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.