Israel in the Crosshairs
There are few nations on Earth other than
Israel with a
greater claim to exist as a homeland for a specific people. Along with
China and
India,
Israel reaches
back thousands of years, predating both Christianity and Islam.
For some 3,500 years, Jews have lived in Israel. In good
times and bad, Jews have always identified themselves with Israel even
when, as a Diaspora, they spread for their survival to many other nations. The re-establishment
of Israel
on May 14, 1948
led to two immediate events. Within eleven minutes after the announcement,
President Harry S Truman recognized the new nation. Within hours, the Arab
League declared war.
With only six hundred thousand Jewish residents at the time,
Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, and Iraq joined together to
destroy Israel. They failed. They tried again in 1967. They failed. They tried
in 1973, attacking on one of the holiest days in the Jewish calendar, Yom
Kippur. They failed.
Following the 1967 war, eight Arab nations gathered in Khartoum and issued their
“Three No’s.” No peace with Israel.
No recognition of Israel.
No negotiations with Israel.
In time, Egypt would sign a peace treaty, though not abandon
its animus. Jordan
would make its accommodations. The others remained hostile.
To understand Israel’s situation, it is necessary to
understand that (1) Jews had lived there since the days of Moses, (2) the early
Zionist movement members that moved there purchased land on which to farm and
live, (3) the land which was captured in successive wars had always been part
of Israel, and (4) both the United Kingdom and the U.S., for their own reasons,
have not been honest brokers, particularly so far as their demand that Israel
negotiate with people who never had any intention to negotiate peace.
The Israelis did not steal their own land, nor are they
illegitimate “occupiers” of their land regained as the result of having been
attacked. What they gained in wars against them historically was always theirs
and had been denied to them by the Arab nations that claimed them.
Israel
has never known a day of true peace in just over sixty years of its modern
existence. In his latest book, The Late
Great State of Israel, Aaron Klein spells out why Israel is closer to
destruction than anyone might imagine except for its implacable enemies.
I want Israel to exist and to thrive, but I find it
unsurprising that a totally Muslim region, the Middle East and throughout the
Maghreb, the Islamic northern nations of Africa, would see Israel through their
xenophobic lens as an invasion by the West; by European Jews who began settling
there in the early 1900s, by the Jewish survivors of the Holocaust, by the host
of Russian Jews granted permission to leave the former Soviet Union, and even
the many Jews who felt compelled to flee Arab nations following Israel’s
founding.
While Jews had always lived in Israel, the Arabs who lived
there prior to its establishment identified themselves loosely as citizens of
pre-World-War-One Syria. The land had known many conquerors, dating back to the
Romans who renamed the nation Palestine
in a vain effort to remove its Jewish history. Medieval Muslims fought many
wars, including the Crusades, to extend and maintain their control over
Jerusalem The utter scorn and contempt many of them have for Israel and the
Jews is found in the Koran and infuses Islam, as does its core belief that all
religions must bow down to Allah.
Christians know the fall of the Jewish state to present-day
Muslim invaders would mark the end of any opportunity to visit the birthplace
and ministry of Jesus and would be taken as a sign that Christianity was
vulnerable wherever it is practiced. In many towns and cities of Israel where
Christians had lived for centuries, they have been forced to flee before the
hostility of Muslim “neighbors.”
Herein is the warning that Klein issues in his book. Those
who would destroy Israel are not just external, they include (1) the Arab
nations surrounding it and the so-called Palestinian “refugees” laying claim to
it, (2) the United Nations that has supported the Palestinians since 1950 along
with its endless resolutions singling out Israel as racists, and (3) even the
largely unreported aid that the U.S. has given to Fatah, the alleged
Palestinian Authority with whom Israel is supposed to negotiate peace.
Other than (4) Iran, which has openly threatened to “wipe
Israel off the map”, the latest threat is (5) the Obama administration, which
is demanding a two-state accommodation with the Palestinians that they have always
refused to accept because their goal is Israel’s destruction.
To put the U.S.
demands that Israel
stop building settlements in the disputed West Bank
and other areas, consider that, according to the World Almanac, Israel is
comprised of 7,849 square miles. By comparison, New Jersey is 8,721 square miles. Imagine,
then, if the federal government insisted that New Jersey cede Delaware all the area from Atlantic City to the Delaware border?
Internally, from its founding, Israel has been divided
between its socialist and largely secular Jews, the men and women who took up
Zionism as an answer to the bigotry Jews faced in Europe pre-dating the
Holocaust, and the religious Jewish community who see Israel is the fulfillment
of the Torah prophesy and as the center of world Judaism. This latter group has
always felt the scorn of Israel’s
secular Jewish government.
Without delving into the complexities of Israeli politics,
Klein makes a strong case that Israelis in recent times have been ill-served by
the secular Likud and former PM Ariel Sharon’s Kadima parties. The withdrawal
from southern Lebanon
and the 2006 short war led by Hezbollah shattered the image of Israel’s
impregnable and powerful military capabilities.
Israel’s forced removal from Gaza of its longtime Jewish
residents, its abandonment to the Palestinians, and the recent military action
against Hamas simply demonstrate that the Palestinians have figured out a way
to demoralize Israelis with constant rocket attacks. Giving Gaza to the Palestinians merely created a new
staging area for attacks.
Klein documents how several U.S. administrations have provided
weapons and financial aid (through the United Nations) to Fatah. Fatah and now
Hamas have used both to kill Israelis, and yet successive Israeli governments
have participated in this lethal charade.
For now I will take some small comfort that Benjamin
Netanyahu is once again Israel’s Prime Minister, but unless Israel is prepared
to assert its right to its ancient and re-conquered land;
Unless it destroys the Iranian nuclear facilities for an America too
weak or unwilling to address this necessity;
Unless it refuses the wrongful demands to turn over Jerusalem, its holiest
sites, and other Jewish cities to their control;
Israel’s
future may disappear in a nuclear cloud. There has been one Holocaust in my
lifetime. I do not want to witness another.
At stake is more than Israel’s right to exist. The
failure to support and protect Israel
puts the entire basis and future of Western civilization at risk.
___________
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