Posted on 02/04/2003 4:28:29 AM PST by SJackson
 How does the value of an Israeli life become so cheap that we Jews accept the idea that we have to sacrifice hundreds of lives on a yearly basis in order to exist in the state of Israel?
Not many years ago, when one Israeli life was innocently lost, Israelis were shocked and there was a sudden hush in the atmosphere and wonderment in our voices. Why is it that now we think of it as an unavoidable sacrifice, as if there are certain questions for which there are just no answers?
Why was the loss of an Israeli life so inconceivable before and so acceptable now? The answer is that we are living through another version of the same mentality that accepted the idea that a Jew couldn’t help dying in the Holocaust. The idea that a tiny minority of Jews should fight an army of Nazis was so inconceivable that it was unthinkable. It was as if we were assigned to death by the will of G-d for reasons only G-d knew.
When we Jews came to Israel we created this nation with a blazing new mentality. We were offended by our own history of timidity and helplessness. We were full of contempt for the world and an even greater contempt for our own character as inevitable victims, which is why we were able to win the war of Independence against all the Arab armies with practically nothing but willpower and fearlessness.
We acquired not only a new country but also a new mentality and a new confidence in our destiny. Since the Arabs could not tolerate the presence of Jews in their neighborhood, they tried to destroy us whenever they could put an army together. Every time they lost a war they couldn’t understand it — and they couldn’t believe that they wouldn’t win the next war.
Like the Americans in Vietnam and the Russians in Afghanistan, the Arabs possessed such a huge advantage of resources, population and power that they couldn’t accept the experience of defeat by the tiny state of Israel. As we were winning more and more victories we were paying a bigger price and getting more and more tired of victories in the battlefield at the cost of losing so many of our young Israeli lives. We became so weary and fearful of the next possible war, we blinded ourselves into believing all the fraudulent gestures of the Arabs about making peace.
We never realized the extent of our self-delusion until Prime Minister Barak offered the Arabs 98% of what they demanded and was answered with an avalanche of suicide bombers taking more Israeli lives than ever before. Since then we have become involved in futile efforts to solve the problem by retaliating more decisively than ever before — which has served as a great release from our frustrations but has always left us helpless from the next attack from more suicide bombers.
Somehow we have become helpless in the face of death, as if there were no possible solution to this problem. For the first time in 50 years we have again become a lost, confused, helpless and paralyzed people. Somehow we have resigned ourselves to suffer the constant killing of our people, like another but slower Holocaust.
We have paralyzed ourselves by our sickening fear of “World Opinion,” which is why we find it impossible to face one simple fact: We will never win this war unless we immediately threaten to drive every Arab out of Israel if the killing doesn’t stop.
It is no accident that the Arabs are not concerned with public opinion as they kill our people — while we are terrified of public opinion should we dismiss them from our country. Somehow, we have become intimidated into believing that we are obligated to give them a place to live, and that we have no right to throw them out just because they are killing our people.
It is about time we realized that “public opinion” is nothing but publicly expressed anti-Semitism, and that appeasing public opinion makes as much sense as Chamberlain’s appeasement of Hitler.
Jews dying in Israel disturbs world opinion as much as watching your neighbor killing a cockroach disturbs you — even if it doesn’t fill you with pleasure, you certainly don’t feel remorse about it. That is why when suicide bombers kill hundreds of Jews not a word of protest is ever heard, but when we try to defend ourselves by retaliating against our killers the U.N. immediately is called in an emergency session to protect our assassins.
We are brain-dead if we accept the idea that we have to guess which Arab is our next killer. We are not obligated to victimize ourselves by letting the Arabs play Russian roulette with Jewish lives. Israelis are constantly asked the same obnoxious question: “How can you throw the Arabs out — where would they go?” The answer is, if they don’t care whom they kill, why are we obligated to care where they go?
If a gang of killers lived across the street, would you allow them to keep throwing bombs through your window until you found them another apartment? Are we morally obligated to become a real estate agent for every Arab suicide bomber?
We are not obligated to accept a new, slower Holocaust as the inevitable fate of our people. The Jordanians did not take a poll of world opinion, and neither did the Kuwaitis, before they routed the Palestinians out of their countries.
America did not wait for public opinion to take whatever action was necessary to protect itself, and there is no reason why Jews should be afraid to do whatever is necessary to protect the state of Israel. ◙
Jackie Mason is the world-renowned comedic genius. Raoul Felder is a prominent Manhattan attorney.
At the tip of Jordanian bayonets, excepting the 5,000 or so they planted.
If you were living in a squalid s###hole of a refugee camp and somebody offered you a chance for a normal live, pay for your family to relocate, give you a good job and a nice house, let's say in DEARBORN MICHIGAN, would you take it, or would you stay in the s###hole in the hopes that someday you will loot that house in Tel Aviv that your grandpappy had his eyes on back in '48.
Paying the Arabs CASH to relocate was actually the plan of that GREAT SATAN, Meir Kahane. The cost was actually much less than you might think. Maybe not everyone would agree to accept money to relocate, but reasonable, rational human beings who want better lives for themselves and their families might consider it as an alternative to living in a s###hole refugee camp.
The Saudi's could pay for this out of their pocket change. But they evicted 500,000 Palestinians from their kingdom so obviously they figured out the logistics and did not inspire any outrage from you.
My solution is to channel all the funds (provided by the Saudi's and others) currently paying for terrorist activity against Israel and the Jews to peaceful relocating of the residents of the refugee camps in any one of their choice 22 Muslim Arab countries.
And in the end the Israelis will have the occupied territories all to themselves, all without spending a dime or having to put up with those pesky natives. And you call this a workable solution?
Works for me.
Of course it works for you, in your scheme you get the occupied territories free and clear, no fuss no muss, and without spending a dime. And of course the Saudis, the Americans, and the Palestinians are supposed to fall all over themselves in their rush to do this for you.
There’s nothing sinister about that, and it would provide them with a better life.
It sould be pointed out that Israel allows Arabs within it’s borders, unlike the Arab world, and that the stumbling block in a plan like this are the arabs themselves, who want the refugees mired in poverty.
BTW, I never said that. It's impolite to make things up.
I think offering the refugees citizenship in Arab countries would be a very viable solution. Two thirds of them already reside in Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria you know, in camps. I think they’d be far better off resettled, and lots of them would opt to given the opportunity. If some of the 15% or so of the refugees who live in the West Bank wanted to leave, fine, if they wanted to stay, and were peaceful, they’d simply be citizens of Syria, Jordan or Lebanon working in Israel. Big deal, that’s been going on for years. The stumbling block, of course, are the Arabs who keep them in bondage in hopes of sending 4 or 5 million residents of Arab nations into Israel.
The costs would be manageable, particularly if you’re only concerned (as you seem to be) with the West Bank refugees, which number about half the number of Jews Israel has resettled from Russia in the last decade.
If the people in the occupied territories wanted that citizenship and the countries in question were willing to give them citizenship. But you leave out Israeli citizenship so you are depending on others to provide services at their expense so Israel can keep the West Bank and Gaza. Why should they do that?
The costs would be manageable, particularly if you’re only concerned (as you seem to be) with the West Bank refugees, which number about half the number of Jews Israel has resettled from Russia in the last decade.
Of course the costs are manageable since you expect someone else to foot the bill. Again, you want others to provide the homes and the money and Israel gets the prize. You really think that the Arab world or the Palestinians are going to do that? Out of their well-demonstrated sense altrueism?
But you also overlook the title of this post. The authors aren't talking about paying for resettlement or compensation or even worrying about a home for the Palestinians. They are saying it's time to threaten them. Well, threats only carry weight if you have the means of carrying them out. So how do you see Israel doing it?
Here is what they said. It bears repeating:
Israelis are constantly asked the same obnoxious question: “How can you throw the Arabs out — where would they go?” The answer is, if they don’t care whom they kill, why are we obligated to care where they go?
If a gang of killers lived across the street, would you allow them to keep throwing bombs through your window until you found them another apartment?
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