About Us Israelis - Apartheid Nation

I sometimes wish words could be taxed. Maybe then people would think twice before using them so viciously and light-headedly. Unfortunately, in a world where anyone can say or write anything, anywhere, without being held accountable, words become a dangerous tool.

Calling Israel an "Apartheid Nation", and by that labeling us Israelis as bigots and racists, is a cheap shot. The ones calling us that are the same people who are conducting a de-facto apartheid policy on the basis of political views, gender, race and religion, in their own, respective, Middle-Eastern countries. When you repeat such vicious and unfounded accusation too many times, people start believing it.

In recent years, the Muslim student association in and around US campuses hold an annual "Israel Apartheid Week". It is aimed at portraying Israel as an Apartheid nation, a mass murderer of innocent civilians, a ruthless occupier of the Palestinian People and a country which does not have a right to exist. Those groups are funded and motivated by the extremist Muslim Brothers. They are allowed to hold their protest in the name of the freedoms they are deprived of in their respective countries of origin (watch the Horowitz Freedom center presentation on the matter:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j_vGjv29QdA&feature=player_embedded). 

South African Apartheid (1948 – 1994) was based on a political and judicial systems promoting legally sanctioned racial segregation. The regime sponsored the political, economical and social interests of the minority whites who ruled over the colored majority in the country by means of discriminatory laws. Those were enforced by repressive violent methods.

Colored people in apartheid South Africa were deprived of citizenship status and basic human rights. The government segregated the basic rights for education, medical care, transportation, social services etc., providing inferior services, if at all, to the colored majority. What was known as "Petty Apartheid" – acts of legislation and governmental decisions designed to insure the survival of the regime – prohibited mixed marriages between colored and white people, prohibited inter-race intercourse, deprived colored people from running their own businesses in professions reserved only for whites, and limited their economic activity to "colored-only" territories, set up by the regime in order to physically separate the whites from the colored. It also prohibited colored workers from forming their own trade unions, segregated public transportation and public health and public ambulance services, deprived colored people from having passports, etc.

No colored people in Apartheid South Africa could run for office or serve in the country's parliament or work for the government or practice law (let alone reside as a judge in one of the country's judicial instances), or work as a physician at a white-only hospital or teach white children, represent the country in international sports events, and again the list goes on. In Israel, all of that is legally open to all people.

Israel is not an Apartheid nation! It never was and it never will be!

Israelis are not racists! They never were and they never will be!

In Israel, all people are legally equal, regardless of race, religious persuasion, political affiliation, gender, color of skin, place of origin, cultural traditions, socio-economic circumstances, etc. People living in Israel are free to conduct their lives as they wish, free to run for office, free to practice law, free to serve in the Knesset or work in the public sector. Everyone is free to buy their own land, free to build their own house, free to marry whomever they love, free to play for in the national sports teams, free to serve as judges in Israel's various judicial instances, free to run their own business – as long as they are law-abiding citizens who do not jeopardize the lives, the happiness and the freedoms of their fellow Israelis (watch the Maoz-Israel presentation: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eupkfyd1ulc&NR=1).  

Israel is not a ruthless occupier! It never was and it never will be!

Israelis are not insensitive to the suffering of others! They never were and they never will be! 

Israel has been a very active player in the international aid scene for many years. It has a long tradition of extending humanitarian aid in many forms and shapes – alleviating hunger, battling disease, helping the poor and the needy and rushing to the aid of other human beings all around the world in times of natural disasters or in light of terrorist attacks.

The same goes for Israel's attitude toward the Palestinian people. Israel extends ongoing medical assistance to sick Palestinians from the Gaza Strip who wishes to be treated in Israeli hospitals. Israel supplies the Palestinians school materials, gas for domestic use, supplies, medicine, etc., on a regular basis. Despite never-ending attacks by Hamas, Israel maintains an ongoing humanitarian corridor for the transfer of perishable and staple food items to Gaza. The UN relief agencies and the Red Cross are free to use this conduit for the benefit of the Palestinian people.

Israel is a democratic country, extending rights and freedoms to all its citizens; so calling it an apartheid nation is mean and unjust. Israel does not occupy the Gaza Strip or the territories governed by the Palestinian Authority in Judea and Samaria, so accusing it of implementing an Apartheid policy in these territories is false and deceiving.

So, don't leave out this important information when coming to form an opinion about us Israelis.

About Us Israelis - The Region's Thugs

One thing us Israelis are very used to is being labeled, "the region's thugs". 

Whatever the reasons for the turmoil in our part of the world, we usually find ourselves on the defensive. We are always the aggressors, always the one's at fault – always the ones to be blamed.

The examples are many. The three examples which best elucidate this tendency are the 1967 Six-Day War, the 1982 Peace-for-Galilee Lebanon War, and the 1998 Cast-Lead operation in Gaza.

In 1967, Israel launched a pre-emptive attack against Egypt, after Egyptian President Nasser initiated a naval blockade by closing the Straits of Tiran into the Red Sea, kicked out UN peace-keeping troops from the Sinai Peninsula, moved his armed forces toward Israel and launched a violent rhetoric attack.

In 1982, Israel launched operation Peace for Galilee, in retaliation for the assassination attempt on the life of our ambassador to The UK, Shlomo Argov; afterwards, the PLO, which had by then occupied de-facto the southern part of Lebanon, sent terrorists from its border with Israel on a mission to kill innocent Israelis and followed this with a continuous missiles barrage against Israel's northern cities.

In 2008, after being hit by hundreds of missiles against southern Israeli towns, fired by Palestinian terrorist organizations, such as Hamas and the Islamic Jihad with no prior provocation, Israel launched operation Cast Lead, in order to put an end to the ongoing assault on the lives of us Israeli civilians.

In all cases, we found ourselves defending our right to defend ourselves. In all cases, we found ourselves being blamed for the situation. In all cases, voices were heard, labeling us "the region's thugs".

Well, I think this time I'll use one of Bob Dylan's songs to make our case. Yes, Dylan is Jewish. Yes, he's a Zionist. And, yes, he is a great supporter of the State of Israel. He is also one of the greatest song-writers of all times, who has often written about immoral behavior and human injustice, regardless of race, color, nationality or religion. In 1983, fed up with the way Israel was being covered by the international media, Dylan released the epic song, "The Neighborhood Bully". I think it would be best if I let the song speak for itself. 

Bob Dylan

It goes like this:  

Well, the neighborhood bully, he’s just one man
His enemies say he’s on their land
They got him outnumbered about a million to one
He got no place to escape to, no place to run
He’s the neighborhood bully

The neighborhood bully just lives to survive
He’s criticized and condemned for being alive
He’s not supposed to fight back, he’s supposed to have thick skin
He’s supposed to lay down and die when his door is kicked in
He’s the neighborhood bully

The neighborhood bully's been driven out of every land
He’s wandered the earth an exiled man
Seen his family scattered, his people hounded and torn
He’s always on trial for just being born
He’s the neighborhood bully

Well, he knocked out a lynch mob, he was criticized
Old women condemned him, said he should apologize
Then he destroyed a bomb factory, nobody was glad
The bombs were meant for him. He was supposed to feel bad
He’s the neighborhood bully

Well, the chances are against it and the odds are slim
That he’ll live by the rules that the world makes for him
’Cause there’s a noose at his neck and a gun at his back
And a license to kill him is given out to every maniac
He’s the neighborhood bully

He got no allies to really speak of
What he gets he must pay for, he don’t get it out of love
He buys obsolete weapons and he won’t be denied
But no one sends flesh and blood to fight by his side
He’s the neighborhood bully

Well, he’s surrounded by pacifists who all want peace
They pray for it nightly that the bloodshed must cease
Now, they wouldn’t hurt a fly. To hurt one they would weep
They lay and they wait for this bully to fall asleep
He’s the neighborhood bully

Every empire that’s enslaved him is gone
Egypt and Rome, even the great Babylon
He’s made a garden of paradise in the desert sand
In bed with nobody, under no one’s command
He’s the neighborhood bully

Now his holiest books have been trampled upon
No contract he signed was worth what it was written on
He took the crumbs of the world and he turned it into wealth
Took sickness and disease and he turned it into health
He’s the neighborhood bully

What’s anybody indebted to him for?
Nothin’, they say. He just likes to cause war
Pride and prejudice and superstition indeed
They wait for this bully like a dog waits to feed
He’s the neighborhood bully

What has he done to wear so many scars?
Does he change the course of rivers?

Does he pollute the moon and stars?
Neighborhood bully, standing on the hill
Running out the clock, time standing still
Neighborhood bully

For a song written three decades ago, it sure sounds contemporary, doesn't it?

Now, please consider this when forming your opinion about us Israelis. 

About Us Israelis - The Unifying Element of Judaism

In a previous blog entry titled The Burden of History, I tried to explain how Israelis of the Jewish faith are born into complex circumstances, carrying on their shoulders from day one, not only the weight of their people's long history, but also that of their embattled homeland's. This complicated reality is also one of the most important and overwhelming elements in our identity. It glues us Israelis together, despite the so-many differences dividing us on other fronts – mainly on the political, cultural and religious ones. This glue is called Judaism.

I don't want to tire you with huge questions, like: what is Judaism? Who is a Jew? Or, what it means to be a Jew? I am not an expert on the matter, and it won't serve my blog's purpose to help you understand us Israelis any better. My intention is to try and explain in a short article how Judaism works to connect us Israelis together, no matter what the internal or external circumstances are.

Judaism for Jews all over the world, but especially for us Israelis, is not simply a word which describes a chosen religious path. Judaism has to do, first and foremost, with our identity. Being a Jew means being a member of a people, distinct from other peoples ethnically, religiously, culturally and historically. As such, distinctions amongst us Israelis of the Jewish faith, like the place of origin and its distinctive culture and traditions, have a lesser impact than they might have elsewhere. In this respect, Judaism allows us to share a common infrastructure of beliefs and values that we consider superior to anything else.

Judaism also symbolizes our common fate. This element in our Jewish identity is so powerful that it influences the way we catch and interpret national and international reality. Israel was created, among others, to safeguard our fate as a people – the Jewish people. Jews were mistreated and persecuted throughout history, not because of their political views or for being unfaithful to their respective homelands. They were mistreated for being Jewish. Remembering history and learning from it has left us with the firm conviction that being stateless and weak is something we cannot afford – if we wish to survive as a people.

The Western Wall - One of Judaism Holliest Places

(Photo Courtesy of Israel Ministry of Tourism)

In his monumental book, The Clash of Civilization, Samuel Huntington claims that a civilization, economically rich and strong as it might be, would still be in great danger if immigration into it would not meet two conditions, one of them being the assimilation and integration of the immigrants into the host society, without changing its identity or succumbing to its distinct cultural pressures for change (the second one is less relevant to our case, dealing with the utilization of the most skilled of immigrants for the benefit of the hosting civilization). He goes further to claim that a civilization cannot survive if, inside of it, other distinct civilizations struggle for dominance. 

How is this relevant to our case?

Judaism is the "super-glue" that keeps us Israelis of the Jewish faith together, giving us the capacity to sustain a country or a civilization – as Huntington might put it – despite being so culturally diverse. For the last two decades, Israeli governments have been encouraging cultural diversity and teaching inter-cultural tolerance. Israel is an immigrant society by definition, and we feel committed to absorb Jews from everywhere, anytime. The result is a very colorful and multi-facetted society, where Jews from Ethiopia, Russia, France, Morocco, Iran and the United States live together in the same apartment building, while their children attend the same classes in the neighborhood's school. I won't lie to you, it is not always silky smooth and we do have our share of problems, but we do our best to fix things as we move along.

Where in other societies, scholars, like Huntington, see societies with diverse cultural identities as a source of social disintegration and political instability; we see it as a beautiful characteristic of our society and are confident in our ability to sustain our unique civilization nonetheless. Our confidence derives from relying on something that has never failed us – our common super-infrastructure in the form and shape of our Jewish identity and values. In this respect, the Israeli experience is proving to be distinctive, defying Huntington's otherwise very sound historical conclusions.  

Thus, for us Israelis, Israel must be a Jewish state. It should remain the country that was created to serve as the safe haven for Jews all around the world if and when the serpent head of anti-Semitism rises again. This is also why most Israelis, for the past decade, have supported the concept of a Two-State Solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict – despite the painful territorial cost in terms of the promised land of Israel it might involve. Most Israelis believe today that the One-State Solution, once a very popular idea amongst Israelis, left and right of the political wings, would result in the continuing clash for dominance of the two main civilizations sharing the land – the Jewish and the Arab.

Jews Praying In front of the Western Wall

(Photo Courtesy of Israel Ministry of Tourism)

In trying to understand us Israelis, one must take into account that we see ourselves first and foremost as Jews. Anybody out there who thinks he can get to second base with any of our future governments regarding a future political settlement without accepting the fact that Israel is and always will be a Jewish state, deems his efforts to complete failure.

So, keep this also in mind when forming your opinion about us Israelis. 

About Us Israelis – Israel's Indefensible Borders

One thing that is a constant thorn in the eye for us Israelis, being so small in numbers and territory, is our vulnerable geography. Nothing I can write would do justice to our concerns about what we consider to be indefensible borders.

Consider this: Notwithstanding missiles attacks against Israel from almost anywhere in the Middle East, it would take a jet fighter, entering Israel from the Jordan valley, only four minutes to reach the Mediterranean Sea and less than two minutes, if not intercepted in time by Israel's Air Force, to reach and bomb Jerusalem (watch the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs' excellent YOUTUBE presentation on the matter: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ytWmPqY8TE0).

When dealing with what the majority of Israelis find unacceptable, and is known as "the 1967 borders as a basis for an agreement between Israel and the Palestinians", one must understand the true meaning of such a settlement to our sense of security. We feel indefensible as it is. Imagine what giving up crucial territorial strategic depth means to our ability to safeguard Israelis all around Israel.

Security is not something we would ever compromise. Remember, we are the remains of a defenseless people led to the ovens of the Nazi death camps. We vowed – never again!  And by that we mean – never again! I'm not trying to use pathos here in order to make a case. This conviction is embedded in our national psyche, and it is what leads most Israelis in their approach to their security and to any future peace settlement. The quicker people realize that, the better the chances of a future peace settlement would become.

Abba Eben, one of Israel's iconic leaders and former Israeli Minister of Foreign Affairs, was quoted saying to Der Spiegel in 1969: "…the map will never again be the same as on June 4, 1967. For us, this is a matter of security and of principles. The June map is for us equivalent to insecurity and danger. I do not exaggerate when I say that it has for us something of a memory of Auschwitz."

Having defensible borders is something so elementary that even UN security resolution 242, which was waved in our faces and used against us so many times (and not only by our foes – mind you), states explicitly that every state in the Middle East has a "right to live in peace within secure and recognized boundaries free from threats or acts of force."

One must understand that, contrary to other countries – Germany or Japan in the aftermath of World War II, for example – Israel would never get a second chance if it was defeated in the battle field. The Israeli Defense Forces cannot miscalculate its military plans or fail to protect the only Jewish state in the world. Failure of the IDF to do that means the complete annihilation of the country and its people. This is not an exaggeration – our enemies state it out loud. In order to diminish the risk of failure in the battlefield, Israel must have defensible borders – or at least as defensible as possible.

Historically speaking, the legal bases for the establishment of the State of Israel was the League of Nations'  resolution, unanimously adopted in 1922, affirming the national home for the Jewish People in the historical area of the Land of Israel (which includes the areas of Judea, Samaria and Jerusalem). The borderline drawn in the 1949 armistice agreements between Israel and its neighbors was militaristic. It was not a permanent political border. The occupation of Judea and Samaria by the Kingdom of Jordan in 1948 was the result of an illegal invasion. In fact, the only countries ever to recognize Judea and Samaria as Jordanian territory were Britain and Pakistan. In this respect, as most Israelis grasp it, the 1967 war, which was forced on Israel by Egyptian President Nasser and by Jordanian King Hussein, just corrected a historical injustice.  

Now, don't get me wrong. I'm all for peace and I'm in good company. Polls made in Israel in recent years show beyond any doubt that the majority of Israelis are all for peace too and would be ready, under the right security provisions, to make some painful territorial concessions. All our Prime Ministers in the last decade - left, center and right of the political map - have stated that publically and explicitly. Yet, one must realize that most Israelis would never support any peace settlement that would endanger the security of their children, leaving Israel with indefensible borders.

So, add also this consideration to the growing number of others, when forming your opinion about us Israelis. 

About Us Israelis - Singling Us Out

Unfortunately, our reputation as a people, unjustly and harmfully, is targeted by our politically motivated foes. These biased and one-sided advocates of the Arab, Iranian and Palestinian political agendas are claiming false and outrageous claims against us, with no proof whatsoever on the ground. Yet, their massive numbers, their growing presence in university campuses around the world, their oil-industry-generated money, their conniving ways of dealing with the international media, their mischievous tactics of spreading disinformation, their automatic majority in international organizations and their growing political strength (due to their growing numbers in and around the countries of the world), leaves us Israelis unable to match their overwhelming influence on international public opinion.

So, to our great misfortune, the false and biased labels stick.

The Coast of Tel Aviv As Captured From Old Jaffa

(Photo Courtesy of Israel Ministry of Tourism)

I never blame ordinary citizens of the world for criticizing us. I don't even blame them when their criticism becomes sheer hatred. In some countries around the world it is simply a matter of available - or unavailable - information. In others – indoctrination. People are intelligent. They think for themselves and construct their own worldview. They do it in light of the information presented to them. When they hear, day in and day out, from their own respected news media corporations, that Israelis are vicious, ruthless occupiers, that they are war mongers who support a Nazi-like or an apartheid regime, and receive images to support these claims, they form their opinion on the matter accordingly. 
The only problem here is balance – or the lack of it.

Living abroad, receiving all their information about the events unfolding in Israel on a daily basis, Israelis finds themselves shocked and offended by local or by international media coverage of these same events. It usually boosts the narrative of the "underdog" and adds conveniently collected images to fit that narrative. Rarely do you get to see and hear the other side's story. If it happens, it would never match the emphasis the underdog's narrative is getting or the intensity of its arguments.

Humans are compassionate. Thank God for that. Their instinct-based inclination would usually be to support the underdog in a story – any story. We all identify with the underdog characters in a movie we see or in a book we read. The only trouble is that the underdog is not necessarily always right, or just or humane. When the Palestinians launch a rocket attack or send suicide bombers to kill Israeli civilians, targeting intentionally helpless innocent people - woman and children included - they are not right or just or humane. Nothing can justify such inhumane atrocities. They have a mission to innihilate the Jewish state and kill the Jews, as the Hamas charter proudly states. 
Covering the Israeli response to the usually unprovoked terrorist actions against us launched by the "underdog" without showing the whole picture, without telling the full story, has unfortunately become common in recent years. It provides a great source of images for our foes to use against us cynically.   

Being such a small people used to be isolated and sigled out in international forums, used to the one-sided coverage by the international news media (which sometimes act out of fear of the oil-rich Arab wrath), Israelis feel helpless, powerless and vulnerable. This does not mean we are sitting idly-by. We do have excellent diplomats working in our embassies and consulates around the world. But these skilled professionals, who fight to safeguard our people's reputation and honor, are a drop in the ocean considering the overwhelming capacity of Arab, Iranian and Palestinian disinformation machines.

The Sea of Galilee

The result is the isolation of a people based on lies and misconceptions. Worse, this false and vicious filth that is thrown at our face on a regular basis is done with no comparison to other countries.  "…those who single out Israel for unique criticism not directed against countries with far worse human rights records," wrote Prof. Alan Dershovitz in the introduction to his remarkable book The case for Israel, "are themselves guilty of international bigotry."

For us Israelis, singling us out time and again is unacceptable. It creates a wall of distrust between us and most of the international political community (not the peoples – mind you). We feel mistreated and we feel isolated. This comes on top of other considerations I outlined in previous articles in this blog and will outline in future ones. Feeling this way – can you blame us for being suspicious about the different political initiatives concerning our region that are coming frequently our way? Can you blame us for having our shields always wide open?

"Criticizing Israel is not anti-Semitic, and saying so is vile," wrote New York Times' Columnist Thomas L. Friedman a few years ago. "Singling out Israel for opprobrium and international sanction – out of all proportion to any other party in the Middle East – is anti-Semitic, and not saying so is dishonest." (New York Times, October 16, 2002).

I guess in our cynical world, it is not enough for a country to be the only liberal-democracy in a region packed with corrupt and despotic regimes, to share universal values with the most advanced peoples of the world, to have one of the most respected judicial systems in the world, to produce Nobel Prize winners in numbers relatively unmatched, to contribute to humanity in many fields such as medicine, hi-technology, mathematics, chemistry, physics, agriculture, etc., to assist nations in dire straits time and again (the last ones were Haiti and Japan), to prove the peace-loving nature of its people by keeping a sustainable peace with two of its once fiercest enemies, to secede the land of its forefathers to the Palestinians twice in the past in hope of marching toward peace (and getting terror in return) and to extend its hand in peace to its enemies time and again.

So, if the truth matters to you, remember this before constructing your worldview about us Israelis. 

About Us Israelis - The Promised Land of Israel

In our journey thus far we have highlighted some core issues in the different stations along the path leading to understanding what goes on inside the hearts and minds of Israelis of the Jewish faith. It is time to bring into our discussion the historical narrative of what usually ignites fierce political and international dispute – the rights over the Land of Israel.

Although I have no intention of getting into the sphere of political arguments, it is almost impossible to understand us Israelis without understanding our deep-rooted spiritual, emotional, physical and religious connection to what we consider not only the land of our forefathers, but also the land promised to us – the Jewish people – by God himself.

Jews were living in the land of Israel 1000 years before the Roman Empire crushed the Jewish rebellion, demolished the second Temple and expelled hundreds of thousands of Jews from their holy, promised, land. That was about 2000 years ago. In order to wipe out the memory of the kingdom of David forever, the Romans called the land of Judaea "Palestina", thereby promoting the biblical arch-enemies of the Jewish people – the "Philistines" (not the same people as today's Palestinians). Since then, the land of Israel was considered Palestine.

From that era until the twentieth century, no national entity, ancient, historical or modern, was established in the land of Israel, and no ruler of the different empires chose Jerusalem as his empire's capital. The land was conquered time and again by different peoples, but they did not stay long enough to matter. Yet, one ancient people, even if persecuted continuously, stuck to the land of its forefathers and were always there to populate it – the Jewish people. Throughout time, the number of Jews in the land of Israel changed according to historical circumstance. It diminished when the rulers of the land prosecuted them and increased when times improved.

At its peak, the Ottoman Empire ruled over vast territories in the Middle East, in the north of Africa and in Eastern Europe. The land of Israel was divided into numerous areas and was considered a part of the Ottoman district of Syria. During the 17^th and 18^th centuries, the area witnessed favorable financial conditions, but during the decades preceding the Ottoman Empire’s demise, the area's economic situation deteriorated, the people of the region became poor and the land desolate.

After the First World War, the Middle East was divided between the winning allied nations of France and Britain, acting under the umbrella of the League of Nations. Most of the countries in today’s Middle East were created artificially by the occupying allies, including countries like Iraq and Syria.

There was never a national or a political entity, Arab of otherwise, claiming the right to the land of Israel - until the 20^th century. The land of Israel, including the Gaza Strip, West and East Banks of the Jordan River, were never before 1948 under any rule of a sovereign modern nation-state. Israel's war of independence saw the Gaza strip occupied by Egypt and the West Bank taken forcefully by King Abdulla of Jordan. Both were freed by Israel during the Six Days War of 1967.

Aspiring always for peace and wishing to truly and wholeheartedly solve the Palestinian problem, Israel signed the Oslo accord in 1993 and moved out from most of Gaza and from most of the Palestinian towns and villages in the West Bank. Israel went even further, about a decade later, to dissolve all Jewish settlements in the Gaza Strip, uprooting Jews from their homes. All of these came at a heavy price to national unity and to human lives (soon after, Hamas took control of Gaza and has been shelling the southern part of Israel ever since).

But for us Israelis, the significance of the Land of Israel goes beyond any territorial dispute. Centuries of atrocities against the Jewish people, culminating in the mass murder of our people in the German Death Camps during World War II, were all a direct result of being stateless. The fact that the land of Israel was promised to the Jewish People by God, the fact that our only kingdom was established on its soil 3000 years ago, the fact that it is our religious place under the sun and the fact the Jews have been living in the Land of Israel continuously for 3000 years, way before anyone had heard of a Palestinian People, was enough for Zionist philosophers and activists to form a national movement that eventually brought about the establishment of the State of Israel in the land of their fathers.

Since the 1880s Zionist Jews immigrated to the Promised Land and assisted in strengthening the already existing Jewish presence and institutions, forming some new ones. Israel was established in 1948 and has since absorbed millions of displaced Jews from all over the world.  

Putting aside the political dispute over the Land of Israel, which is widespread throughout cyber space, one must realize that inside of us Israelis beats a heart filled with love for the land and its history. It was promised to us and we were here first. In fact, we never left and those immigrating to the land of Israel simply returned after being deported forcefully during millennia of atrocities against them and their ancestors.

This is how we feel. This is what we believe to be true. This is something Israelis could never compromise and are forced to pay for with the precious blood of their children to keep safe. Whoever wants to really solve the dispute must bear this in mind; otherwise his efforts are doomed to failure.

So, add this to the mountain of considerations before constructing your worldview about us Israelis.

About Us Israelis - The Concept of Peace

The accusation that Israelis are war mongers is usually made either by our foes or by peace-loving pacifists around the world who are usually fed by the former with vicious disinformation. The problem with these sometimes moral and very intelligent people is that they take that information at face value and don't bother to check the facts. If they did, they would find some very disturbing truths about their convictions.

They would find an ancient people living in a small and fragile country which is constantly busy defending its mere existence, always reacting to provocations and never initiating them.

They would find out that in 1948, a day-old Israeli state had to defend itself against a combination of five Arab countries, attacking it on the eve of its independence.

They would find out that in 1956, Israel join the English-French Musketeer Operation in the Sinai Peninsula in order to put an end, once and for all, to the Egyptian sponsored "Fadayeen" infiltrations to Israel from the Gaza strip, which claimed the lives of dozens of innocent Israeli civilians. It also came in response to Nasser's never-ending threats to annihilate the Zionist state.

They would find that the preemptive operation by Israel in June 1967 was initiated only after Nasser kicked UN truce-keeping forces out of the Sinai Peninsula, closed all water routes leading from and to Israel, and moved 100,000 of his troops toward the Israeli border, boosting war rhetoric to new levels.

They would find a coordinated attack during October 1973 against Israel by the armies of Egypt and Syria with reinforcements of Iraqi and Jordanian troops, with no provocation whatsoever.

They would find Israel's 1982 "Peace for Galilee" operation, which escalated to a full-scale war in Lebanon, a result of continues shelling of the north of Israel and horrific terrorist actions against innocent Israeli civilians carried out by the PLO, which occupied and ruled south of Lebanon.

They would find Israel absorbing, without any provocation or retaliation, dozens of Iraqi missiles during the 1991 Gulf war.

They would find Israel's reaction in 2006 to the border infiltration by the Hezbollah terrorist organization, which shelled the northern part of Israel, attacked and killed Israeli soldiers during a patrol mission on Israelis soil, and kidnapped two soldiers who later died of their lethal wounds. That situation quickly escalated to the second Lebanon war.

They would also find that Israel always reacted to Palestinian Terror, to both Intifadas and to Hamas’ continues shelling of the south of Israel in what is known as the Gaza War of 2008.

To all those truly moral people who are interested in the truth, I say that we love our children no less than you love yours. The only difference is that we have to live with the devastating acknowledgement that our children might lose their lives defending us on Israel's different fronts. 
Are there any parents, anywhere on the face of the earth, who would want that?

The Children of Israel

(Photo Courtesy of Israel's Ministry of Tourism)

Peace for us is not some idea to be so easily thrown to the air as part of a popular package of some universal values for those looking for a cause to follow: it is our life-long dream.

Peace is most appreciated by people who have experienced the devastation of war. Israelis has seen enough of that. We desire peace wholeheartedly, we long for it, we sing about it – we dream about it. And guess what: we have even proved it, twice actually. Israel maintains a stable and sustainable state of peace with both Egypt and Jordan, once fierce enemies.

Israelis all over sings "I was born for peace"

We greet each other using the word "Shalom", which, in Hebrew, means peace. We do that because it is our greatest aspiration and our utmost desire. We do that because, in our unusual reality, Shalom is the best thing you can ever wish for your fellow Israeli – for your fellow human being.

So, whenever you hear someone label us as war mongrels, don't forget to bear all the above mentioned in mind before forming your conclusions about us Israelis. 

About Us Israelis - The Shrinking of the Jewish People

The diminishing number of the Jewish People is a dark cloud always looming over our heads.

The most troubling example is the low birthrate (just above 1 child per family) and the high intermarriage rate (more than 50%) that have caused the largest Jewish community outside Israel – that of the United States – to shrink by approximately 1 million during the last generation. Since the 1980s, US American Jewry shrunk from about 6 million strong to barely 5.

For more than a decade, Jewish population growth worldwide has been steady at around 0.3% percent, compared to a worldwide population growth of more than 1%. This is due largely to the compensation in birthrate of Jews inside Israel (an average of 3 children per family). Birthrates among the Jews of the Diaspora are in negative percentages, and they keep on dropping. In short, our demography as a people is in dire straits: we bring fewer children into the world and marry more and more outside the boundaries of our faith.

For us Jews, this means deep trouble, but for us Israelis, looking at the distant future, this could mean calamity. If we put the fate of the Jewish people aside, for a moment, and consider the fate of Israel as the only Jewish country in the world, we quickly realize that the shrinking of the Jewish People living in the Diaspora would leave Israel's fate in great danger.  

Facing an automatic majority, working against us in almost any international organization or forum, regardless of the issue on the agenda (21 Arab countries plus another 26 countries with Muslim majorities) Israelis feel alone and singled out in a complicated and uneven international environment. In fact, if it weren't for the decency and kindness of the American people and the might of the great United States of America, who knows what would have become of us by now.

We need our brothers and sisters in the Diaspora to help us explain our positions and actions to their own governments, to help us expose the Israeli narrative to them, to force them to look beyond their economic interests, which are usually deeply rooted in Arab oil or in the huge markets of the Muslim world. The shrinking of the Jewish People of the Diaspora could mean leaving the task of influencing the international community exclusively in the hands of our foes.   

Jewish and Israeli leaders, acknowledging this strategic problem, conceived two programs intended to strengthen the connection between young Jews and their heritage. The first of those programs is "Taglit - Birthright Israel" ("Taglit" in Hebrew means discovery), in which young Jews arrive for a 10-day tour of Israel. The second is "Masa" (voyage in Hebrew) in which thousands of young Jews spend a semester or a whole school year in Israel, helping them build a long-lasting relationship with Israel and Israelis. The goal of both programs is to try and keep these young men and women of the Jewish faith linked to our people.

Successful and innovative as they are, those programs are a drop in the ocean. The Jewish People is shrinking at a troubling rate and, although we will endlessly keep on trying, it seems there is nothing we can do to stop this disturbing inclination.

So, please consider this before forming your opinion about us Israelis. 

About Us Israelis - Morality and Innocent Civilians

Israelis are used to their immoral foes accusing them for acting immorally. These foes, unfamiliar with universal terms like "Civil Liberties" or "Human Rights", go even further to claim that the Israeli defense forces are targeting innocent civilians. When you repeat such outrageous accusation too many times, even good and honest people start to believe it.

The latest such claim was done by no less than the United Nations Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict. That initiative was chaired by Justice Richard Goldstone, acting on behalf of the UN Human Rights Council. The outcome of that initiative was a report based only on the testimonies of the Palestinians side of the equation. Israel would not cooperate. Appointing a judge known mainly for investigating war crimes by the UN Human Rights Committee which is notorious for its biased attitude towards Israel was a clear enough indication as for the outcome of the initiative. 

The claim that Israel has targeted intentionally innocent Palestinian civilians was later refuted and retracted by Justice Goldstone himself in an article he published in the Washington Post. But the damage to Israelis and to Israel's international standing and reputation was devastating. "But Goldstone is beside the point — a symptom of something larger," wrote a few days later Washington Post's columnist Richard Cohen. "That his report was accepted in much of the world testified to how much Israel’s moral standing has plummeted. (It has also led countless Israelis and others to conclude that they are damned when they do the wrong thing and equally damned when they do the right thing.) Much of the world believed Israel would purposely kill civilians." (Richard Cohen, WP, April 4, 2011).

While Palestinians terror is specifically aimed at killing civilians, us, Israelis, would never seek an eye for an eye. It has to do with morality. We carry inside of each and every one of us tons of it and it does not really matter what the world think of us or how many Goldstone's Reports would be thrown at our face – this would never change! 

Claiming that the IDF's soldiers are educated and trained to keep high moral standards at all times, and even proved it time and again throughout Israel's history, might sound biased and unauthentic coming from an Israeli. So, I decided to present you with excerpts from my second novel, Fate's Perfect Justice, written long before the Goldstone's Report saw the light of day. It describes a true chain of events leading an Israeli officer to make a moral decision. I came across this testimony while conducting the research for the book: 

“I was still a young officer stationed inside the buffer zone in south Lebanon,” he began as I parted from his embrace and stared at him attentively, “when shots were fired at us from one of the buildings. It hit my radio operator. We took cover and returned fire while my paramedic tried to save his life. He couldn’t.” I held my hand over my mouth in horror. “The bullet had hit his neck and he was dead within minutes.”

A lump suddenly formed in my throat which months ago would have choked me completely.

He took a deep breath. “Any other army would have taken the building down in seconds without even blinking – the Americans, the Brits, certainly anyone less… moral,” he nearly spat out the word. “You know international law better than I do. It allows a proportional degree of civilian casualties in combat zones. But this does not apply to the IDF. Our orders are strict and they oblige us to make sure there are no innocent civilians around.” He placed his hands on mine and fondled them looking at me with pain in his eyes. “I held fire and ordered my subordinates to check if there were civilians in the building. Someone thought he heard a child crying. We urged the civilians in Arabic to get out promising we won’t shoot if they did,” he continued. “Meanwhile we located the fire source. It came from a room on the second floor. I had a choice to fire a missile into the window and destroy whatever was shooting at us or try to surround the place and wait for their surrender. My soldiers wanted revenge for the loss of Rami. They were all for firing the missile and storming the place. I decided not to and called out in Arabic for the child to come out. He didn’t. By now we could see someone small standing by a window. Eventually, we outflanked the building and had a storm of bullets raining on us. One of my sergeants was hit in the head. He died instantly,” he said with a cracked voice. My mouth had petrified into the shape of a huge “O” comprehending a mere fraction of what this sensitive soul of a man was implying and what he had been through during his lifetime. He looked at me helplessly, his hands shivering. “Even then I didn’t agree to take the house down. There was an innocent child inside,” he continued with a harsh facial expression. “Suddenly we saw the child, a boy of about eight or nine, fleeing the place. Only then did I give the order to destroy the house. An Israeli air force fighter dropped a bomb on it. Among the rubble we found the bodies of five heavily armed terrorists. They had been using the child as one of those human shields you hear about but never believe.” (Ofer Mazar, Fate's Perfect Justice, Strategic Books Group, New York, NY, 2011, pp. 345-346).

So, please keep this in mind before forming an opinion about us Israelis.