Faces on Faith: Israel’s right to exist is non-negotiable
Sadly, so many Americans have fallen victim to the propaganda of those who condemn Israel as an outlaw state of Jews who arrived in the ’40s to steal the Palestinians’ land.
The Jewish connection to Israel dates to the biblical Book of Genesis. Israelis, not today’s Palestinians, are the indigenous population of that ancient land.
For several hundred years until the end of World War I the entire land area of the Middle East was under the control of the Ottoman Turks. When the ottoman Empire collapsed at the end of WWI, more than 20 Arab peoples have realized their hopes for nationhood, and no one questions the legitimacy of those nations.
Jews also lived in the land controlled by the Ottoman Empire. Why does the world begrudge the Jews a tiny sliver of land to realize their national aspirations?
After the Holocaust, the world realized that had there been an Israel to which Jews could flee, Hitler never would have wiped out two-thirds of European Jewry. And so, the United Nations voted to partition the land into two small states: one Arab and one Jewish. The Jews of the world rejoiced, but the Arab world had other plans. They vowed to drive the new Jewish nation into the sea. They failed and terrorized her borders for the next 19 years.
In 1967 the Arab world again mobilized for all out military attack. They closed the straits of Tiran to Israeli shipping and ordered United Nations troops to leave the Sinai desert.
Amazingly, though, Israel launched a preemptive strike against its enemies and drove the Egyptian army across the Sinai desert and the Syrian troops off the Golan Heights where for years they had terrorized the citizens of Israel’s northland with bombs and Katusha rockets.
During those early June days, Israel’s Prime Minister Levi Eshkol sent a radio communique to King Hussein of Jordan warning him to stay out of the war, but Hussein ignored Eshkol’s warning and joined his Arab brethren in their effort to wipe Israel off the map of the world.
His troops invaded West Jerusalem, but Israel’s defense forces drove Jordan’s troops to the other side of the Jordan River. That is how the West Bank came into Israel’s hands.
Immediately after the war, Israel offered to sit down and make peace with all its enemies. The Arab world rejected that offer saying three No’s. There would be no recognition of Israel. There would be no negotiation with Israel, and no peace with Israel.
Subsequent years have seen Israel’s enemies commit unspeakable acts of terror, foment two major Arab uprisings, and two horrible wars in Lebanon. And today a nearly nuclear Iran calls Israel a stain that they intend to wipe off the face of the earth.
And still, some condemn Israel for defending itself and wanting to survive.
In supporting Israel, one does not relinquish the right to criticize any policy of Israel’s he/she thinks is wrong. But Israel’s right to exist is non-negotiable.
Rabbi Stephen Lewis Fuchs is with the Bat Yam Temple of the Islands.