Israel Further Divided is Israel No More

 

How many times can Israel be divided down from the original British Mandate until there is no longer any viable Israel? Would taking away seventy-eight percent of the lands make Israel untenable? History would indicate that was not the case as Israel survived two Arab mass attacks to try and eradicate her. The division was made when the Palestinian Arab State of Jordan was granted to be ruled by the Hashemites and Israel was left with the twenty-two percent of the Mandate west of the Jordan River. The first assault came within hours of the State of Israel being declared established where half a dozen Arab States attacked across every border and yet Israel survived. Again in June of 1967 Israel was attacked across her three land borders by Syria, Egypt and Jordan and survived. Then again in 1973 Israel was again attacked by Egypt and Syria but survived due to still holding the Sinai Peninsula otherwise Israel might have been lost. But with Israel having returned all of the Sinai Peninsula to Egypt for the promise of a future of peace, a cold peace, but peace just the same, well, thus far; Israel was shrunk back to controlling merely the twenty-two percent of the original British Mandate west of the Jordan River. Still, this was too much land for Jews to hold according to the rest of the world, at least all of the world which was making any noise. What then followed is frightening but nowhere near as frightening as what the future potentially holds.

 

Since March 26, 1979, when the Camp David Accords was formally signed and peace broke out between Egypt and Israel, the Sinai Peninsula was returned to Egyptian control with the proviso that it remains limited in military powers being stationed by Egypt with any exceptions as required being established with the full knowledge and permission of Israel. This peace has been a cold peace much of the time but both nations have kept the agreements. There was a short period where the peace appeared to be potentially in danger while the Muslim Brotherhood and President Morsi won an initial election after President Obama assisted in forcing President Mubarak from power. The Egyptian people, or at least a fair percentage, appeared to protest the ill effects of the Muslim Brotherhood rule and the Egyptian military returned to power with President Sisi being elected after the Military removed President Morsi and the Muslim brotherhood from power. President Sisi did at least resign from his position as head of the Egyptian Military before running for President but his election was assured by his leadership in removing the Muslim Brotherhood from power. Israel and Egypt remain at peace and presently there are additional allowances for Egyptian military activity in the Sinai Peninsula to address terrorist activity which has blossomed with Islamic State, Muslim Brotherhood and various other terror and criminal enterprises taking control of much of the Sinai Peninsula.

 

During President George W. Bush Administration and his plan for Israel-Palestinian Peace named the Roadmap, Israel was pressured in removing every Jewish settlement, industry and other presence from Gaza and a number of other communities in northern regions of Judea and Samaria in order to allow for the Palestinian Authority to be able to establish semiautonomous rule in Judea and Samaria and complete autonomy to establish a working state in the surrendered lands of Gaza to prove that the establishment of a Palestinian State was not only possible but would pose no threat to Israel and could live peacefully side-by-side. The Bush Administration also issued a letter granting fourteen guarantees to Israel as a protection for their taking what could prove to be a huge risk if it went wrong. Since then President Obama basically voided every guarantee granted by that letter claiming there was no promise or guarantee despite a near unanimous approval of these promises by the congress. President Obama’s destruction of those promises was done unilaterally without any council or consent by Congress. Further, within two years the Palestinian Authority lost control of the Gaza to Hamas who has utilized it as a staging area for launching rocket attacks, mortar fire, sniper shootings mostly at Israeli civilian targets and three wars and counting in order to end increasing rocket fire which was ramped up almost in a regularly scheduled timeframe which shortened with each confrontation. Further, the range and accuracy of the rockets have grown significantly placing much, if not all, of Israel within range of rockets fired from the very same locations which had been under the control of the Jewish communities which were removed from Gaza. All told the surrender of Gaza to the Palestinian control turned out to fulfill every single worst possible scenario as predicted by many Zionists and nationalists. Despite the debacle which resulted from the Gaza withdrawal, the world is demanding that Israel now withdraw completely from Judea and Samaria allowing the Palestinian authority another opportunity for displaying their ability to rule and live at peace with Israel. They are demanding this despite, or possibly because of, the fact that Mahmoud Abbas has pledged to use any such withdrawal as an opportunity to destroy the remainder of Israel and murder every Jew residing between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. The world claims that he does not really mean his threats and Israel should give him the opportunity to prove he does not desire to destroy Israel, kill every Jew he can find and take every inch of land from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea even if he must burn everything to the ground and lay waste to all of Israel. Actually, he claims to desire and do exactly that and has repeated that threat consistently. But the world is sure that it would be worth it for Israel to test his resolve on this as nobody other than Israelis are threatened and they believe that by sacrificing Israel the terrorism which has spread to their lands will cease because the Arab and Muslim world do not really mean it when they claim that Allah promised them they were to conquer the entire planet and rule it as the lords over all humanity and thus make Islam the only religion and political power on the Earth. What could possibly go wrong, after all Gaza was the exception and the threat does not also transfer to Judea and Samaria, let alone the entire globe.

 

The problem comes when one realizes the tactical position of superiority giving over all of Judea and Samaria gives the Palestinian Arabs as they take the high grounds and have a direct line of sight over Tel Aviv, Haifa and all of central Israel and the major structures, industry, residential areas, the sole international airport and major docks in all of Israel. There is an article which has a series of pictures taken from what would become Palestine overlooking Israel with detailed description of some of the major targets which would become vulnerable which can be read here which we recommend highly. Below we will post two of those pictures which we feel are pretty much self-descriptive though the sight has information on both and far, far more.

 

Ben Gurion Airport Plane Vulnerability from Palestine
(c/o Dr. Martin Sherman and Arutz Sheva)

 

Trans-Israel Highway Route 6
(c/o Dr. Martin Sherman and Arutz Sheva)

 

Israel could always make things more difficult for the Arabs by constructing a little wall about two-thousand feet in height and thick enough to withstand a few direct strikes by rocket fire or artillery and then station around five hundred or a thousand Iron Dome Batteries with hundreds and hundreds of interceptor missiles costing approximately $50,000.00 firing one at probably three-fourths of the $50.00 rockets fired over the wall and Israel could afford to do this for almost three weeks before going so far into debt that the nation would financially fail. But of course Judea and Samaria could never turn into Gaza II and Hamas would never be capable of overthrowing the Palestinian Authority a second time and the Islamic State would also have no interest in staging in Judea and Samaria against both Israel and Jordan at some point. And the world would be so appreciative of Israel taking such a risk for peace that they would have Israel’s back should everything go so terribly wrong just as they have with Gaza. Oh, wait; they have not had Israel’s back unless stabbing Israel in the back counts as having our back. Remember that the United Nations had demanded Israel cease attacking Gaza immediately after the IDF fired a single round in counterstrike for a rocket fired using back-tracing technologies which allow a strike to hit nearly exactly where a rocket originated within less than a minute and often mere seconds after the rocket was tracked by an Iron Dome or radar array. Then, when after the numbers of rockets approached almost one thousand per day and Israel sent troops into Gaza to end the barrages the United Nations, European Union, numerous governments and any number of NGOs began accusing Israel of using disproportional force because insufficient numbers of Israelis were being killed despite the overwhelming number of those killed in Gaza proved to be terrorists and others were largely human shields used by Hamas and Islamic Jihad to protect their rocket firing positions and in order to wage political war against Israel. Do not even try and tell me that this time things will be different, they will not and everybody knows they will not except this time there will be massive Israelis killed as well which at least will remove the disproportional force dialogue, but that claim will continue as the Palestinian Authority releases inflated numbers of dead and the world takes their numbers at face value while questioning any numbers released by Israel. Oh, and when the investigation by the United Nations verifies exactly what Israel reported and proved that the Palestinian Authority was making up numbers when claiming there was a massacre, say Jenin for example, the world will continue to claim there was a massacre despite all evidence to the contrary, like Jenin for example. Please spare us the inanities as the stories and empty promises will not sway the majority of Israelis, we have about had it with the double standards and the false pretenses and are fed up and not taking it any longer.

 

We do not need to explain the reasons why the Arabs have no valid claim and never used Jerusalem as a capital city for any nation and how there was never a nation called Palestine and how it simply denoted a region which has also been referred to as southern Syria but that does not make it Syria any more than it is Palestine. The treaties which make all the lands from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea belonging to Israel, are reserved exclusively for the Jewish State and which cannot be used for any other purpose without the consent of Israel are well known which is why nobody had taken Israel before the International Criminal Court. The entire world of politicians and professors and experts and whoever else is knowledgeable knows, as soon as the case is heard in The Hague the game is over and it will be verified that Israel controls the lands between the Jordan and the Mediterranean, all of it, period. The sole exception is Gaza which Israel ceded to the Palestinian authority and should Israel take it back from Hamas, then there would be an argument which could be heard that it should be returned to the Palestinian Authority. That would lead to another coup as even the Arabs do not wish to live under the Palestinian Authority as their mismanagement and stealing of funds is legendary even to their own people. That would start the question of how many times would the Palestinian authority have to lose Gaza before Israel could simply keep it and allow the Arabs residing in the Gaza to have semiautonomous lives basically ruling themselves while still under the security provided by the IDF to prevent terrorism and any forced takeover by outside forces such as the Muslim Brotherhood or Islamic State or other such forces.

 

But the world will not sit still and allow Israel to live in peace because the world cannot accept that the Jews are ruling themselves. The world demands that the Jews live under the thumb of others who are their betters and know to keep an eye on the Jew and keep them from ruling the world which they would do if permitted. If one does not believe the Jews run the world then why is the entire world despite all its other problems always holding hearings and conferences to decide what to do next with the Jews and Israel? Obviously since the world concentrates so much energy and time worrying about what the Jews and Israel are up to then there must be something nefarious going on with the Jews and Israel. So much effort is put into dividing Israel into smaller and smaller chunks until it can be erased completely must have some actual reason other than people hate the Jews, they must deserve to be cheated out of the lands so foolishly granted them after World War I and the conferences which followed. Why the Jew must be made subservient just as they have been for the past two and a half thousand years as see how much trouble they have caused even when under the thumb of others, imagine the problems they have caused with their own nation. There have been an inordinate number of resolutions, hearings, conferences, approaches and what not simply to wrest all of the land of Israel from Jewish control so there must be a good reason. Hatred and anti-Semitism cannot be the explanation; it has to be the Jews who are the problem, not the rest of the world. It is entirely impossible for the entire world to be wrong and Israel to be right, isn’t it? It has to be the Jews as the world would not spend so much time, effort, treasure and all else that’s holy just to destroy little old Israel if the Jews were not the problem. This appears to have been the reasoning of the Europeans, the Americans, the United Nations, the Arab World, the Russians, Chinese, and whoever else one cares to name because otherwise everybody has been wasting so much time all about nothing other than hate. Could it all be that simple, could it all be about hatred of the Jews, a three-thousand-plus year problem that the world just cannot seem to get past?

 

That would be insane as the entire world knows that if the Jews were to be left alone and in peace in the lands between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea, that entire 26,184 sq. km., the entire 0.005% of the Earth’s surface, then left to their own devices the Jews of Israel, a whole 0.1% of the World’s population, allowed freedom to invent, research, work and live and share their discoveries and inventions with the world, these Jews who are a remnant of the world population residing on a mere scrap of lands at the east end of the Mediterranean Sea would somehow manage to ruin the lives of everyone else and own everything within a mere decade, maybe two decades? Is this the fear the world has because we often hear of this “Greater Israel” which would come about should Israel not be hampered and driven into extinction by those who have a reliable and valid fear, right? Is it really too much to ask that the world leave us alone and allow us to run our lives, study our Torah and make wondrous discoveries which we will share, invent new applications, programs, devices and miracle cures for diseases and maybe even cancer and share them and do all sorts of what might be seen as miracles and share them all and do it all and remain on our little patch of soil and nothing more. We do not wish to conquer anything and would not have agreed to every proposition made; even when the United Nations proposed on November 29, 1947, against Article 80 of the United Nation’s own Charter, to divide the remaining Mandate Lands between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea in half and make the Jewish half be made up of over one third Negev Desert; the Zionist Congress speaking for the future Israel and the Jewish nation agreed and the Arab League refused demanding all the land or threatening war, a threat they carried out the very morning of May 15, 1948, the morning of Israel’s founding as a new state, as over a half dozen nation’s armies with militias attacked the nascent Jewish State and somehow a miracle, Israel survived.

 

About that war where Israel survived but lost Judea and Samaria, renamed West Bank by Jordan, and lost Gaza to Egypt and still Israel celebrated as we Jews had a homeland in the vicinity of our ancient homelands. Jordan occupied Judea and Samaria illegally and even the Arab States refused to recognize their annexation, an annexation they cancelled in order to make additional Arab refugees after the Six Day War, a war Israel begged Jordan to refrain from joining but Jordan saw those pleadings as weakness and found out different. That was the Six Say War where Israel liberated Gaza as well as Judea and Samaria while also conquering all of the Sinai Peninsula and the Golan Heights, another area given away by the French and British in order to deny it to the Israelis and give Syria the high ground overlooking the Galilee. Here is the really interesting item about the lands lost by Israel in 1948-9, the Gaza, Judea and Samaria. These are the very lands that today the world is demanding that Israel surrender to make another Arab State called Palestine. These are part of what the world claims was the ancient land of Palestine though there is no record of any nation ever in all of history called Palestine. There is a region known as Syria Palaestina under the Romans but that was a region ruled from Rome, like Prince Georges County in Maryland, ruled from Washington D.C. but never would one call it a nation. Still, for the eighteen plus years that Jordan and Egypt controlled these regions there was not a single call to form a state called Palestine. There was the formation of a terror group called the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) in 1964, a full three years before the six Day War and the liberation of Gaza, Judea and Samaria by Israel from Egyptian and Jordanian control respectively and the start of the Arab League deceit of stealing land called Palestine. The PLO did claim they were going to liberate Palestine but they were not interested in Gaza, Judea or Samaria as these lands were already in Arab hands. The Palestine they declared they would liberate was Israel, all of Israel, and that is exactly the area they desire to liberate today, all of Israel and not just Gaza, Judea and Samaria. What is so sad is that almost the entire world appears to desire to assist them in exactly that goal and assist them in their conquest of all of Israel. That is the truth and that is why there are seventy nations conspiring in Paris to imagine a new and inventive way of destroying Israel and gifting it to the Arabs who will ignore the land within a few years and move on as they never did populate the lands between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea until the Jews returned and an economy was born. Read Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) and Herman Melville and others descriptions of these lands when they visited the Holy Lands before 1900 and get a taste for the reality and not the fiction being sold as real history by the fabricators and their revisionist history which suits their political ends over the truth. Once you know the reality, please pass it along with some advice that the Jews be permitted their little scrap of land and we will promise to repay in kindness and miracles almost beyond belief.

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

An Answer to Israel’s Detractors

 

Israel received some interesting detractions which broke new grounds for originality and contrariety. The leadership of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement entered new, though not so surprising, grounds by condemning the Israeli relief efforts providing medical, search and rescue as well as other aid to Nepal and the victims of the disastrous earthquake. Allying with these efforts was Kenneth Roth, the executive director of Human Rights Watch, Tweeted the following diatribe, “Easier to address a far-away humanitarian disaster than the nearby one of Israel’s making in Gaza. End the blockade!” Not to be outdone, Max Blumenthal, a Jewish anti-Semite who has risen to prominence in the BDS campaign took to Twitter with this disgusting gem, “For a country responsible for so many man-made catastrophes, natural disasters can’t come often enough.” Meanwhile, the editor of Electronic Intifada, Ali Abumiah added to the Twitter insult-fest with his two cents worth of, “Propaganda operation goes into high gear to exploit Nepal earthquake to improve Israel’s blood-soaked image.” These pitiful reprobations of the Israeli efforts in Nepal and the assigning to them such a sinister convolution of the intent of Israel’s reputation for being amongst the first to arrive to provide aid and the last to leave as they follow up long after the news crews and their cameras have gone is beyond sickening.

 

Still, there is a ray of hope that such statements and the hatreds they reveal which are as evil as the accusations are beyond the pale, or should we have said beyond the cusp, is that there is no actions, no matter how noble in spirit or kind, which will not be twisted into some unrecognizable convolution reeking with evil intent and desperate hate proving once again that the only action acceptable to these entities which Israel could perform would be a complete surrender to the powers who wish her annihilation and baring the necks of her people to the blades of their knives. There is no middle ground sought by those who are out for Israeli blood and the worst of these are those Jews and especially Israeli Jews whose self-hate is so deeply rooted that their souls have been darkened and their twisted views of reality are beyond any moderation and they are as far gone as their lies themselves. Even writing about such slanders is so distressing that there are times the fingers hang over the keyboard unable to return to striking the keys as if the entire system of thought to words to keystrokes has missed a gear and vapor-locked the connection from brain to fingers. There is little that can be done to reason with such hatreds as they know no reason beyond their desires for the destruction of Israel. When providing aid to the victims of such a horrific catastrophe such as the earthquake which struck Nepal becomes a subject for defamation and contempt, the discussion has gone beyond reason and entered the realm of the absurd.

 

Despite the extremes these hatreds have driven those who make such absurd commentary reaching such disgusting depths as to turn acts of kindness and complete altruism into nothing more than banal contrivances meant to whitewash a sullied image, especially coming from the besmirchers themselves, is simply exhaustive on the emotions to the extreme driving even the saintly to the cusp of evil inferences. Fortunately some of us are not beyond such assaults though to stoop to such a level only serves to give credence to the lies, insults and defamations with which Israel has been inundated. The truism we were taught growing up was to simply ignore those who throw insult through invective and lie as the evilness behind such attacks will soon enough be revealed and they will have gained only bringing the insult upon themselves, well, I’m waiting. Apparently our mothers likely knew that such was not true when applied to the Jewish people or now their nation, the only piece of lands they ever desired. The claims we hear about how Israel dispossessed the Palestinian Arabs from their homeland is such a contrivance, and obvious at that, the fact it has been adopted now by so many who it is known know the reality and are simply feeding the lie with layer upon layer of lies. Many of Israel’s foremost friends and allies took their lead from the leadership of Israel and the Jewish societies in the Diaspora and let the liars lie refusing to dirty themselves in a battle of mudslinging. We were told how such slanders would crumble from the preposterousness of their lies. They did not so crumble and instead continued to grow as the anthill became a molehill became a foothill and have now grown to the point of having a life of their own piling heap upon heap of vile recrimination which has climbed so far beyond the cusp as to stretch credulity. The problem is there are so many who desperately want to believe and that begs the question; why is it they desire to believe hatreds against Israel without proof that they would demand piles of proof were the same accusations leveled against any other nation?

 

The reality and answer lies with one of, if not the, oldest of hatreds known to mankind, anti-Semitism. The truth actually lays in something very fundamental, politics. We all remember when Israel was the darling of the left and supported by much of the Western World. That all changed somewhere between 1967, June to be exact, and 1973, around mid-October. Before June of 1967 Israel was the little nations which miraculously survived what was obviously unimaginable odds in 1948 and 1949 in what was euphemistically referred to as the Israeli War of Independence. The claim was that name gave Israel an actual beginning like most nations have at their origins, a war to free themselves from their colonizing force. That was not the actual case for Israel as the colonizing force were the British who could not vacate fast enough knowing what was about to be unleashed. Part of the British desire to leave may have had something to do with their efforts in attempting to make the Jews as helpless of victims through disarming them and giving the confiscated arms to their Arab neighbors plus the writing on the borders where the Arab armies had been massing for the final two months of the British Mandate requirements. Israeli victory was and still is seen as nothing short of a miracle, and I am not about to argue. As Israel settled down and got to being a nation, her earliest days were as an agricultural economy which favored a socialist system of governance as well as structure in the Kibbutzim. This gained her the reputation of a socialist paradise with great strides in bringing the deserts and swamps to fields of produce and flowers. Everything was considered idyllic, whether it was or not. The combined armies under Gamal Abdel Nasser who ruled the United Arab Republic (UAR), which was the manner in which the combined nations of Egypt and Syria, massed troops on Israel’s northern and southern borders once again posed an unimaginable force against Israel, who was still viewed as not being much of a military power, but Israel herself had taken numerous steps to fortify the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) and had some impressive leadership commanding the IDF. Once the war had begun, even despite the entrance of Jordan to the fray on the second day, the entirety of the war lasted six days. There is no telling how much farther the war might have lasted had the United States, France, Britain, Soviet Union and virtually the entire United Nations not demanded Israel cease hostilities otherwise, well, there was no actual threat, just an insistence that Israel not cross the Jordan River, Suez Canal, and retreat back to the Golan Heights from partly on the road to Damascus. Israel gladly complied with the request as doing so would assure she took no additional casualties, a major consideration in every such use of force. The Six Day War, as it became known, was the proof that little Israel had grown up and was a formidable military presence in the Middle East, a concern that did not escape the notice of United States President Lyndon Johnson.

 

With the realization of military capabilities of Israel after the Six Day War the Western powers realized they likely had little direct control over Israel and that Israel was becoming an equal partner and not so much an underpowered nation requiring Western assistance to survive. This became extremely evident when it became known that Israel was developing a jet fighter which would have capabilities equivalent to the United States F-16 which was also just entering preproduction. This information was cause for alarm at the Pentagon as the cost for the F-16 and F-15 was to be deferred through foreign sales which depended largely on these aircraft not having competition other than from the Soviet Union which was unavoidable as the United States would not be selling military hardware to the Warsaw Nations or other nations under communist influence. Israel had to be bought off and thus the United States made an agreement with the Israelis that if the Israelis would take a sweetheart of a deal on a package of F-15s and F-16s and end their research and development of aircraft, then the United States would provide Israel with front-line aircraft and guarantee them air superiority into the future. Along with these guarantees it was also implied that the United States would continue, or begin, to provide Israel with cover at the growingly aggressive United Nations, particularly in the Security Council. In what may prove to be the second biggest mistake in Israeli history, they accepted this deal. If this acceptance of assistance from the United States ever proves to have played a crucial part in the development and the signing of the Oslo Accords with the United States having worked behind the scene with Simon Peres and the other Israelis which were trusted to keep their deliberation completely secret, proof that Simon Peres can keep his mouth shut, then this deal vaults into the number one slot because of the ramifications. Between these items and the eventual hard won victory of the Yom Kippur War in 1973 that the world was forced to take a second look at Israel and the glossy shine of that plucky little country forever changed to that borderline world power of the Middle East. Add to that the progression from an almost purely agricultural economy into the start-up nation which leads the world in agricultural technology, security software, personal messaging software, cellphone technology, military hardware and software, and numerous other technological expertise has added the dimension to the Israeli persona of a capable leader in modern technology which has also engendered jealousy. It has been this jealousy which has many willing to believe anything which proves that Israel has attained her level of accomplishment through means other than honestly.

 

Israeli accomplishment has become the new target for hatred which the Jews have suffered through all their existence simply because they often were willing to put in the time and sought the education beyond that of the majority of their peers within human civilization. Israel hatred is the millennial anti-Semitism, plain and simple. This is why there is no answer to why there exists so much venomous hatred targeting Israel expressed in the most vile and vulgar terminology. One cannot find an answer to unvarnished hatreds; one can only make the price of such hatred sufficiently high that it dare not raise its head. Unfortunately, or more likely fortunately, we no longer exist in the type of world during which King David lived where if your neighbor threatened your people or began spewing hatreds and threats you girded your lions, gathered your sward and shield and went to war and may the best side win. As far as the Jews are concerned, the best side did not always win right off, but eventually the Jews outlasted their adversaries. Such a victory today is looking more and more dire every day, but as anybody living in Israel with their eyes open knows, miracles happen every single day and around virtually every corner. Could we use more miracles? Everybody can use more miracles, but you take what the good L0rd provides and are thankful. The greatest miracle of recent memory came during the operation in Gaza last summer called Operation Protective Edge. We reported back on September 26, 2014, in our article titled How to Fight Terrorist Fanatics Unless You’re Israel, how the otherwise near perfect Iron Dome battery fired three times upon a missile out of Gaza whose calculated trajectory placed it in central Tel Aviv hitting either the main train and bus depots or one of the towers which make up the Tel Aviv skyline and missed all three times. I know, that is a disaster, not a miracle, but wait, are not most miracles that which turns an otherwise catastrophic situation into something which has the heart to leap out and scream, “There is a G0d!” This was no different as at the last instant a wind rose from the east and pushed the missile out into the Mediterranean Sea. What makes this even more of a miracle is that missiles are designed to be resistant to the effects of bursts of wind and it would take such a blast of air that the wind itself would have caused massive damage in Tel Aviv. This was no ordinary wind; this was the hand of G0d.

 

Perhaps such miracles as that is also part of the reason for the curses. It was reported that when a Hamas commander was pressed about the less than exemplary success of his units rocket batteries he replied that, “Even when they are on target their G0d shoves them away.” If this is amongst the reasons the Israel is to face the scorns of so many, then allow me to bare their scorn with pleasure, pride and faith that the L0rd is with Israel.

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

Israeli Nepal Efforts Amazing, as Usual

 

The extents to which the Israeli efforts in Nepal have risen to in this initial week where rescue is so vital as soon it becomes simply recording the fatalities, are their usual of accomplishing the improbable in responding to a natural disaster. The hopes for finding survivors were greatly enhanced by the assistance sent by the world with the Israeli assistance efforts being amongst the most extensive. Despite restrictions on numbers and types of flights permitted to land at the damaged Kathmandu airport, the Israelis still managed to erect a completely operative field hospital complete with fifty tons of medical equipment including X-ray imaging, complete operating rooms, a maternity ward, laboratory, and virtually everything one might expect to find at a regular hospital. The field hospital is expected to provide treatment, beyond simple first aid, to two hundred patients every day. Once again the Israeli efforts on the ground and in the air are equaled solely by the United States. Israel while providing aid and comfort to the Nepalese also managed to locate and rescue over two-hundred Israelis known to be vacationing or working in Nepal and is in the process of getting these survivors back to Israel. With one individual left to locate, these efforts are laudatory and so extensive that it is reasonable to expect this sole remaining Israeli to be located and provided transportation to Kathmandu and from there back home. The leads thus far on the location of Or Assaraf have all come from locals who had seen him before the massive earthquake struck Nepal leaving massive destructions of buildings and further problems caused by landslides and massive boulders careening down the steep slopes of the Himalayan Mountains.

 

The outpouring of thanks and appreciation pictured in reports are reminiscent of the reactions Israeli search and rescue, medical aid and other vital emergency relief efforts Israel has provided quietly around the world wherever they were needed. These Israeli units are very professional as they are ready response units which train and are always at the ready to fulfill all necessary functions to meet any emergency. These specialized units are in constant training mode up to the instance that their professional services are required, and then they are aboard aircraft with all their necessary gear and trained units ready to respond. This includes K-9 units with dogs specifically trained to locate survivors within the rubble as well as medical units which include doctors, surgeons, nurses and technicians to run the laboratories, X-ray equipment and other such services as in a fully staffed hospital which is as good a description as any to describe an Israeli field hospital. The main difference is the walls are all green and made from a softer and more forgiving material than brick and plaster, in simple terms, tents. With the death toll at this moment approaching 7500, the good news is that two survivors were pulled from the rubble and told of their harrowing experience and how they drank what water seeped down through the collapsed structures which had enveloped them. Both teens, a young boy and even younger girl, had survived for five days buried beneath buildings which their not being crushed was but the first of the miracles which saved their lives. The fact that they survived for five days with extreme limits to their intake of water and appeared none the worse for wear was the next miracle and their seeming perfect health with no ill effects was the final miracle. These youths were perhaps saved so that we could marvel at the miracle before our eyes.

 

For now we can only hope and pray for more such miracles to have saved additional people yet to be plucked from the rubble safe and sound. The efforts continue in Kathmandu to clear the wreckage and debris. One of the problems and something which must be accepted as necessitated by the lack of alternative methods has been the start of burning the bodily remains of the victims as there does not exist the means by which to otherwise dispose of them before they pose a threat to the living. The future holds little promise for locating additional survivors except in the remote areas where an injured individual would be more easily able to find water and even sustenance to hold out until rescuers arrive and can transport them to safety and medical help. The future holds the most harrowing of inevitabilities, the recording of the death toll which having already cleared many thousands threatens to climb even higher as the wreckage and remains of the earthquake are cleared and more bodies located. Additionally, the reports and loss of life in the remote parts of Nepal have yet to arrive. Some of these areas will never reveal their numbers as they do not recognize the central government and thus feel no compulsion to report to anyone. It had even been commented that the IDF search units seeking the hundreds of original missing Israelis were going into areas where the Nepalese military refuse to enter due to the animosities of some local tribes. As originally penned by Alexander Pope, it is appropriate to now state, “Fools rush in where angels fear to tread,” as this has often described the rescue forces of the IDF and they have universally been accepted by the locals who are suspect of anything bearing witness to a higher power than their tribal hierarchy. Perhaps the reason is that the IDF forces come solely to provide assistance, true assistance free from any strings or expectations of anything beyond acceptance to perform their mission, assisting survivors and finding those in need of rescue from the destructive forces of nature. This in many ways is the prefect description of Israel as a whole, the desire and intent to provide assistance, true assistance free from any strings or expectations of anything beyond acceptance, and to provide a meaningful template by which mankind can live through their examples and by such to be a light unto the nations.

 

Beyond the Cusp