Essays about Israel with up-to-date news with my opinion. Written by an Israeli.
Friday, October 29, 2010
Wednesday, October 27, 2010
"I will never compromise when it comes to Israel's security... Not when there are terrorist groups and political leaders committed to Israel's destruction. Not when there are maps across the Middle East that don't even acknowledge Israel's existence."
Saturday, October 23, 2010
http://blackchristiannews.com/news/2010/10/europe-rallies-for-israel.html
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/news.aspx/139880 Mass European Rally for Israel
http://jewishfactsfromportland.blogspot.com/
Saturday, October 16, 2010
It is 25 miles from Tel Aviv.
A half million Israelis live in Judea-Samaria (West Bank) and East Jerusalem. This had been the heartland of Ancient Israel. It was regained after the War of 1967 when Israel was attacked from all sides. The Arabs had thought that surely they would win being Israel was so outnumbered.
By winning, Israel gained back this land. They started to populate it more. At the time, there was no consideration of Palestinians declaring their own state and wanting this piece of land as they had been offered land way back in the beginning in 1948 and had refused it. They were not desperate like Jews were to have their own state. They did not need their own state. Now that they see that they have not wiped out Israel, they are making out that they need the land for their statehood. In reality they just don't want Israel to be there. This is another form of warfare against Israel.
Israel has given in everytime a chance has come up to trade in land for peace. They even had a moratorium on building in Judea-Samaria for 10 months, giving the Palestinians time to recognize and come to terms with Israel, possibly even leading to changing their charter of wiping out Israel. The Palestinians let the time lapse. Now that they see that Israel is not upset by it and has started to build without extending anymore time, the Arabs are pouting, and have given the United States a month in order to get Israel into a discussion about peace terms. Of course the peace terms I can imagine will be all about what the Palestinians are steering towards, the destruction of Israel, where we ask for recognition.
Israel is not as naive anymore. It's in the state of living and developing. Their best soldiers happen to come from the Judea-Samaria area nowdays. 40% of IDF combat officers are religious zionists. That means that they understand the relevance of Judea and Samaria to Israel. This is why losing this area is traumatic.
Israel is not a state that just happened to be settled by Jews because it was just an empty swampy ugly piece of available arid land. It was the spot that our religion centered on in that we were given the land by G-d and were meant to be there. I don't know of any other place on this planet that has such a history. You have to recognize the meaning of Israel to Jews. Evangelical Christians certainly do. Places such as Europe have become unattached to religion lately and seem to have forgotten this history and why Israel means so much to us. After bouncing around from country to country looking for acceptance for 2,000 years, we realized that we needed to be back in our homeland. We could contribute to the world our creations and ideas better that way. Strangely, our land had laid fallow for the whole time we had been gone. No one really wanted it. It had become a mess, but it was our land.
Israel was very fair in giving Abbas time to come around and do the right thing in recognizing the state that he intends to live next door to. Would you want to move into a house that sits next door to your hated enemy? If he wants that house bad enough he's going to have to get along with the neighbor that's already there somehow. Good parental psychology says that you don't keep making threats to your children and then not abide by the rules that you have set. Netanyahu has done the same thing. Now he has every right to keep on building, and the plan right now is in East Jerusalem. Jerusalem, after all, is Israel's capital. If people don't remember, it was the capital of ancient Israel, also. It's more than special to us.
We've been at odds ever since the days of Abraham. It was a disappointment to us then and still is. When the day comes that the Arabs want to be friends, well, that will be the day. I guess, from the looks of this past 63 year history, it just may take the Messiah to bring it about. Something great has to touch their hearts and bring about a change in attitude.
http://www.israelunitycoalition.org/news/?p=5948 from Wall Street Journal by Yossi Klein Halevi Why Israel Won't Abandon the Settlers
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20101016/ap_on_re_mi_ea/ml_israel_palestinians
Friday, October 15, 2010
Ahmadinejad's Visit to Lebanon
by Nadene Goldfoot
We've had several wars with Lebanon over the years. 1978 saw one war. We moved to Israel in 1980. I hadn't realized that there had been a war with Lebanon when we moved to Safed, which is quite close to the border with Lebanon. I was in Safed during the war in June 1982. "June 15, 1982: We were naturally happy that the PLO have been run out and had been worried about the arms and weapons that were coming in from them right across our border. It's time something was done about it. The U.N. and others were not doing anything about it. We never dreamt they would do as much as they did. Everyone is very upset about the casualties on both sides, but Lebanon seems to be very happy, and Major Hadad, the Christian Lebanese leader in Lebanon is very happy. In fact, all of Christian Lebanon is happy. We are glued to the radio for the short reports we get in English, and I read every word in the Jerusalem Post." Lebanon's minority were Christians, and the Christians and Muslims did not get along. Major Hadad and his militia patrolled our border and helped to protect Israel because the PLO had taken over southern Lebanon in the 70's. This 2nd war lasted 3 months when we actually went into Beiruit. By 1985 we had established a buffer zone between Lebanon and Israel.
In 1996 we had to go in Lebanon again in our Operation Grapes of Wrath, which lasted 16 days in order to end the shelling in Northern Israel by Hezbollah. Kiryat Shemona was constantly underfire, just as it was in 1982. That was one of my favorite towns, as they had the Hamishbeer, a wonderful department store which reminded me of Meier & Franks here in Portland. We had many American Jews living there, and they have been under attack so much, I don't know how they endure. Ceasefire was on 27 April, 1996.
Ahmadinejad has now visited Lebanon, buoying up their hatred for Israel. Iran is hoping to shake off memories of their 2005 assassination of Lebanon's former Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri. Now they've been helping out Lebanon with water and electricity, so they are standing in the winner's circle. Ahmadinejad's disparaging remarks have been, "The world should understand that the Zionists will go. Palestine will be liberated." The crowd roared in approval.
Oregonian Newspaper 10/15/10 Iran's president speaks in Lebanon page A8
Letters From Israel by Nadene Goldfoot page 194.
http://www.historyguy.com/israel-lebanon_war_2006.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1996_Lebanon_war
Tuesday, October 12, 2010
"Israel's mainly right-wing government voted overwhelmingly on Sunday in favour of controversial legislation requiring non-Jewish citizens to swear allegiance to the country as a Jewish state."
The United States did the same thing to immigrants coming into our country from another state. My grandparents were from "Russia." They had to sign a paper saying that they were not citizens of their former country nor paid it allegiance. They swore to uphold the laws of the USA. There's nothing outlandish in this.
Israel has over 1 million Arab citizens. They have the same privileges as Jewish citizens. This is something the European Union's members Catherine Ashton and Maja Kocijaneik doen't seem to know about, yet they are advocating for equality for all of Israel's citizens. They do have some history to learn about Israel, I see, before they start speaking.
A contraversy has come about because Israel expects to have Palestinians accept their existence by recognizing Israel as a Jewish state. It happens to be the only one in the world. The Palestinians and surrounding Arab countries are having a hard time accepting this fact. There is no sense in talking peace, I see, after 62 years of fighting our neighbors without this. We have to "shake hands" first before talking about points concerning us all.
It's about time that new immigrants to the country swore allegiance to it, just like the USA has done. I would think that it's only contraversial with the EU. Notice the "right wing" government mentioned, as if "right wing" was a bad thing. It only means that they have protection in mind. When I moved to Israel in 1980 I was a Democrat-not a Republican. That is considered left wing around here. When we got to Israel, we quickly found ourselves all for the right wing element. Gee, we did want to stay alive. Europe has found itself with many many Muslim immigrants now. I wonder if they have signed such a paper, or if Europe has ever had such a paper.
Resource: http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20101012/wl_mideast_afp/israelpalestinianpeaceeu
Sunday, October 10, 2010
Judea and Samaria, 1982
Friday, October 08, 2010
http://www.shalom-shalom-jerusalem.org/hezbollahroots.html, excellent read.