Posted on 09/08/2003 5:54:46 AM PDT by SJackson
At the end of a century of unthinkably cruel and ultimately empty revolutions — Nazism, communism — Israel stands virtually alone in the right to assert that, after the crackup of empires and rage for popular sovereignties, it is a success, and a decent one at that.
Now envision Israel in its actual neighborhood — the tyrannical societies of the Middle East made even more twisted by corrupting and unproductive oil wealth — and you have a standing reproach to the Arab hubris that lies to itself.
From the western Sahara to the deserts abutting the Persian Gulf, not a single regime beyond Israel has so much as even embarked, or allowed its entrepreneurs to embark, on the exacting beginnings of industrial advance. This wide swath of terrain on which a quarter of a billion people live produces with all its hands and brains just about what little Finland or Spain does. Remind yourself also that not one ruler across the region governs by consent of the ruled. Evoke the phantoms of lost grandeur put in the heads of miserable boys and girls by dogma and dogmatics.
Mesh all this together and you have some sense of why the West is resented on the Arab street and why, moreover, Israel has not been able to reach, for all its accomplishments, the one quintessential and existential goal articulated by Theodor Herzl, the founder of modern Zionism, that "the Jew be able to die peacefully in his own bed." And maybe he never will.
It may be that Israel is doomed to live dangerously, even if a shooting, a stabbing, even a bombing on a bus or in a mall occurs only every few years. Maybe there is no enforceable peace treaty that can truly guarantee against crackpots and random fanatics.
Israel's longtime enemy, and its enemy today, is of the very same terror that was launched on us on Sept. 11, but, if less confounding, more routine and more tolerated. It is the world's acceptance of the routinization of this killing of Jews that has so affronted Israel and its allies.
One of the fundamental and actionable principles of Zionism is that Jewish blood is no longer cheap. It follows that the shedding of Jewish blood will not pass without an accounting, without being avenged. And not just for vengeance's sake. But to bring about the elimination of the organized blood sport in Jewish lives.
The fact is that Israel has for years vacillated between responding to terror with exquisitely calibrated force and pacifying terrorists by giving them some of what they want — for example, the release of prisoners. The latter option is, of course, always the preferred path of the peace process interlocutors, even the American ones.
(Excerpt) Read more at jewishworldreview.com ...
Guess it's hard to recruit "martyrs" when you're scurrying around the rat-holes trying to avoid "martyrdom" yourself.
I agree. :)
The Jews of Europe in the 1930s and 1940s realized this too late, and paid a terrible price. They tried, as some do today (especially in America), advocating a policy of appeasement and cooperation with their murderers. That only begets more bloodshed and eventual wholesale slaughter, since the murderers sense weakness, indifference, and resignation among their victims.
The second anniversary of 9/11 is approaching, and while it is a time for remembering our own dead, we should also use the occasion to remember those relatively few among many of the Jews of Europe who resisted the Nazi swine and refused to go to their deaths like cattle to the slaughter. The rebellion in the ghetto of Warsaw, the uprising of the prisoners in the extermination camp at Treblinka, and the breakout at Sobbibor, showed that resisting the barbarian, even at the cost of one's life, is worthwhile if it shows the way of courage and resolve to future generations.
I don't recall having read him before. Is this article out of character?
This is a bankrupt program, both morally and practically.
The reasonable solution to the Palestine question has always been a partition, and there have been various partition plans proposed since the first one enunciated by Winston Churchill in 1922. Each and every one of them has been rejected, by the surrounding Arab states and by the Palestinians.
History moves forward, but not the Arabs.
The fervor for Hamas and Islamic Jihad among the Palestinians is an expression of that rejectionism. The martyrology that attends it shows also that it is quite mad.
BUMP!
The number of Israeli's killed ..maimed and wounded..is low.
**Not by my perception..but by Israels Gov.
The numbers rival car accident figures..and other such fudgeable numerics.
Israeli's are "Breast Feed" thru their Social/Commie media that the best struggle is to quietly die for the nation...and the nations best course..is to let the World..
Tire itself out..whilst trying to kill Jews
Israel defends itself..But enables Murderous Hamdi..to have his little Killing,maiming spree's.
Why?
Better to let the Muslims have their anger and revenge..control it...heck..scale it.
Oslo...Golan give back...Saudi Peace Plan...War on Terror...Road Map.
For Israeli's..these are the poster signs outside the Funeral hall.
All of it means nothing....Israeli knows within him/herself..they will be going to more funerals each year..but not really alot of them.
Look at the death swath France just cheese monkeyed its way thru ..11,000 dead from the heat wave.
Israel never gets its ass kicked that bad..not do they ever let that many of their populace "Buy the Farm".
Its a strange reality...
So if some Israeli's perish and are maimed each year..most of the Muslim world will be satisfied..read their blood lust newspapers..drink tea...and crow about their vaunted whatever.
No end to this reality.
Muslims are not stupid either...going on Israel with no U.S. to hold them back is CERTAIN ANNIHILATION.
Aslong as Islam **Knows..it is allowed to kill and maim..just so many..they will play the endless game.
Course too..if you follow the Prophetic track...the Endless game does run off the rails..WW-III.
Until WW-III then...
I agree!
Wild Thing
Sure, no problem, a little attrition buys a lot of years. The US should tolerate a 9-11 now and then to satisfy the Muslim's blood lust. And if the radicals go nuclear, 'tis a small price to pay. Sure.
Thought that was a Klingon proverb.
The eventual cost to the Arab world could be stunning and many Arab elites realize this which is why they pay lip service to the Plai cause but don't actually do anything to really help them.
For example:
If they push the Jews into the sea (their words, not mine) what chance is their for Mecca and Medina?
Answer:
None whatsoever. Mecca and Medina will disappear in fireballs, becoming a mere memory in the collective psyche of the Muslim community.
All who have attacked Israel have suffered. Generations have suffered.
No people should be "numerically" calculated on some curve to satisfy the various demands of the varied parties in the death dance.
Neither America ..nor Israel should have to accept "Attrition" in forward projection thinking.
U.S. should allow Israel to face its Enemies with no restraint.
The U.S. should move in such power aswell.
That would entail dealing terror is rightfull blow where it resides...ie Saudi Arabia[9-11]...Iran,Syria.The Lebanon.
WW-2 was horrible...but the resolve was just and right.
Returning to that resolve..is the only way to face terror.
Now that the U.N. is involved in Iraq..they will entangle things..enabling the psycho's to continue from their **Safe Havens.
Israel will face pressure to desist from contending with Hamas..or Hizbullah in the Lebanon.
Heavy sigh..
Attrition loses will continue.
I can remember the insanity of Mogadishu..with Belgian and other U.N. peace keepers ..calling ahead to warn..that the U.S. is on its way.
A Clinton version .."Of running the table"..in the Vegas of the war on terror.
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