THE BADDEST DAY

Our literary gentry have long forgiven the Bard of Avon for his classic grammatical blunder when describing the knife wound inflicted by Brutus on his friend Julius Caesar as the “most unkindest cut of all”. Actually, the gentleman had no choice but to preserve a ten-syllable line, in what the scholars label iambic pentameter. Although certainly not claiming to measure up to Willie Shakespeare, we’ve nevertheless decided to take comparable license in the above title. Our theme in this instance is speculation on what singular event throughout the just-closed 20th century stands as the most disruptive to mankind’s ongoing welfare -- applying our chosen vernacular to call it the “baddest”.

Quite a few disastrous occurrences immediately come to mind, due to either human action and/or failure to exercise adequate preventive measures. Each item on our selected list is cited and analyzed below, in determining which we consider as having wrought the most devastating long range effect.

1. The sinking of the Titanic? Not really since, despite the tragedy, this served
as a useful wakeup call against complacent living.
2. The 1929 stock market crash? A depressing blow indeed, but lacking permanent ill effect.
3. The Hindenburg explosion? A latter-day equivalent to the Titanic, but it taught us to abandon the dirigible as a key international transport means.
4. Pearl Harbor? A highly upsetting business, but such happening at least convinced America never again to let down its guard.
5. The bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki? This comes mighty close to rating as the very worst, because of a universal trepidation over nuclear energy use, which hasn’t abated one bit ever since.
6. The 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon? This event made Pearl Harbor look like a mild disturbance by comparison, but has provided yet another valuable lesson in security requirements.

Our studied answer has to be “none of the above”. Except for the last two, the disruptive effect doesn’t shape up as being very long lasting.

Over and above them all, we’ve picked the founding of the Israeli state in 1948. The reason is that such act amounted to pouring gasoline on a fire which has been raging for millennia. The Arab-Zionist controversy, perpetuated through outright mutual hatred, hasn’t slackened off one iota since, and appears unlikely ever to.

Our old adversary Adolf Hitler and his Nazi cronies were indirectly responsible for such unfortunate move. Once the full horror of the Holocaust had become known to the entire world, the international powers had no alternative but to bend over backwards in uttering a profound apology to the Jews. The most fitting gesture at the time could be nothing short of recreating Israel as a nation, even though it meant telling the on-site inhabitant Palestinians to get lost. The Arab universe couldn’t possibly have been administered a more insulting blow.

The most damaging upshot has been Uncle Sam’s ill-fated policy of unceasingly sticking his proboscis into Middle East affairs, always taking Israel’s side, thus making new enemies by the score every day. This situation not only provided the venom to stage the September 11, 2001 raids, but earlier brought on the sabotaged Pan Am plane crash over Lockerby, in obvious retaliation to Ronald Reagan’s mad bomber air strikes on Libya.

Every U.S. President from Harry Truman onward has held an abject fear of offending Israel, to make sure the American Jewish vote doesn’t get sacrificed come next election day. The established doctrine finds our government simply winking at the undiminished inhuman treatment accorded that country’s neighboring Palestinians.

In closing, the message we’re trying to convey here decidedly does not constitute anti-Semitism on our part. We can firmly state that opposition to the United States’ fondling of Israel has no bearing on our feelings toward Judaism. The country is at fault, not the religion.