I went on a Birthright trip to Israel a couple of years ago. With you being in Israel, I'm sure you're familiar with the program. It was a 10-day trip and we had 5 members of the Israeli military with us for four of those days. They really opened my eyes to the stuff that you guys put up with every day. It's hard to imagine how tiny the State of Israel is until you actually go there. Traveling from the north to the south takes some time, but less time than driving across New York State, and traveling east to west takes almost no time. We spent a day in Eilat and I remember being able to see how close the Egyptian and Jordanian borders were to the beach. Israel is surrounded by enemies and the UN keeps urging them to give up more and more land for this mythical peace that I keep hearing about, but never comes.
“Israel is surrounded by enemies and the UN keeps urging them to give up more and more land for this mythical peace that I keep hearing about, but never comes.”
But it has come. It is here. Giving the PLO its own fiefdom has given the US peace in Saudi Arabia, because their yearly extortion money is much lower, the PLO having the Palis to shake down and lord it over, and the US and EU to pump for the rest of the money.
As September approaches, Jerusalem Palis are applying for Israeli citizenship in record numbers, and those Palestinians (as opposed to Israeli Arabs) outside of Jerusalem with the money and Jordanian citizenship to do it are relocating to Jordan. The Palis really don’t want them. The PLO was made their “sole legitimate voice” at Oslo by diplomatic fiat, and they’ve lived in fear ever since. Those palis with a less mendacious world view and a little leadership ability were quickly killed off as “collaborators”. The rest hate them, but also fear them, and individual initiative and standing alone is looked on poorly in Arab society.