Israel is Our Only True Sanctuary

The pattern is as old as Jewish history itself. The prototypical mold was cast from our days in Egypt. When our family first came to Egypt times were uncertain and difficult but soon resolved and placed us in positions of power, respect, and acceptance. The initial years, decades even, were years of plenty where we reaped the rewards of our acceptance thus being allowed the fruits of our labors. Things began to change with a new Pharaoh who no longer remembered the times and qualities of our previous service to the people and leaders of Egypt, to the former Pharaoh. Then everything changed bringing upon us years of bitterness, of slavery, of persecutions, and of suffering under evil edicts. All of these were the results from suspicions and false charges of our having loyalties which may have influenced us to revolt and raise our hand against Egypt. The fact that there had been little or no indication of such even being discussed, being suggested, or any evidence that we meant anything but to serve the good of Egypt which had become our home was of absolutely no consequence. But the misgivings arose and we came under suspicions and thus were placed under the yoke of slavery and suffered the bitterness of unfounded jealous hatreds against us. This was the very first epoch of our being separated and exiled from our true homelands and placed in the original Diaspora. This was to be the same sequence that was to become our history for every time we were to suffer the yoke of foreign rule which could be referred to as the “Cycle of Egypt”.

Babylon was an enemy from the very outset. There were times at the start in which the Jewish nation had peaceable and mutually advantageous relations as our nation was of sufficient power that the kings of Babylon feared a war between our nations. It should be noted that when we possessed such strength we chose not to attack or take up arms against those neighboring nations and tribes and simply chose to live on our lands enjoying peace, security and the wealth of our toils and serving the L0rd our G0d. When we turned from the path of righteousness, our strength sapped and our defenses failed, the neighboring Babylonians wasted little time before setting out to conquer our lands. Again we were in exile suffering the bitterness of being forced from our lands. When the Persian conquest defeated the Babylonians many of us returned to our lands and we enjoyed a period of peace and security despite being a part of the Persian Empire and thus under their rule. Initially the Persian rulers allowed us a fair amount of autonomy but that eventually evaporated eventually leading to Haman and the threat of annihilation simply for being what we were, Jews. We faced persecution under the Greek Empire after an initial period where we were granted some autonomy. The final occupation was the current one, which we have the opportunity to bring to an end, which began with the great dispersion inflicted upon us by Rome in an attempt to dissolve and destroy our very existence as a people, removing the Jews from all of history.

After the fall of Rome the Jewish people were no longer a single community as we had been intentionally dispersed to every corner of the empire, intentionally separated into small and insignificant communities intended to die within a generation or two. The saving grace was Torah which kept our identity viable and with time tied our dispersed communities together in a loose confederation which has lasted through to modern times. During this Diaspora we faced the “Cycle of Egypt” continuously with some of our dispersed far-flung communities under persecution even if most of our communities lived lives of serenity and marginal independence. The communities of Jews found themselves in the near two-thousand-year exile repeatedly having to flee from one place to another sometimes even finding necessity to flee entire countries as royal edicts demanded our departing under pain of death. Often we found at the end of such persecution driven resettlements that our new homeland received us willingly and with acceptance. Unfortunately these favorable conditions would always deteriorate until we found ourselves once again fleeing for our lives, often literally. Our lives became a continuous string of desperate times where the fulfillment of the final curses depicted in Leviticus 26:37-8, which reads

“And as for those of you who are left, I will send faintness into their hearts in the lands of their enemies; the sound of a shaken leaf shall cause them to flee; they shall flee as though fleeing from a sword, and they shall fall when no one pursues. They shall stumble over one another, as it were before a sword, when no one pursues; and you shall have no power to stand before your enemies. You shall perish among the nations, and the land of your enemies shall eat you up.”

This brings us to the current times. The Shoah was the latest end result of the “Cycle of Egypt” which began with our fleeing the pogroms and persecutions in Czarist Russia, a state of persecution which carried over to the Communist rule which followed the Czars. Many of the Jewish people fled westward from Russia back into Eastern Europe with large numbers choosing to reside in the first areas where they found an accepting community. This placed a very large population of Jews in Poland and also increases of Jews also residing in Germany. My father’s family was among those who fled Czarist persecution and my great-great-grandfather made a wise decision and continued to flee westward through Poland, Germany, Belgium and France eventually stopping in London. Still, my family lost members to the ravages of World War II as one of my uncles died flying over Europe with the British Air Force. My mother’s family being Sephardic was spared from the curses which befell European Jews but faced their own persecutions which afflicted the Jews of the Middle East, especially in Iraq and Iran during the same time period. Both sides of my family have been extremely reluctant in discussing the particulars even among family members such that I was never a recipient of their experiences or educated as to the hardships they survived.

After World War II the world changed drastically for the Jewish people as Israel was restored making it possible for Jews to once again live in their own homeland under self-rule. With the reestablishing of the country of Israel the Jewish people have a safe haven where they can defend themselves as an independent nation and people. Despite the facts which depict Israel as a nation under continuous siege, Jews still have an advantage in Israel which had been denied them for much of the past two millennia, the option of self-defense. This has caused some uneasiness for those who are more comfortable with the idea of the Jewish people as a small minority living within their states completely defenseless against their persecutors whenever and wherever they arise. The concept of Jews with tanks, fighter jets, naval ships, missiles and all kinds of combat arms securing their lands and fellow Jews from attempted persecution and annihilation is a concept which many appear to prefer to deny the Jewish State which is exemplified by their condemnations of any use of force by Israel in the defense of her people. There are many who oppose allowing the Jewish State to defend itself and wish to deny Israel’s right to exist, yet the same people also wish to expel the Jews from within their countries as well. Where these haters are powerless to dissolve Israel by edict, it is only their hatreds for the Jews residing outside of Israel where they deleterious desires can be actualized and it is these desires that need be addressed.

With the formation of the State of Israel in May 1948, we saw the dispossession of their Jewish populations by numerous Arab and Muslim nations over the next decade. Those Arab and Muslim nations who did not forcibly expel their Jews often did make the lives of their Jews difficult. There were the occasional pogroms, riots, confiscations of property and vandalizing of businesses, homes, synagogues and schools which belonged to or were operated by Jews. Some of these countries went to the radical ends by making being Jewish a crime punishable by death such as in Saudi Arabia. Europe experienced a guilt driven reprieve from its long, consistent history of recurrent, sporadic anti-Semitism after having their conscience assaulted by the revelation of the horrors of the Holocaust. Unfortunately, this suspension of Jew hatred was more of a suppression than an elimination which is now rapidly coming to an end. Once again as the European economies hit difficult times there are some in the masses who are turning to an old hatred on which to place the blame for their difficulties. The destruction and defacement of Jewish cemeteries, synagogues, schools, businesses and other easily identifiable places has become more prevalent with time. There have been actual physical attacks on Jews wearing readily identifiable clothing and items. The demonstrations against Israel have become larger and more hateful. The levels of hatreds and attacks have culminated in the assassination of a Rabbi, his two young sons and the daughter of the administrator at the Ozar Hatorah Yeshiva in Toulouse, France. Adding to the sickening reality of this horrid incident was the fact that anti-Semitic acts greatly increased following this hateful act. Adding to the ever growing problems and hatefulness in Europe has been the fact that the United States also has had an increase in acts against its Jews and those places and buildings which can be identified as Jewish. The acts in the United States may not currently rival those in Europe, but they appear to have a similarity to the situation in Europe of about a decade ago. Should these trends continue to increase and grow then the return to Israel of the world’s Jews may become a reality sooner than any expected when Israel was founded in May of 1948. This may be a sad reason behind forcing the return to Israel of the Jewish people but it may become result in a blessing upon its completion. For all that we can know these realities which may result in driving the Jewish people to return to their homeland and the Promised Land could be the result of a hidden hand forcing history to mold to a greater plan. It is said that there are no consequences and all things will play out as they are intended. Time will tell.

Beyond the Cusp

Can Israel’s Image be Salvaged and Polished?

Once there was a time where Israel was seen for what she is, the tiny little country holding tenaciously onto a small, insignificant, former wasteland which was barely visible on maps which is surrounded by the entirety of the Muslim Lands which stretch from the North African Atlantic Coast all the way to the Indonesian and Philippine Islands in the Pacific Ocean. She was viewed as that sparkling gem of freedom, liberty, individual rights and democracy in the midst of a sea of oppressive, repressive, despotic, tyrannical states which crushed human spirit. Israel was once the underdog who had to scrap and fight for her survival against near unimaginable odds and who had managed successfully to do so at every turn. Israel once stood for equality of mankind, individual liberties, endless possibilities, religious freedoms, and unbelievable scientific and cultural achievements that not only survived but thrived against all of the odds stacked against her. What happened that took a place of such acclaim and hope and turned world opinions so horribly against her. How did Israel transform from her once proud and laudable stature into a nation spurned by the world at large, constantly answering charges of crimes against humanity, oppressor of religious beliefs, and usurper of Palestinian lands with an expansionist agenda eyeing all the lands between the Rivers Nile and Euphrates to expand and conquer for the sake of a Greater Israel?

The answer to this enigma is twofold, first is the rise of the ancient hatreds out of history and second the exquisitely planned and expertly executed assassination of the Israeli character carried out on all of the world’s stages beginning with the United Nations and finding its way into every new outlet even to include all too many within Israel herself. After the failure of the Armies of Egypt and Syria during the Yom Kippur War, which was launched in a surprise attack on Israel starting on Saturday October 6, 1973 which was both the start of Yom Kippur and the Sabbath, the Arab nations sought a different approach in order to defeat and destroy Israel. Initially, the combined forces made sizeable gains on all fronts before Israel fully mobilized, which took longer than usual as almost all public and private services and operations were on essential only staffing for the high Holidays, and mounted a counter strategy. This defeat of the combined forces of Egypt and Syria after scoring complete surprise and taking full benefit of every possible advantage available convinced the Arab World that a new, innovative and alternative approach was needed. Thus was the protracted victory through attrition due to terrorism and guerilla warfare tactics was adopted and with it the carefully planned and executed campaign to demonize Israel in every form of media, on every available stage in the world, and through commitment to use organizations such as NGOs and PACs. Quickly, this new tactic began to show progress in the world media the Arab and Muslim offensive to turn the Israeli reputation in the perspective of the world from shining gem and exemplary outpost of freedom in the Middle East to that of a pariah state brimming with oppression and guilty of the occupation of lands which rightfully belonged to the Palestinian People requiring the reestablishment of the ancient state named Palestine. Their success brought with it a steadily increasing number of nations, governments, unions, organizations, political parties, politicians, colleges and the United Nations with its entire assembly of NGOs and commissions.

So, against such an advanced campaign to delegitimize, defame, divest, boycott, and eventually destroy Israel, what can be done to prevent these schemes from eventually attaining their goals? The first step required appears to be counterintuitive, which is for Israel needs to stop apologizing and answering every single charge or allegation no matter how seemingly insignificant simply to attempt to prevent being overwhelmed by negatives. Israel needs to get out from under the repressive effects of the Oslo Accords which have been skillfully applied in a manner that has handcuffed Israel and those who protect her while having no ill or restrictive effects on the Arab, Muslim and Palestinian side. This step could be easily accomplished by taking two simple and immediate steps. The first is to file a complaint with the Security Council of the United Nations requesting they sanction the Palestinian Authority, Fatah, Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and the PLO for failing to amend the Palestinian Charter by removing the still standing section which calls for the utter and complete destruction of the State of Israel and the subjugation or elimination of its Jewish people. Follow up with pressure in order to get some response, even if it is simply a motion noting the Palestinian failure to comply without making it an actual judgment carrying a penalty for noncompliance. The other step is to provide the Palestinian leadership with copies going to the United Nations General Security Council, the United States, the European Union, Russia, all the leaders of European nations, all the leaders of the Arab and Muslim world and generally announce this last and final offer for peace through the establishment of a state for the Palestinian people called Palestine. This proclamation should state with accompanying map the borders Israel is willing to offer in this final attempt to reach an amicable peace. Where these borders are drawn is actually of little importance as the Palestinian leadership have painted themselves into a corner where they are unable to accept any peace proposal even if it contains each and every one of their wildest aspirations as by doing so they will have committed an unforgivable sin and would have to face the repercussions from their own people. This proclamation should also contain a second map which denotes the borders Israel is prepared to declare should the Palestinian leadership refuse this final offer. Once whatever deadline has been reached which was written into the offer, Israel should annex whatever sections of Judea and Samaria (West Bank) as they require or even simply desire and exile the leadership of the numerous terror groups along with the political leadership of the Palestinian Authority back to their pre-Oslo accommodations in Tunis, Tunisia.

Israel and the Israeli people need to recognize a truth about people and the ways in which the world works; nobody, no organization, no country, no world body, absolutely nothing will be kinder and like you more than you are able to express the same feelings about yourself. This is a basic truism about people and a basic truism that also applies to countries. As long as Israeli politicians, newspapers, organizations, broadcasters, or people are unable of praise and giving testimony to the goodness of Israel, the world at large will continue to disrespect, disregard, and assume the worst evils of Israel. If Israel really desires wiping the tarnish off her international reputation, she first must change her voice which speaks so loudly to the world which consists almost exclusively of detrimental degradations impugning Israel’s character and denouncing her rights for the respect shown a state who acts and rules honorably. One of the initial tasks which must be accomplished to rehabilitate the Israeli image in the world would be to either redirect or found new news services which speak in English and other languages other than Hebrew which take an attitude and view of Israel that is positive and not simply regurgitate echoing every claim and disparagement spoken by those who would erase Israel and likely the Jews from the face of the Earth given the slightest opportunity. If Israel but echoes the propaganda which are released by her enemies while ignoring the truth, then the world has but one side of the discussion and will never hear the other side, This has the effect of limiting the conversation to the only view being projected, the Israel is an evil and horrid entity. We have had a recent set of events which give perfect example to this phenomenon.

During Shabbat for the last month the Arabs, with incitement, encouragement, cooperation and support of Israeli Jews who hold great spite and hatred for anything Zionist in nature, set fires to the fields surrounding the Yitzhar community in Samaria. When emergency personnel arrived to extinguish the flames before they spread to the community and the homes within, they were greeted by the Leftist Jews and their Arab compatriots showering them with rocks attempting to deny their ability to put out the flames. When the residents of Yitzhar responded in kind to protect the firefighters, the leftist Jews from B’tselem made sure to catch this on tape. Afterwards, these leftist Jews further edited the tape and distributed to the television news departments and sent selected picture to the print media along with a suggested dialog scurrilously depicting the situation as the Jews from the community of Yitzhar as having started the fires and initiating an attack on the Arabs completely unprovoked. This was the sole evidence available as the Jews who live in Yitzhar are observant Jews and thus unable to film the confrontation due to the Sabbath. This past week they had received allowance from their Rabbis allowing them to film the altercations even on the Sabbath. This week the television news organizations received both films, the heavily edited film from B’tselem as well as the longer and unedited film from the Yitzhar community. The news outlets unanimously showed the B’tselem video while deciding not to show any of the Yitzhar taken raw film which showed the Arabs exiting a Red Crescent ambulance and setting the fires and one of the Arab men pulling a knife and setting to attack the firefighters. The Arab was wounded by IDF troops who were called to protect the firefighters and disperse the rioting Arabs and B’tselem Jews. Israel will have no chance of escaping the scorn and rebuttals from the world as long as the Israeli news organizations for the most part appear to be a further outlet for Al-Jazeera News or Palestinian Authority or Hamas Official News Station. The other side of this erroneous picture drawn by the liberal Israeli press has been the near total blackout of the ever escalating rock attacks and car-jacking being perpetrated by Arab gangs in Judea, Samaria and Arab neighborhoods of Jerusalem. These attacks have included daily incidents against the new Jerusalem light rail system which runs through one of the major Arab sections of Jerusalem.

Add the one last slant often taken by much of the world media is the propensity to report every single retaliatory strike by Israel in response to rocket and mortar attacks on Israeli civilians in the communities and cities within range of these munitions fired from Gaza. While the rocket and mortar attacks originate from Gaza where Israel has already removed all their citizens and all IDF troops from stationing within Gaza leaving all of Gaza under direct and independent Hamas rule, the Israeli retaliations target weapon storage facilities, rocket manufacturing locations, and the smuggling tunnels which cross the Gaza borders either heading to Egypt to facilitate supplies being brought to Gaza or to Israel which are used to infiltrate and attempt to attack or abduct Israelis. These reports almost universally report the Israeli strike in active and forceful terms while making only the slightest references to the initial rocket attacks and using passive terms to describe the terror strikes. This is also often the view expressed in Israeli television and other new sources. If Israel actually wishes to retrieve their former respect, then they must first recall the pride and justness of their actions and transfer this emotion and perspective to their reporting and make such the centerpiece of their activities with not only the rest of the world, but with each other in their everyday dealings and reporting. Simply reporting the entire story is all that is required. Israel has no need to pretty up the truth in order to be depicted as honorable, they have honorable as their source guiding their every move. All Israel and her reputation require to shine once again as the virtuous country they are is for the truth to be told without any requirement for polishing or positioning it in anything but a cloak of virtuous honesty.

Beyond the Cusp

Reputation in the World not Israel’s Problem

Israel’s reputation in the world is considered by many Jews and Israelis as a major problem if not the singular most pressing problem. They find it abhorrent that Israeli is compared to the Nazis in their treatment of the Palestinians and non-Jewish Israelis. They regret Israel being portrayed as being an oppressive occupying colonialist presence in their ancient homeland. Many friends of Israel feel great pain every time that she is denounced by the United Nations in either the Security Council or by any of the numerous rights groups and other governments. Many take the offenses personally when unions, organizations, city, municipal, and other levels even including national governments when they condemn Israel and take punishing moves such as boycotts and sanctions. Article after article in the minority of media outlets which are supportive of Israel bemoan the bile, hatreds and invectives constantly used to denounce Israel and the Israeli peoples. These reactions to the opinions of the rest of the world towards Israel have left many who love Israel close to paralyzed. They fear making a wrong move, an objectionable comment, a law found to be hateful, or performing, expressing, reacting in ways that might end up causing condemnations to fall upon Israel. Such trepidations are the result of probably the first ever case of an entire country and people being inflicted by Helsinki Syndrome.

In many ways the fears, timidity and second guessing by many of those in positions of leadership of Israel and the Jewish people are reminiscent of the first generations misgivings after leaving Egypt and crossing the desert on the way to the Promised Land. This might be explainable by looking at the similarities between these two returns to the lands of Abraham that were the conventional promise to be the lands his offspring nation would inherit. The Jewish people left Egypt after supposedly 400 years of slavery and having forgotten the lands of their forefathers and possessing a dependence personality resultant of their years of forced labor and oppression. Meanwhile, today’s Jews have a similar depressive set of personality outlooks resultant of the nearly two millennia which was consistent of prolonged periods of oppressions, deprivations, forced conversions, pogroms, exiles, ghettoizations, and restrictive treatment under the law which limited Jews in workplaces, occupations, residences, and numerous other restraints all of which culminated in the Holocaust. In many ways the modern return of the Jews to their ancient homeland of Israel is similarly identical to their Exodus out of Egypt and their return under Persian rule after the Babylonian Exile. They have to remember what it is to be the one who controls their own governance and being those who are truly the controlling force of the society of which they are not only a part, but the majority. After years of being the smallest of segments of most states under whose rule they had lived while also being always considered as the others, the peculiar others upon whom all evils and pestilence was blamed. After centuries upon centuries where whenever calamity struck their neighborhood the cry arose that the Jew caused this or that deprivation and it was necessary to force the Jew from their midst, when they were fortunate, and burn, kill, or other form of annihilating the Jew to set the world right.

The Jews need to realize that they cannot control, or even influence in most instances, the opinions of those who despise them. They have to come to the understanding that these countries which had held their fathers of former generations in contempt and inflicted upon them vile hatreds are not going to treat the Jewish State with any better regard than they had the Jews who lived in their midst throughout much of history. The leadership in Israel has to come to the awakening that they need to rule and commit themselves to what is best for Israel and her people and let the world scream and protest all they wish. The more attention and the more Israeli actions are molded and fall to foreign persuasions, the more and the longer the world will continue to protest and demand of Israel that they heed and satisfy their enemies. The Jewish people as a whole and Israeli Jews in particular need to realize that by modifying their behavior in an effort to assuage their protestations only serves to positively support such complaints and insistence leading to even more demands that they go further and allow for even more demands until the demands reach where they have gone, to a level of complete absurdity. The Israeli tendency to moderate their policies and actions in order to ameliorate their actions and gain the approval of the rest of the world is completely counterproductive. Wake up and start to serve the people of Israel first and ignore the screaming crazies who would rather Israel cease to exist. The world does not care about Israel and especially the Jews of Israel and should hold as much sway over the actions of the State of Israel commensurate to their affections of the Jewish people throughout their history and their support offered today. Those who wish Israel harm should be ignored and seek the company of those who wish friendship. You will never satisfy a world which has decided that Israel has no right to exist and the Jew has no right to a country or even to life when push comes to shove, so stop trying and instead satisfy and serve yourselves. The world will get along just fine even should you decide to do as you need and ignore what they say, especially their complaints and demands for your surrender. That is the only way to gain the respect in place of their scorn. How can you expect the rest of the world to respect you if you do not respect yourselves sufficiently to serve yourselves primarily and the rest of the world secondarily.

Beyond the Cusp