Momentous times sometimes turn good people into great ones. The man who might have been simply a good husband or father, caught in the right circumstances becomes an Abraham Lincoln or Winston Churchill. The woman who may have been simply a good mother or wife might become a Margaret Thatcher or Golda Meir. Indeed, the times often forge great men from those less suited for more mundane services, such as Benjamin Franklin or Thomas Edison. In times like ours men have always looked for the leaders and the heroes that Providence would raise up to yet again show that while the universe tends toward destruction and decay, there is always a path forward, a beacon of light that shows us that God has not destined His creation for darkness. No matter how strong the villains of the world appear, no matter how much at a disadvantage good men seem, always there will be a path forward, always the salvation we await will come like the dawn. It is not enough to proclaim that “We are the ones that we have been waiting for.” Such arrogance is hardly what great men are made of. Leaders like Washington or Lincoln, if they had come to such a realization, would be humbled by it, and would doubtless admit such a possibility only from their knees, not from a podium.
Benjamin Netanyahu used the imagery of the biblical story of Queen Esther to introduce his arguments cautioning us in dealing with the devil. The analogy was a natural one. It’s the week of Purim, the holiday that celebrates the deliverance of the nation of Israel from annihilation by the devious plan of Haman, a Persian official. Iran, of course, is what was historically known as Persia until 1935 when the Nazis encouraged Reza Shah Pahlavi to ask other nations to use the name “Land of the Aryans”, derived from Aryanam, then Eran, or Iran, which was the name used by what westerners called Persians during the rise and fall of the empire. So now there is a new Persian enemy that wants to annihilate Israel, and Netanyahu pointed out that they can’t be trusted. If Netanyahu was casting himself in any role it would probably be Mordecai, the devout uncle of beautiful Esther who counseled her as Netanyahu now counsels us, “If you keep silent at this time, relief and deliverance will come to the Jewish people from another place, but you and your father’s family will perish. Who knows, perhaps you have come to your royal position for such a time as this.”
I’m sorry to get all biblical on you, but that was the context of what Netanyahu was referring to, and it raises an interesting premise. As Shelby Steele wrote this week, American exceptionalism is too often viewed as a boast of our privilege more than what it actually is, the burden of our responsibility. To whom much is given, much is expected. Like it or not, we are not Lithuania, we are not Panama; we are the United States of America, and we have the unique power to do what others cannot do… for good or for ill. We don’t morally have the right to ignore what is happening in the rest of the world. And yes, that is our burden; not only to act in our own interests, but to be an ally to the threatened and downtrodden across the earth. That doesn’t always mean “boots on the ground”, but certainly it doesn’t mean cowering in the shadow of Neville Chamberlain.
It has been noted that Netanyahu’s speech would have gone greatly unnoticed had the President not thrown such a hissy-fit over it. Many Democrats refused to attend. Joe Biden was conveniently out of the country, which I’m sure made Netanyahu more comfortable to bring his wife. All the protestations only served to focus more attention on the speech, and ultimately gave Netanyahu a platform he wouldn’t have enjoyed had the President been more circumspect. Netanyahu used the opportunity to show the President that good oratory is even better when you actually have something worth saying. As with all great leaders he drew his lessons from thousands of years of history, not just harkening to the results of the last election. He quoted Moses, not some celebrity… he wasn’t trying to be cool or entertaining. For his guest of honor he invited Auschwitz survivor and Nobel Peace Prize recipient Elie Wiesel, not some political hack masquerading as a normal citizen, and used to trumpet his policies. As Rush Limbaugh put it this week, it was the classic case of a foreigner doing a job Americans wouldn’t do, acting like a President.
The thing to keep in mind about President Obama is that he is in fact a very left leaning liberal. What he says doesn’t always jive with that, but what he does ultimately will. He may have said that he was against same sex marriage, but ultimately he was for it. He may have said he was against the individual mandate, but ultimately he was for it. He may say all the politically expedient things about Israel being our friend, but in the end he will take the left leaning liberal position that Israel is always to blame. He came to office with the idea that he was peculiarly qualified to solve the world’s “jihad” problems. He thought that his muslim background coupled with his ability to think outside the box and his silver tongue would enable him, like Jack Nicholson in “Mars Attacks”, to negotiate peace where all others had failed. How grand must such delusions of grandeur be when you are already leader of the free world? Like so many men whose fantastical visions for the future don’t seem to work out, the standard response is to first deny reality and then find someone else to blame. When the result of his senseless policy in the mideast resulted in ISIS filling the vacuum, he looked for an easy out to make the consequences of his incompetence go away. The solution: use Iran to fight ISIS, use the enemy of our enemy. Yeah, that always works! Well, when the price for covering for Obama meant risking the future of his nation, Benjamin Netanyahu reminded us all that the enemy of our enemy is still our enemy.
IMHO: When the world needs heroes they seem to appear. Who can say whether Providence so arranges things, or if desperate times bring them forth? Netanyahu seems to be the right man at the right time for the preservation of Israel. We can long for such a leader for our nation, and one may certainly arise, but heroes are not always politicians. Men of courage, men of truth… men of destiny; America is full of possibilities. It may be that all the freedom we have enjoyed, all the riches we possess, the blessings we have received, obligate us to be brave and to be heroic. Perhaps we are America for such a time as this.
“Be strong and resolute, neither fear nor dread them…” Moses
