Nadene Goldfoot 2006-08-09
Born out of the ashes of the Holocaust, Israel has realized that the world really has not cared whether it exists or dies. She has quickly determined that she must fight for herself to live. Becoming a state and being accepted by the United Nations indeed seemed like a miracle after awaiting for 2000 years to be born again. It was not to be a slam dunk, however.
Her people, both men and women, have had to become warriors to protect their incredibly small nation. For a group hungering for peace, they have had to think of nothing but engaging in defensive wars. Their teenagers have had to grow up knowing their inherited obligation means going into the army as soon as high school is over, and facing the possibility of dying before their allotted time.
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Her daughter religion, Christianity, has not had to send troops to help defend her. They saw in their mother religion aspects of their own morality, however, and helped supply her with much needed weapons. Without these, she would perish. Now, the United States alone stands with Israel, knowing that her fall will signal immense problems for itself.and the hope of peace in the world. Even Britain is on the fence, thinking of their needs before Israel’s. Alone, and for the very first time in history, the United States is taking the barbs and hatred of the world for standing with Israel and not relenting.
Israelis have fought against Egypt, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Yemen and Transjordan, which is today’s Jordan and have won. This was at the time of it’s rebirth in 1948. That was the War of Independence. Then they had a war of 1956 and the war of 1967 which lasted for only 6 days and found they had conquered the Gaza Strip, the vast Sinai Peninsula, and the Golan Heights, and repossessed the provinces of Judea and Sumaria which the outer world calls the West Bank, and the eastern part of Jerusalem which had been occupied by the Jordanians 19 years earlier when they invaded Israel in 1948. Let’s not forget the war of 73 which occurred on the highest Jewish holy day, Yom Kippur, when all people were praying in the synogogues. After this attack on Israel, Egypt and Jordan begrudgingly accepted Israel’s presence, which aggravated their Arab brothers to the nth degree. Jordanians come back and forth into Israel to find work and many tourists have gone into Egypt from Israel since then. Then there was the war of 1982 when Israel went into Lebanon due to Katusha rockets that were continually being aimed at Kiriat Shimona, very near the border, as well as other northern targets. There, the lovely Hamishbeer Department Store was located that all the northern Israelis loved to shop in. Many American Jews resided there, becoming unnerved by the constant need to live in bomb shelters.
Israel has only fought defensively, having accepted the United Nations’ decisions as to size and shape of Israel. The Palestinians have never accepted their offered state, hoping instead to own all of the land of Israel as their given share. Since 1990, Israel has left the contested Lebanon strip they needed for defense, which has given the terrorsts time to arm themselves with highly sophisticated weapons supplied from Iran with the help of Syria.
Iran has never forgotten its loss in 1948 and has developed a religion that deems Israel a thorn in its side and has decided that Israel must be removed. The Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has stated to the world over mass communications that the solution to the Middle East problem is to destroy Israel. Israel took his words seriously. They know that Iran is seeking atomic energy and figures it’s not because they need better heating methods. They know it’s to make atomic weapons to use on the United States and Israel.
Israel’s Mossad, the Intelligence Agency, must have known that Lebanon’s terrorists were planning something. Katushas have continued to fall from Lebanon. They are not invitations to a party. They can kill and destroy. They’re not exactly a friendly action to their neighbors. The same thing has been happening on the Gaza Strip. When the soldiers in both areas were kidnapped, this alerted the IDF, Israel’s Defense Force, that something was brewing, and luckily, it alerted the country.
The IDF was made aware of the danger by the kidnappings. To find that 13,000 rockets of various sizes and capabilities were lined up in the northern country of Lebanon was more than Israel had imagined. They quickly realized that Iran was most serious in its declaration of destroying Israel.
This is Israel’s Pearl Harbor call. It is the most serious war Israel has ever faced. Israel may be highly trained, unfortunately, for survival reasons, and may have a wonderful arsonal in air power and land due to the United States, but finds that the Arabs have gifts of weapons even more deadly due to the Soviet Union’s sales to Iran.
We have only 5.4 million Jewish people inhabiting Israel. Being a democratic country, the only Jewish country in the world, it also is home to Christians and Muslims. Even at that, we have only 13 million Jews in the world. The Arab world has 1 1/2 billion Moslems and they all seem to be against us.
Our original forefathers who established Israel thought things would be a little different. They talked to Emir Faisal’s father, Hussein in 1918 who had then written and called upon the Arab population in Palestine to welcome the Jews as brothers and to cooperate with them for the common good. At that time, most Arab leaders were living in comfort in Europe and sold land to the Jewish pioneers at very high prices, but land was bought legally and the empty desert and swamp called Palestine was holy to the Jewish returnees.
Later Muslims like Mahmoud Ahmadinejad have decided that Israel, which is much less than 1/3 the size of Oregon, is too great a piece of real estate to house Jews. It’s about 260 miles long, 60 miles at the widest, and 3 to 9 miles at the narrowest. Israel consists of 8,000 sq. miles. Compare that with the state of Oregon, population of 3,930,065 but having a width of 400 miles (640 km), and length of 360 miles (580 km), or 144,000 sq. miles, where the top 3 people living there have the ancestry of Germany-22.5%, England-14% and Ireland -13.2%.
It is an affront to the Muslims to have a democratic Jewish state in their midst. Their people might get ideas of wanting democracy, also. That is a threat to their realm. The strange thing is that little Israel has no oil wells. Israel was given people who had to learn to use their minds to survive and not be dependant on oil, like their cousins. No people had ever developed the land. It lay in the sun, waiting for its people to return to bring it back to life.
Reference: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oregon
