Yom HaZikaron and Yom HaAtzmaut: a pairing of days and meaning where one could not exist without the other.

There may not be a more perfect summation on the tangible calendar for the intangible Jewish experience. It is a yin and yang of darkness and light, somberness and celebration, and the past and future, though both are forever reflected in the present. There is a vital importance of recognizing both through grieving the worst pain and celebrating the best joy…remembering death, and then moving on with life.

Though it is difficult to compare memorial and independence days around the world, Israel’s own do simply seem more significant due to a dichotomy of time. On one hand, Israel is less removed in time from instating its sovereignty seventy-eight years ago, while on the other, it was reclaimed from three thousand years prior. And unlike any other nation, it is continually faced with the harsh reminders of the price to keep it, as the singular nation to constantly have its independence questioned, cheapened, and desired to be erased.

Such a profound reality also exposes another glaring dichotomy.

These days fully represent the values and priorities inherent to this state, its people, and its supporters worldwide. Namely, the valuing of life, and the selfless willingness to personally sacrifice in order to preserve a greater collective future with these ideals.

As a result, the opposition of Israel’s detractors couldn’t stand in clearer contrast. Here we have the hypocritical gamut of antizionist arrogance from those who warp their own Memorial Day into one of shopping sales and parties to those who literally fail to allow independence for their own people…the perversely perfect foil of unabashed entitlement to genuine selflessness.

Looking eastward, we have the reigning royalty of authoritarian regimes, full of entitlement to the life and death of both their community and their enemies, who over ancient conquests and modern terror have perfected simultaneously making absurd demands while committing outrageous atrocities.

The surreal entitlement to not only brutally invade a neighboring democracy but steal hundreds on hundreds of innocent lives through both massacre and hostage taking, but to force the grieving nation to officially bargain for the civilians who should never have existed in such a situation.

The selfishness to continue to occupy and leech off of a government while accusing others of such actions, making life miserable for not just their despised Zionists, but fellow citizens whom they pretend to serve.

The arrogance to fund the oppression and slaughter of both one’s own citizens and those one thousand miles away, dreaming up war crimes from the worst nightmare available to humanity…and to “negotiate” on the ability to sustain such tyranny, drawing out bad-faith stalling as long as they see fit.

And, after all of the above, the hubris to believe they still are entitled to reign in the territory they’ve destroyed and with which they’ve tried to destroy others…but more than that, to enjoy an eternal reign of terror with neither punishment nor accountability.

If only such entitlement were limited to that region, but there is unfortunately more than enough to be shared, and this has become the drawing board for their narcissistic Western echo. And so we have those so removed from both the collective conflict and personal purpose in life desperately ready for an endorsed route to take out their self and worldly loathing onto others.

Perhaps this dichotomy could not be better displayed than by young Israeli soldiers, braving the artillery fire of literal terrorism while privileged frauds promote their own version stateside. One group, risking their own survival for the survival of their larger nation, being utterly disparaged by peers (in age only, not worth) across the world who couldn’t fathom sacrificing themselves for anything but their own narcissistic desires and hollow performance.

Through their arrogant arsenal of tantrums and tentifadas, not only are these jihadis-in-training fully intent on denying others basic legal rights, they are equally determined to not be denied privileges never afforded to those carrying out blatantly illegal activity. In this attention-seeking dream come true, they feel completely at home commandeering public property for personal preferences and reject the idea of being arrested for occupying land that isn’t theirs, all while simultaneously calling for the removal of rightful owners of land across the world.

The level of misplaced esteem and bursting ego to consider themselves worthy of dictating how another country defends itself would be fairly impressive if not so utterly destructive. Somehow, they know better with their performative activism degrees than all of the military experts, historians, and common sense. They know better in such utterly removed privilege than those who live each day next to those that would, have tried to, and will try again to, wipe them off of the planet when given an inch. They, who have and likely never will have to face such a situation, yet feel such a compulsion to demand others bend to their unethical education and personal bigotry.

Blazing hypocrisy aside, all continue to feel entitled to keep pushing bigoted ideology while demanding special accommodations, as too many who should know better continue to enable the previous parties with their own brand of entitlement.

In what is possibly the most insidious arrogance of all, as it is the version coming from not just the only democratic category of the three, but supposed allies and moral parties as well, we have the dangerous display of Western governments not only plainly hindering Israel’s efforts and success, but then gaslighting them on top of that betrayal…all for selfish and sinister gains.

So many nations’ pathetic administrations have felt overly comfortable spinning an existential crisis into political chess, wielding such grotesque authority to play fast and loose with real lives for shallow desires. Watching elected officials lack the spine to fully stand up to their party’s clownery and stand by what is just, while simultaneously thinking that they have the right to dictate how a sovereign democracy conducts its essential elimination of jihadists that no one else wanted to touch, has been utterly atrocious, though perfectly in line with the rest of withering modern ethics.

While we are aware of the depths society can reach, it is still difficult to fathom the amount of childish narcissism one must possess to not only make such ignorant demands, but to make any of a sovereign nation at all. But it comes down to it, in once again the bias reserved only for Jews and their state, all of these parties not only hold entitlement to how Israel carries out its operations, but entitlement to Israel’s own existence and entire future.

It is such a shame that we live in a reality where are too many feel so entitled to hold Israel as both a nation and its people hostage over the years, whether through its living, breathing citizens as captives, or as the world’s singular Jewish democracy to the most ridiculous double standards. And it is such a shame that we live in a world where Israel is so dismissed and dehumanized that it is forced into daily required defense against an eternal offense.

Most nations cannot boast of independence from self-determination and diplomacy over imperialism and slaughter. Hardly any can boast of fulfilling a true decolonization saga. No other has a constant declaration of independence that is truly renewed not just every year, but every day of the year, because nothing can ever be taken for granted, and everything could be taken in an instant.

Ironically, the world has no idea how much this memorial and birthday mean for its own future, with this tiny nation giving so much and keeping so much else at bay.

On these days and always, it is essential for the world to never lose sight of nor deny their meaning of remembrance and independence: a remembrance of the final sacrifice made by the unimaginably selfless, for the independence to live despite the inevitable entitlement of all others.

And just as the celebration always follows the somberness, and the future follows the past, Israel will continue to get through and beyond the world’s entitlement yet again…not only because it has to, but because it has a duty to do so…and not simply for the love of its future, but for the gratitude of its past that provided them the ultimate gift: the ability to not only survive but absolutely thrive in spite of it all today.

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)