Lewis Carroll, Israel—and the looking glass

In 1871, Lewis Carroll published a book entitled, Through the Looking-Glass and what Alice Found There. It was a sequel to Alice in Wonderland, which Carroll had published just a few years earlier, in 1865. In both of these fictional fantasies, a young Alice finds herself in a fantastical world where things are not quite what they appear to be.

In Through the Looking Glass, Alice discovers, much to her amazement, that she can walk through a mirror (the ‘looking  glass’). She enters an alternative world. In that world, she has to look anew at each experience to see what is true and what is not true.

Alice’s experiences are much like Israel’s. Both she and the Jewish State live in an alternative world.

For example, Israel, like Alice, is told it exists only as something imaginary: it’s not a real State. It has no right to exist (“Israel Faces Deepening Isolation, Kerry Warns”, The Bloomberg View, August 12, 2013). Therefore, it’s nothing more than a ‘Zionist entity’.

What’s a ‘Zionist entity’? It’s exactly like Alice who, in her own alternative world, isn’t human at all. Instead, she’s nothing more than ‘a flower that can move about’.

US President Barack Hussein Obama isn’t the leader of the world’s most powerful country. He’s the Red King, who appears to Alice at first glance to be ‘fast asleep’ (“'Barney Fife is in charge': Obama under fire for 'we don't have a strategy' gaffe on ISIS as he's accused of having 'head buried in hole on first green'”, The Daily Mail, August 29, 2014).

Yes, on September 10, 2014, President Obama did say the US would attack ISIS. But does anyone believe that the US can actually ‘degrade and destroy’ (Obama’s words) ISIS with limited air strikes only? There is no historic evidence that such a strategy has ever worked in the Middle East.

President Obama is the Red King. He lives in an imaginary world.

Alice meets two men, Tweedledee and Tweedledum. These two are self-important but nonsensical characters who, for example, agree to do something but never do it. That’s like Mahmoud Abbas and John Kerry, who talk of peace but never get there.   

Tweedledee and Tweedledum are twins. When they sing together, they transform magically into the UN and the EU who, like them, are mirror images of each other. They never contradict one another when it comes to Israel—or, for that matter, when it comes to ‘Palestine’. For the UN and the EU, Israel is always the villain. ‘Palestine’ is always the victim.

Just as the UN and EU attempt to frighten Israel, it is Tweedledee and Tweedledum who frighten Alice. They tell her she doesn’t exist. They report to her with much as much authority as they can muster that she exists only as an imaginary figure in the Red King’s dream. They suggest that poor Alice will no longer exist the instant the Red King wakes up.

That sounds a lot like the UN and the EU. They look at US President Obama as if he were the Red King: the instant he awakens from the hold that US Jews have over him, the UN and EU appear to think, there will be peace because Israel will no longer exist.

Alice meets the White Queen. In Israel’s world, these are Jews who oppose Israel. Both the White Queen and these anti-Israel Jews are absent-minded. They forget where they’ve come from. They boast that they can remember future events before they have happened.

For example, anti-Israel Jews once boasted that Israel will have peace if it surrendered Gaza. They now boast that if Israel surrendered ancestral Jewish homeland in order to create a ‘two-state solution’, Israel will have the same result they had once predicted for Gaza.

Alice walks with the White Queen just as Israel’s government walks with these anti-Israel Jews. But Alice discovers that, at a crucial moment, the White Queen fails her: the Queen turns into a talking sheep.

Whenever Israel’s government walks with these anti-Israel Jews, the same thing happens:  anti-Israel Jews are no more useful to us than the talking sheep is to Alice.

Worse, Alice ends up buying an egg from the sheep. That egg is useless. It turns into Humpty Dumpty.

Some say that Humpty Dumpty was a reference to King Richard III of England who, despite his armies, was defeated in 1485. That sounds like anti-Israel Jews who, despite their power, advocate a path towards national destruction. They are exactly like Humpty Dumpty: all the king’s men and all the king’s horses can’t put them back together again. They are forever cracked.

Before the end of her story, Alice must face a Red Knight who aims to capture her. Israel, too, must face an enemy—Jihadi Islam. Like a Red Knight, Jihad wants to capture Israel.

In the end, Alice is crowned Queen. The crown appears abruptly on her head. Israel, too, will find a crown so placed upon its head.

But Israel is not Alice. At the end of her story, Alice isn’t sure what was real and what was fantasy. At the end of Israel’s story—our Final Redemption—there will be no such uncertainty.

The G-d of Israel has a Jewish Story He wants you to see. Alice and Israel are part of that Story.

Stay tuned.