PM went on record as inviting European Jews to “come home to Israel,” given the growing anti-Semitism that is creeping over the continent. His desire is to prevent a repeat of what happened to Jews in Europe in the 1930s. What was the response of the leader of Hezbollah, which is only one group that is backed by Iran’s program of state-sponsored terrorism? “If all the Jews gather in Israel, it will save us the trouble of chasing them down.”

I had the blessed opportunity to both hear speak and be part of a group that interviewed former UN Ambassador John Bolton in Nashville last week. His comments echoed Netanyahu’s, with one difference in historical perspective. If one examines the rhetoric that was screamed from Adolph Hitler’s lungs before multiple thousands in Berlin, there were never any open threats against the Jewish people that began to approximate what we are hearing from Iran and its proxies. Nevertheless, only a few years later, millions were dead at the hands of a mad man, and I have no doubt that history is threatening to repeat itself.

So let me bring down the threat of jihad as described by Bibi to a more personal note. I got home from work around 8 o’clock on Monday night, having worked a 12-hour day. My family commented that I did not look very good. What I did not want to tell them, but did, was that moments earlier I literally had to fight retching at the sight of a picture of the headless body of a 5 year old girl being held up by a member of ISIS like she was some kind of trophy. She had on a little blue plaid dress with a ruffle along the hem and she was wearing a cardigan sweater. She had on lacy socks with ruffles along the edges, and black shoes. By all appearances, she could have been on her way to Sunday school. In addition, what ISIS is doing with Christian children in Iraq after they behead them is put the children’s heads on spikes, and displaying them for all to see in the city park.

By contrast, this makes what happened to the little girl in the red coat from Schindler’s List look like a literal walk in that park. May God bless Bibi Netanyahu for speaking truth to power, and may someone in power actually hear him.
By: Ali Elizabeth Turner