Posted on 06/30/2003 9:17:55 AM PDT by yonif
She was a "settler" struggling to save her home.
"If I am not for myself, who will be for me?" (Ethics of our Fathers)
I froze when I saw her face. Where did that little girl find the strength to lift that heavy stone? After all, she is just a child.
Where did she find the wisdom on that awful June morning to resist misguided Israeli soldiers who came to destroy her modest Jewish community?
This wasn´t a creased, 60-year-old black-and-white picture of a confused child, helplessly led away in the Warsaw Ghetto. This was a different sort of photograph altogether - a digital, color image that flashed across a stunned world in an instant. This determined creature - a grandchild of the Holocaust - showed no sign of despair, and refused to be led away just because someone in Washington demanded it.
At the time, I doubt she knew who Colin Powell is, or why he and his Christian boss ordered her big prime minister to destroy Jewish communities. She just knew it was wrong, something had to be done to stop it, and there was no time left to wait for members of the Knesset to put on their pants and protect her.
How do I know so much about a child I never met? Don´t be misled by her curly, blond hair wrapped in pigtails. The defiant glare in her steady eyes speaks of a passionate child blessed with vision -- certainly more vision than the burly men who gave the orders to destroy her flimsy home. It´s the kind of glare into the future that can save a nation. Those are the kind of eyes that don´t wince at the sight of Bush or Blair. Don´t let her little pursed lips fool you either. That is the kind of mouth that is not afraid to tell the Europeans, "Go to hell with your Road Map! I don´t want my mommy to die the way my great-grandma was killed in Poland!"
No one held that little girl´s hand as armored bulldozers rolled up to her front door. Her little body didn´t shake when deluded IDF soldiers came to tear down her home. In fact, that is no little girl. This is a towering child of Israel who, in some inexplicable and profound way, understood the dire predicament of her beleaguered yet eternal nation, and made a difference.
I wonder if I could have carried that stone.
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Rabbi Tovia Singer is host of the Tovia Singer Show on Arutz-7. His show can now be heard Tuesdays at 3-5 PM Eastern Time (10PM-Midnight Israel time) & again live at 9-11 PM Eastern Time (4-6 AM in Israel). Rabbi Singer is also the Director of the counter-missionary organization, Outreach Judaism.
When Abram was ninety-nine years old, the LORD appeared to him and said, "I am God Almighty [1] ; walk before me and be blameless. 2 I will confirm my covenant between me and you and will greatly increase your numbers." 3 Abram fell facedown, and God said to him, 4 "As for me, this is my covenant with you: You will be the father of many nations. 5 No longer will you be called Abram [2] ; your name will be Abraham, [3] for I have made you a father of many nations. 6 I will make you very fruitful; I will make nations of you, and kings will come from you. 7 I will establish my covenant as an everlasting covenant between me and you and your descendants after you for the generations to come, to be your God and the God of your descendants after you. 8 The whole land of Canaan, where you are now an alien, I will give as an everlasting possession to you and your descendants after you; and I will be their God."
We can all argue about whether the Arabs worship the same God as the Jews and Christians...but they claim that they do, and that as descendants of Abraham that they have also inherited Canaan. Now you may argue that they are full of it, but if the Jews in Israel want to claim ownership over the land "because God gave it to them" as opposed to saying "we conquered it, its ours, and if you don't like it we'll kill you" like everyone else does...well then, they will just have to deal with competing claims of "yeah, God gave it to us too, so there, nyah!"
I think that your position is rather overstated. Look here for a report on total foreign aid to Israel. You might quibble about some of the figures (like, has it really been a total of $91 billion from 1949 through 2000) but it really has been a lot.
And don't put words in my mouth. If you want to respond to me, respond to the actual points I make, don't introduce irrelevencies or straw men.
As it turns out, they generated that $91B number as follows: According to an October 27 Congressional Research Service (CRS) report, cumulative aid to Israel from 1949 through fiscal year (FY) 2000 was $81.38 billion. Then Shirl McArthur added these numbers: $4.28 billion from the DOD and $1.72 billion from interest accrued due to early aid disbursement. This comes to a total of $87.38 billion through September 30 of this year (the end of FY 2000). Add to this amount the $3.98 billion for FY 2001: This number includes $840 million in economic aid, $1.98 billion in military aid, $60 million for refugee resettlement, $250 million from the DOD budget, and $85 million in interest. The resulting grand total of the above calculations is $91.36 billion in aid to Israel through FY 2001.
Now, is the source a pro-palastinian source? I think yes. But are the numbers right? Well, they all came from US government sources. If you don't like the numbers, complain to the US government. If you don't trust an information source, then verify the data.
Whose "we"?
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