Thanksgiving is a time for friends and families to be happy to be with some and reflect on those unable to be with us. We value the people we can depend on and hope they find us dependable. This interaction forms much of our human relationships. This fact got me thinking about the relationships between nations. How good a friend are we at a national level? Could we be better?

The record is decidedly mixed. The Marshall Plan revived Europe. We befriended our enemies Germany and Japan with excellent results. The Anglosphere resembles a family. On the other hand, our efforts in Latin America have yet to do as well.

Since our fleeing Saigon Saigon, our loyalty and support for comrades in arms may give our friend pause. Many of those banking on our presence to ease the arduous progress to a modern democratic state in Afghanistan were left watching the last planes take off without them. 

Ukraine only started to receive military aid after Russia invaded. If delivered in a timely fashion, advanced armaments could’ve rocked the Russians.,but it’s only delivered late. F16 fighters are just now on the schedule. Abrams tanks have yet to see the battlefield. We’ve been acting slowly from day one. This reluctance leaves us to wonder if the U.S. wants victory for Ukraine. A long war favors the larger Russia.

In a month, we moved from trusting our neighbors to wondering what they were thinking. Could they be a threat? Jewish students at many of our leading Universities are asking the same about their classmates. With thousands of people marching and shouting anti-semitic cheers, we have never seen this level of anti-Jewish sentiment in our country since WWII.

The marchers also lump the U.S. and Israel as “colonizers.” Not exactly evidence of support for their own country. 

This tact comes at a time when millions have illegally crossed our southern border, many on the terror watch list. We have no idea how many bad actors are in the country. Remember, only 19 Al Qaeda terrorists caused the horrors of 9/11.

Now, we may have untold numbers of zealots operating in a sea of Hamas supporters. We have never faced a sizable fifth column favorable to those who want to harm us. It’s not if something horrible will happen, but when. Worse, it could be multiple actions. Anxiety reigns.

If you don’t think we have what amounts to a fifth column here, consider how many people adhere to the Hamas views. Across Academia, Media, and within government, we hear demands for a ceasefire that only helps Hamas. Even though caught lying in the past, most of our media accept Hamas’ casualty figures, both the number and composition, without question.

The latest Hamas figures claim 11,000 Gazans have died, the majority women and children. Of course, this paints the Israelis as monsters. However, does this add up? Consider before the Israelis even entered Northern Gaza, they warned civilians to move South out of the way of the fighting. 4 to 5 hundred thousand heeded the warning. The Population of Gaza City is around 600,000. As in any evacuation, the idea of women and children first should prevail. It’s what we saw in Ukraine, with non-combatants moving West. During the Blitz, 3 million children in “Operation Pied Piper'” moved from London and other cities to the countryside.

Since August 2017, Charlottesville has been synonymous with bigotry. Joe Biden claims the clashes inspired him to run for the Presidency. The Justice Department announced white supremacists are the most significant domestic threat. If you’re Jewish, this is where threats to you are coming from.

The infamous touch-light Neo-Nazi march through the University of Virginia Campus consisted of somewhere between 100 and 250 participants. As I pointed out at the time, the melee the next day with protesters arose from the mishandling of the situation by the authorities. The after-incident reports support this view. Still, Charlottesville remained the template for antisemitism.

This view now seems quaint. Instead of a few hundred, at best, marching to express anti-Jewish bigotry, we have thousands of students parading their antisemitism on our most prestigious campuses. Tens of thousands rallied against the existence of Israel in the nation’s capital. Instead of worrying about a small number of mental cases on the fringe, Jews now fear their neighbors, especially their children. 

The media focuses on reports of non-existent hospital bombings and mortality figures supplied by Hamas while hardly mentioning the 200+ hostages held by the terrorists. This oversight, even though many of the captives are American citizens, is puzzling.

Israeli troops have entered Gaza and appear to surround Gaza City. That is not what I recommended—rather than fighting their way into the city, I advocated destroying every structure in an area on the town’s perimeter after civilians had a chance to leave, and then moving on to the next area seemed a better way. “A Solution for Gaza” and A Solution For Gaza II give you the whole plan. The results of the Israeli direct attack are as predicted. Unverified figures of Gazan’s massive deaths and injuries blasted across the media. Hospitals are running out of supplies, and the populace is in crisis. Demands for a humanitarian ceasefire coming from the usual suspects, the U.N., and other consistent Palestinian supporters abroad have become a drumbeat. 

The shock isn’t that there are antisemites abroad; it’s the outpouring of bigotry here. Some of our most prestigious Universities are the scene of mass pro-Hamas rallies. Jewish students trapped. They now fear their fellow students. Major cities have parades waving Palestinian flags. Cable news shows feature those uttering support for those known to have done the most vile things. Echoing them are members of Congress.

When I was growing up, people here were well aware of the Holocaust. “Gentlemen’s Agreement” was a best-selling book made into a vital movie exposing antisemitic bigotry. On a personal level, I could attend Northwestern University without being subject to a Jewish quota. Antisemitism seemed to fade into history. 

Jews even had a homeland. They had to fight for what the United Nations had agreed to, but they made the desert bloom not only with crops but modern products and technology. Unlike its neighbors, it was a vibrant democracy, giving equal rights to the Arabs that stayed within its borders.

After decades of rarely hearing an anti-semitic remark, suddenly, we see neighbors marching while shouting “from the river to the sea.” There is no missing the meaning of wiping out all the Jews in Israel. Maybe this anti-Jewish feeling was lurking just under the surface all along. We know of the relatively small groups of Neo-Nazis and Klu Klux claners, but they lived at the margins.