1. The latest cover of the German magazine Stern features a drawing of U.S. President Donald Trump doing a Nazi salute. The caption -- "Sein Kampf" ("His Struggle") -- is an obvious and contemptible allusion to Adolf Hitler's 1925 autobiographical book "Mein Kampf" ("My Struggle"). This cover is just another example of the West's utter insanity and a clear indication that the West is profoundly ill-equipped to survive the threat of jihadist Islam. The Stern cover may be deranged, but anyone who read the opinions of our own courageous journalists here in Israel this week got 10 times the hatefulness this cover generated. Nadav Eyal writing for Yedioth Ahronoth, and Chemi Shalem writing for Haaretz, painted Trump in far worse colors than the Stern cover ever could. Short of explicitly calling the American president "Hitler," they did it all. Their arguments are not original. Such insults can readily be found all over the global liberal media, in its various permutations. What makes these particular columnists unique is that they translated this crazy Nazi comparison into Hebrew. The result is that if it's acceptable for Jews in Israel to accuse Trump of Nazism, clearly it's acceptable for the Germans to do so too. On the surface, why should we care? The issue is a domestic struggle involving only the U.S. But no, the implications of this madness have to do with the status of free people everywhere in the face of media tyranny, in the face of a media insistent on indoctrinating us into thinking a certain way, being shocked a certain way, and, above all, dictating to us how to interpret reality even when our own eyes and ears see and hear differently. Here, too, most of the Israeli media is trying to dictate to us which values to uphold and which to reject, whom to look up to and whom to ridicule, what threatens our existence and what strengthens it, which historical narratives to adopt and which to ignore, and, of course, for whom we should vote. 2. Here is one example: Eldad Yaniv, an attorney turned social justice warrior, ran in the 2013 elections at the helm of the newly formed Eretz Hadasha party, threatening to split the leftist vote and jeopardize the Left's chances at unseating their nemesis, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Less than a week before the election, columnist Avishai Matia, who cooperated with Yaniv during the 2010 social justice protests on Tel Aviv's Rothschild Avenue, wrote a column about his partner in activism. "He stands in the living room and preaches," Matia wrote about Yaniv. "The message is clear and frightening: It is permissible to 'fight with fists' in the name of democracy. The man presents a well-substantiated outline of ideas, a guide to anarchy, the kind that speaks to the gut of anyone looking for a release. This is what release looks like: violent, blunt, without inhibitions." In his column, Matia presented direct quotes of remarks made by Yaniv on various occasions about the way he planned to realize his vision: "We have to use force to confront them. We need to build an organized force." "You make the Knesset into a place that people are afraid to enter." "I would forcibly yank MK Plesner from the podium." "We [will] start throwing objects from high up in the stands." "The idea of MKs' seats flying in the air at the Knesset doesn't scare me." "The Knesset needs to go up in flames." "For [Menachem] Begin it ended with grenades, but it shouldn't end with grenades." "The streets need to be set on fire. We mustn't back down." "For the sake of democracy, you fight with fists." "For the sake of democracy, don't be ashamed to break a few windows." These statements are unbelievable. The leftist media glorifies this dangerous man, whom Matia describes as someone who "drugs his fans with texts steeped in violence." This week, when Yaniv was briefly arrested for organizing an anti-Netanyahu demonstration, the mainstream media in Israel turned him into a martyr who sacrificed himself on the altar of free speech. There is no limit to this bunch's cynicism and manipulation. They preach to us and condescend with their democracy etiquette and demonstrations. It would be wise to recall Matia's quotes every time some Channel 2 news presenter takes obvious pleasure in a democracy and freedom of expression speech by some Eldad Yaniv or another. It is all just facade and sleight-of-hand. 3. Media tyranny is nothing new, but the Trump phenomenon has served to amplify it. Faced with masses who rebelled and voted for Trump against all odds, defying the media's explicit dictates, it has now doubled its efforts to steamroll public opinion. Ever since the U.S. presidential election, even the smallest problem in Trump's vicinity is presented by the media as an atomic bomb ready to annihilate not only America but the entire world. There are even networks that, watching them, might convince viewers that America has no other enemy but Trump. In his column in Yedioth Ahronoth, Nadav Eyal compared Trump to Nero, the deranged Roman emperor. Eyal was most likely alluding to the legend that madman Nero played the fiddle while Rome burned. But historical imagery often has a life of its own. When Nero committed suicide in 68 C.E., rumors spread across the empire that he hadn't really died, or that he was destined to come back to life and redeem the empire. People continued to believe in Nero's imminent return for 300 years after he died. Among many early Christians, this legend morphed into a belief that Nero was the Antichrist, the absolute evil figure who will challenge Jesus. The Christians believe the Antichrist will return in the End of Days and bring peace and stability to the world, but also persecute the Christians (Nero was the first to persecute Christians), and that this will precede Jesus' return to defeat the Antichrist. Trump as a deranged emperor is one thing, but Trump as the Antichrist is quite another. This religious imagery deals not with a political figure but with religious beliefs about absolute evil taking over the world. The global Left, and its fans in Israel, have started a new religion whose priests -- the journalists -- are the ones preaching to the public what to think and what to believe, what they are permitted and forbidden to say and who is worthy of joining this religion and who is an infidel, worthy of nothing but contempt and derision. Now they even have their Antichrist: Donald Trump. 4. There is even a Jewish explanation for Nero's disappearance. The Babylonian Talmud (Tractate Gittin 56a) tells that Nero came to destroy Jerusalem, and engaged in divination before launching his assault: "As he was coming, he shot an arrow toward the east, and it fell in Jerusalem. He then shot one toward the west, and it again fell in Jerusalem. He shot toward all four points of the compass, and each time it fell in Jerusalem. " He then attempted a different kind of divination, asking a young Jewish student to repeat the last verse of scripture he had learned that day. The young boy answered: "And I will lay my vengeance upon Edom by the hand of my people Israel (Ezekiel 25:14)." In Jewish tradition, Edom represents Rome. Nero understood that the God of the Jews wanted to lay waste to his house and then blame Nero for the destruction and punish him. "So he ran away and became a proselyte." There's more to this fantastic story. The Talmud says that one of Nero's descendants was Rabbi Meir, one of the most renowned Mishna scholars after the Bar Kochba rebellion in the second half of the 2nd century C.E. Feel free to draw whatever conclusion comes to mind.
