Israel’s secret weapon in the ongoing fight against terror and hatred isn’t the Iron Dome missile defense system, though that has certainly helped. No — Israel has something more powerful: a beautiful black Jewish woman, Eden Alene, who will represent the country in the finals of the Eurovision song contest this weekend.
Israel’s Eden Alene performs during the first semi-final of the 65th edition of the Eurovision Song Contest 2021, at the Ahoy convention centre in Rotterdam, on May 18, 2021. (Photo by KENZO TRIBOUILLARD / AFP) (Photo by KENZO TRIBOUILLARD/AFP via Getty Images)
Alene personifies the diversity and dynamism of Israeli society, and defies the false, malicious claims of “racism” and “apartheid” that Israel’s enemies fling like errant terrorist rockets.
Alene, 21, was born in Jerusalem to Ethiopian Jews who were brought to Israel, rescued from famine and persecution. She served in the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), and won the right to represent her country on the Rising Star singing competition.
Eden was originally going to perform the song “Feker Libi” (“My Love,” in Amharic), in English, Hebrew, Arabic, and Amharic. After the 2020 Eurovision contest was canceled due to the coronavirus, she returned with a new song, “Set Me Free.”
“Set Me Free” also mixes several languages — English, Hebrew, and Arabic — and has the feel of a protest song against coronavirus restrictions. Today, it also feels like the protest of a nation forced to live in bomb shelters for two weeks of war.
The song also evokes the lyrics of Israel’s national anthem, “Hatikvah,” whose central refrain is “To be a free people in our land/The land of Zion and Jerusalem.”
It is that basic right that terrorists, and Israel-haters in the West, have sought to deny.
Eden Alene is a symbol of everything Israel is — pluralistic, multicultural, sensual — and everything that Israel’s enemies are not. Her very existence is a puzzle that the ignorant radical left-wing haters of the so-called “Squad” cannot possibly comprehend.
Israel’s Eden Alene poses for pictures during the “Turquoise Carpet ceremony” of the 65th edition of the Eurovision Song Contest 2021, on may 16, 2021 in Rotterdam. (Photo by Kenzo TRIBOUILLARD / AFP) (Photo by KENZO TRIBOUILLARD/AFP via Getty Images)
As Liel Leibovitz noted in Tablet recently, “progressives” have tried to impose their own racial templates on Israel, absurdly. Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-NY) even attacked Israel by decrying “Black and brown bodies being brutalized and murdered.”
The recent victims of terror in Israel, Leibovitz noted, included 19-year-old Yehuda Guetta, a Jew from Libya, and 32-year-old Soumya Santosh, an Indian worker in the city of Ashkelon.
He could have added the two Thai workers whose death Hamas celebrated, or the Israeli Arabs killed by Palestinian terrorist rockets. And he could have noted 24-year-old Avera Mengistu, a black Ethiopian Israeli who suffers from mental illness and who has been held captive by Hamas terrorists in Gaza since 2014.
This week, black Jews in Israel appealed to the Black Lives Matter movement to push for Mengistu’s release. “Say it out loud: Avera Mengistu,” said Enav Baruch Mekonen in a TikTok video, urging activists to say his name, as they do with other victims.
Black Lives Matter had already declared its “solidarity” with Palestinians against Israel — but not against Hamas, which commits war crimes by firing rockets at civilians from civilian areas, 20% of which fall in Gaza, killing innocent Palestinians.
Israel has been eager for peace with the Palestinians for decades. But radical Islamic ideologues, and corrupt theocrats in Iran, have funded and encouraged Palestinian terrorism, rather than helping build Palestinian society or preparing for coexistence.
Meanwhile, the anti-Israel “Squad” imposes facile racial templates on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, in defiance of social reality. Many Israelis and Palestinians look so similar that often the only way to identify the Jews is to find the black people.
No, Israel is not a perfect society. Though it has always provided equal legal rights to Arabs, informal discrimination remains. Recent violence between Arabs and Jews is a reminder that coexistence is still a challenge — though there are signs of hope.
It is also true that Ethiopian Jews have suffered prejudice. But Eden Alene’s rise to represent her country on the world stage is a reminder that Israel constantly strives to be better.
Israel has Eden; Hamas has turned Gaza into hell. It’s clear who has won.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of the new e-book, The Zionist Conspiracy (and how to join it). His recent book, RED NOVEMBER, tells the story of the 2020 Democratic presidential primary from a conservative perspective. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.