About Us Israelis – Israel's Major Achievements at 65

Israelis have become notorious for their country's geo-political circumstances. Less is known about their great achievements and their contribution to humanity. So, let me try and give you a taste of the latter. 

The Jewish People is more than 3000 years old but its nation state is only 65 – a toddler in historic terms. Yet, never in modern history has such a young country achieved so much. We are only humans and we have and continue to disperse our share of mistakes along the timeline; but in the final account of things, it seems that we are doing rather well. In fact, Israelis rated their country in the 14^th place, out of 155 countries, in the latest annual "Happiness Report", conducted by the Earth Institute of Columbia University. We are happier than Brits, Belgians, Germans, Japanese and the French. Surprising, isn't it? Well, not for us!

What is considered by most to be natural and undisputed – the simple notion that people have a God-given right to exist – is by no mean natural and undisputed for Jews living inside and outside Israel. Israel rose out of the ashes of the holocaust with the clear, declared and unequivocal aim of creating a national home for the Jewish People – the most persecuted people in history. This is also one of the greatest Jewish achievements in history.

In this respect, Israel's greatest achievement up to date is its mere existence. This achievement is astonishing when you take into account the hostile forces that surround it, their monumental financial capabilities, the number of players in the international arena and their overwhelming numbers in population. The threat of annihilation is always hanging over our heads, not as a metaphor, but for real. It is stated publically before roaring crowds by all sorts of lunatics – some of them leaders of nations. Bearing in mind our kind of history, don't blame us for taking these threats very seriously.

The years have seen Israel growing strong, absorbing millions of immigrants, making friends with the peoples and nations of the world, and flourishing socially and economically. The Israeli Defense Forces have grown ever-stronger, successfully meeting military challenges and ever-adapting itself to the complicated realities of our region and to new technologies. Our greatest friends, the American People, with their generosity and shared values, have stood by us and helped us grow stronger and more secure. It is a fact that, while still facing many security challenges, Israelis today feel more secure than in the past.  

Another great achievement for us Israelis is the realization of the Zionist dream. Zionism is, not only the dream of returning and settling the Promised Land. It is also to see the day when most of the Jews in the world will be living in it. Well, that day is already here. In 2013, the majority of Jews, some six million strong, are living in Israel. This has taken a high birth-rate, long life-expectancy and years of absorbing new Jewish immigrants from all over the globe to achieve. Although one must admit with all honesty that this so called achievement has also to do with the unfortunate decline in numbers of American Jewry – primarily through low birth rate and assimilation.

Another monumental achievement of our 65 year development is Israel’s miraculous economic success. Defying the annoying lack of natural resources in an area packed with oil and gas mega-powers, Israel today is a proud member of the exclusive OECD club, enjoying one of the most stable economies in the world, led by industries based on cutting-edge technologies, innovation and scientific brilliance.

In the last 20 years, the Israeli market has grown by a stunning 270% while Israel's population grew by only 140%. Israel's 21% growth in the last five years is higher than in all 34 OECD countries. Its GDP per capita is approximately $US 30,000 and its unemployment rate in 2013 is lower than in the United States and in most European countries. Israel's high-tech industry is second only to the United States in the number of start-up companies, in innovation and in its contribution to the world's technological advancement. Suffice to say that if you look at the inside of a computer, cellular phone or tablet, you will find many Israeli hand-prints; and when you switch these on, you will encounter many Israeli applications, vital for these devices mere functioning.

Furthermore, the Jewish state has been ranked number 20 by The Economist in its research bearing the title "the best place to be born." The project's aim is to identify which of the countries of the world will offer their citizens in 2030 the best living conditions, health system, public safety and general prosperity. Not bad considering the world comprises 196 countries – as I write these words. We’re in the top 10 countries for life expectancy and our young population is expected to grow more than 6% by 2020. This insures economic strength and sustainable success for generations to come.  

Another remarkable achievement is Israel's educational system – on all levels. The People of the book always regarded education as its highest priority. While Israeli higher education institutions enjoy immense respect in and outside of Israel, recent years have witnessed a fierce debate among us Israelis with regards to the quality of education provided to primary and high-school pupils. The debate is ongoing and it deals with both the condition of the state-run education apparatus and its curriculum. Critical as we are of everything, Israelis have been bashing and slashing the government for what is perceived as a constant deterioration in the quality of education.

Surprisingly for many of us, studies show otherwise. In fact, they show the opposite. The Progress International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS) and the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA), which performs comparative literacy, Mathematics and Science tests, have ranked Israeli children second in the world in literacy, seventh in Mathematics and eighteenth in Sciences. So I guess our educational system is not so awful after all.

Having an efficient public health system is another huge achievement worth mentioning. An international team, consisting of OECD and external experts, studied Israel’s medical services immediately after the country became a member of the Organization. They visited the country's five largest hospitals and many community health funds clinics in Jewish development towns and in numerous Arab villages. They stated in their report that Israel has one of the best healthcare systems in the world. This achievement is unprecedented in light of the fact that the Israeli system covers each and every single Israeli citizen, regardless of age or chronic diseases.
Israel’s health system is especially praiseworthy for its early diagnosis of chronic diseases, which prevents unnecessary hospitalization – this again, according to the European experts’ report.

Another far-reaching Israeli achievement continues to be our Agriculture. Since its birth, our agriculture sector has been forced to provide our citizens with advanced solutions to agricultural challenges. Situated in one of the world’s most arid regions, Israel had to find ways to overcome the grave desert limitations. This led the country to become a pioneers in what is known today as Agri-Tech, namely, finding technological solutions to agricultural problems. Soon, Israelis gave mankind ground-breaking inventions like drip irrigation, recycling, purifying and the reuse of wastewater for agriculture purposes, the genetic engineering of fruits and vegetables durable for desert surroundings, and hot-house technology, which allows growing all kinds of crops regardless of weather conditions. Israeli farmers and researchers, together with government funding and the Israeli agriculture-related industry, have found ways to overcome most of the problems introduced by the harsh Israeli terrain – for the benefit of Israelis as well as humanity.

This brings me to another unprecedented achievement of Israelis - our contribution to humanity. In the first decade of the 21^st century, Israelis of the Jewish faith are ranked first in Nobel Prize laureates. This is an amazing figure considering the fact that Israel's population is 0.2% of the world's population. Israeli Nobel Laureates have conducted research in economics, medicine, chemistry and mathematics, adding to humanity’s understanding of our universe – of our lives.

We have many more achievements to brag about, but I think the point has been made. So when thinking about us Israelis, remember that there is much more to us than the hard-news images the international media chooses to show on your TV screens; and that behind, beside, and ahead of every attention-grabbing news item, there’s usually an equally fascinating story of humanity and the human spirit on the other side. 

The Declaration of Independence of the State of Israel

These days my beloved Israel is celebrating 65 years of existence. It's Declaration of Independence from 14 May 1948 still best represents its ideals and values. I recommend to decent people, who really wish to understand Us Israelis better, to read it. For your convenience, here is its text in English:

The Declaration of Independence of the State of Israel
May 14, 1948
In the Land of Israel the Jewish People rose. Here their spiritual, religious and political identity was shaped. Here they first attained to statehood, created cultural values of national and universal significance and gave to the world the eternal Book of Books.
After being forcibly exiled from their land, the people kept faith with it throughout their Dispersion and never ceased to pray and hope for their return to it and for the restoration in it of their political freedom.
Impelled by this historic and traditional attachment, Jews strove in every successive generation to re-establish themselves in their ancient homeland. In recent decades they returned in their masses. Pioneers, defiant returnees, and defenders, they made deserts bloom, revived the Hebrew language, built villages and towns, and created a thriving community controlling its own economy and culture, loving peace but knowing how to defend itself, bringing the blessings of progress to all the country's inhabitants, and aspiring towards independent nationhood.
In the year 5657 (1897), at the summons of the spiritual father of the Jewish State, Theodore Herzl, the First Zionist Congress convened and proclaimed the right of the Jewish people to national rebirth in its own country.
This right was recognized in the Balfour Declaration of the 2nd November, 1917, and re-affirmed in the Mandate of the League of Nations which, in particular, gave international sanction to the historic connection between the Jewish people and Eretz-Israel and to the right of the Jewish people to rebuild its National Home.
The catastrophe which recently befell the Jewish people—the massacre of millions of Jews in Europe—was another clear demonstration of the urgency of solving the problem of its homelessness by re-establishing in Eretz-Israel the Jewish State, which would open the gates of the homeland wide to every Jew and confer upon the Jewish people the status of a fully privileged member of the community of nations.
Survivors of the Nazi holocaust in Europe, as well as Jews from other parts of the world, continued to migrate to Eretz-Israel, undaunted by difficulties, restrictions and dangers, and never ceased to assert their right to a life of dignity, freedom and honest toil in their national homeland.
In the Second World War, the Jewish community of this country contributed its full share to the struggle of the freedom-and peace-loving nations against the forces of Nazi wickedness and, by the blood of its soldiers and its war effort, gained the right to be reckoned among the peoples who founded the United Nations.
On the 29th November, 1947, the United Nations General Assembly passed a resolution calling for the establishment of a Jewish State in Eretz-Israel; the General Assembly required the inhabitants of Eretz-Israel to take such steps as were necessary on their part for the implementation of that resolution. This recognition by the United Nations of the right of the Jewish people to establish their State is irrevocable.
This right is the natural right of the Jewish people to be masters of their own fate, like all other nations, in their own sovereign State.
Accordingly we, members of the People’s Council, representatives of the Jewish Community of Eretz-Israel and of the Zionist Movement, are here assembled on the day of the termination of the British Mandate over Eretz-Israel and, by virtue of our natural and historic right and on the strength of the resolution of the United Nations General Assembly, hereby declare the establishment of a Jewish state in Eretz-Israel, to be known as the State of Israel.
We declare that, with effect from the moment of the termination of the Mandate being tonight, the eve of Sabbath, the 6th Iyar, 5708 (15th May, 1948), until the establishment of the elected, regular authorities of the State in accordance with the Constitution which shall be adopted by the Elected Constituent Assembly not later than the 1st October 1948, the People’s Council shall act as a Provisional Council of State, and its executive organ, the People's Administration, shall be the Provisional Government of the Jewish State, to be called "Israel."
The State of Israel will be open for Jewish immigration and for the Ingathering of the Exiles; it will foster the development of the country for the benefit of all its inhabitants; it will be based on freedom, justice and peace as envisaged by the prophets of Israel; it will ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion, race or sex; it will guarantee freedom of religion, conscience, language, education and culture; it will safeguard the Holy Places of all religions; and it will be faithful to the principles of the Charter of the United Nations.
The State of Israel is prepared to cooperate with the agencies and representatives of the United Nations in implementing the resolution of the General Assembly of the 29th November, 1947, and will take steps to bring about the economic union of the whole of Eretz-Israel.
We appeal to the United Nations to assist the Jewish people in the building-up of its State and to receive the State of Israel into the community of nations.
We appeal—in the very midst of the onslaught launched against us now for months—to the Arab inhabitants of the State of Israel to preserve peace and participate in the upbuilding of the State on the basis of full and equal citizenship and due representation in all its provisional and permanent institutions.
We extend our hand to all neighboring states and their peoples in an offer of peace and good neighborliness, and appeal to them to establish bonds of cooperation and mutual help with the sovereign Jewish people settled in its own land. The State of Israel is prepared to do its share in a common effort for the advancement of the entire Middle East.
We appeal to the Jewish people throughout the Diaspora to rally round the Jews of Eretz-Israel in the tasks of immigration and upbuilding and to stand by them in the great struggle for the realization of the age-old dream—the redemption of Israel.
Placing our trust in the Almighty, we affix our signatures to this proclamation at this session of the provisional Council of State, on the soil of the Homeland, in the city of Tel-Aviv, on this Sabbath eve, the 5th day of Iyar, 5708 (14th May, 1948).
Signatories:
David Ben-Gurion, Daniel Auster, Mordekhai Bentov, Yitzchak Ben Zvi, Eliyahu Berligne, Fritz Bernstein, Rabbi Wolf Gold, Meir Grabovsky, Yitzchak Gruenbaum, Dr. Abraham Granovsky, Eliyahu Dobkin, Meir Wilner-Kovner, Zerach Wahrhaftig, Herzl Vardi, Rachel Cohen, Rabbi Kalman Kahana, Saadia Kobashi, Rabbi Yitzchak Meir Levin, Meir David Loewenstein, Zvi Luria, Golda Myerson, Nachum Nir, Zvi Segal, Rabbi Yehuda Leib Hacohen Fishman, David Zvi Pinkas, Aharon Zisling Moshe Kolodny, Eliezer Kaplan, Abraham Katznelson, Felix Rosenblueth, David Remez, Berl Repetur, Mordekhai Shattner, Ben Zion Sternberg, Bekhor Shitreet, Moshe Shapira, Moshe Shertok.

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 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 - No Black and White

Dressing them in uniform and exposing our innocent sons and daughters, young 18 year old high-school graduates, to one of the world's most complex conflicts, has a price beyond comprehension for both parents and children. It is a difficult thing to explain to those around the world, as they sit in the comfort of their homes and watch international news coverage from Israel. Most people have never had to experience the dread Israeli parents feel when they send their children to serve in the Israeli Defense Forces, or the physical strain and the moral dilemmas our children face on a daily basis as soldiers.

Some years ago, attending a lecture in Oslo given to Norwegian journalists by Amos Oz – one of Israel's leading authors and intellectuals – I heard him say something that left a big mark on me: "In the conflict with the people sharing the land of our fathers with us," he said, "there is no black or white, no wrong or right, no good or bad, and no villains. There are only good and innocent people on both sides, which circumstances have led to claim the right to the same piece of land. These people have the same feelings, desires, hopes and dreams that you have here among the beautiful fjords of Norway. So don’t be quick to judge them harshly."

As a young IDF soldier during the first Intifada, I, as many of my soldier friends, experienced some very complicated situations. I described some of them in one of my novels, titled Fate's Open Arms. To give you some sense, in a nut shell, of some of the dilemmas, I offer you relevant excerpts:

The first days of the first Palestinian “intifada” caught me as a young squad commander. A year later, after completing a service period of seven months in the Gaza strip and another five in several other Palestinian towns and villages in the West Bank, my innocent view of the world was not so innocent anymore.

The Palestinian animosity toward us in our everyday police work was beyond my capacity to comprehend. Here was one of the strongest and most sophisticated armies in the world standing helpless against hundreds of small children and teenagers, who threw stones, metal objects, and Molotov cocktails at its young soldiers. And this world-renown and respected army did not know how to effectively respond to it. This scenario was never fully anticipated. The IDF was not equipped or trained, for that matter, to execute police work. We were trained to win wars using tanks, battleships, and jet fighter planes. The international media documented this fact with its cameras every single day and screened it, to our embarrassment, twenty-four hours a day for the whole world to see.

The worst parts of it were the morality aspects. There we stood, fully equipped to overrun any army in the Middle East, any terrorist group, or any other enemy who endangered our civilian population; and in front of us, most of the time, small children and young teenagers were throwing stones and other objects at us. We did not want to be there. We all had brothers and sisters that age back home. It was an impossible and unfair situation for us, the young foot soldiers. Circumstances and past mistakes of our country’s leadership were affecting us, the innocent children of Israel, with the worst consequences.

It was a time of great despair for me, a young officer doing dirty jobs in the refugee camps and in the streets of the Palestinian towns and villages. Our commanders were no less at a loss. Time passed, and we grasped that our actions did not calm the situation and maybe even made it worse. Like the mythological Greek monster Hydra, who grew two heads for every one it lost, the intifada intensified regardless of our actions or reactions, and nothing we did could bring it to a halt. (Ofer Mazar, Fate's Open Arms, Eloquent Books, New York, NY, 2010, pp. 19-20)

Consider all of that, if you will, when forming your opinion about us Israelis.

About Us Isrealis - Facts Vs. Slander

Our voyage into the process of understanding Israelis, beyond the labels and stigmas, must make as its first stop at the "statistics, facts and figures" station. With these in mind, we can then stop at the other stations along the way equipped with the information needed to form adequate conclusions. 

According to the last official registry, conducted in 2010, the number of Israelis living within the boundaries of the country that covers 22,072 square kilometers (8,522 Square Miles) called Israel is 7,465,500. Out of them, 5,634,300 are Jewish, 1,513,200 are Arabs, 140,000 are Christians, 102,000 are Druze and the rest are other minorities.

What is evident from these figures is that, even before we consider internal ethnic, political, social and economic differences, Israelis are far from being a homogenous group; so, any use of generalization to describe them is futile from the start.

And yet, I'm far from being naïve. It is obvious that generalizations leading to the labeling of Israelis negatively are aimed specifically at Israelis of the Jewish faith. The connection to the darker eras of humanity's long history, when Jews were pinpointed and differentiated from other ethnic populations, is quite obvious, isn't it? But we will dive into that in future articles.

Instead, let's dig deeper into the facts. Israel is a state that, by definition, and from its creation, has constantly absorbed Jewish immigrants. It is a key principle in its essence, deriving from centuries of atrocities committed against stateless Jews, almost everywhere around the world – culminating in the Holocaust. Us Israelis, bearing on our shoulders the burden of Jewish history, see this as a crucial component in our national identity and our country's purpose. No amount of international criticism thrown our way for our immigration policy will move us an inch on the matter.

With time, this policy had brought millions of Jews into Israel from all over the globe. These immigrants came from different cultures and brought with them different traditions and customs, having only one thing in common with their fellow senior Israelis – being Jewish. The direct result was social diversity that often enough translated into diverse political affiliations.

This was clearly the case during the state election of 1977, when the Likud party won political power and took control of the country from the hands of the historic Labor party. This manifestation of political change in Israeli politics based on an ethnic vote, was the first of several since, adding complexity to an already multifaceted political scene comprised of political parties from the right, the center, the left, the Zionist-religious, the ultra-religious, the communist, the socialist, senior-citizens, Gays, Arabs etc.

In summation, using generalizations to describe Israelis is futile. Israelis are very diverse. They are comprised of a Jewish majority, but include other considerable minorities. The Jewish majority is very diverse, ethnically, socially, economically and religiously. This translates into diverse political views.

So, when you encounter some nasty generalizations about the people of Israel, let the facts, not the slander, affect your judgment about us Israelis