The miracle that is the modern state of Israel

Michael Freund..
Pundicity/Jewish Press..
First Published 17 April '13..

The state of Israel this week turned 67 (65), defying history and the odds to celebrate its continued existence in a very dangerous part of the world.

Countless flags fluttered from cars and homes throughout the country, and numerous families took advantage of the weather to barbeque meat and enjoy a well-earned day of celebration.

Frankly, there is plenty to rejoice about. The Jewish population of Israel has reached 6 million+, and the country has become a leading force in fields such as computer science and medical technologies. The Land of Israel is steadily being built, and Israel's economy has proven remarkably resilient.

And yet, despite all this, one cannot help but feel a gnawing sense of concern about the future. Indeed, all around us it seems that the country is facing a mounting series of perilous threats.

To the north, the terrorist Hizbullah movement in Lebanon has been rebuilding its arsenal, with tens of thousands of rockets aimed at the Jewish state. And then there is Syria, where many of the opposition fighters trying to topple the brutal regime of Bashar al-Assad have themselves sworn allegiance to Al Qaeda. To the south is Gaza, whose Hamas leadership remains intent on Israel's demise, while to our east is Iran, whose president speaks openly of finishing off what Hitler began.

So which is it, then, on Israel's 67th Independence Day? Doom or delight, glee or gloom? Or perhaps some mixture of the two? The very question, I think, is remarkable, if only because it betrays an utter lack of appreciation for historical context and perspective.

After all, in the life of an individual, a span of sixty-seven years may represent the bulk of his productive days on this earth. But for a nation, it is an infinitesimal period, a mere episode or interlude in the great sweep of history.

Nonetheless, look at what we the Jewish people have managed to achieve here since 1948.

Israel - With everything nonetheless managing to hit the right note.

Liat Collins..
Columnist/JPost..
18 April '13..

There was a point on the country’s 65th Independence Day when I thought everybody – Israel’s friends and Israel’s foes alike – must be smiling, if not laughing out loud. Actually, there were two such moments.

The first came during the traditional Yom Ha’atzmaut events at the President’s Residence in Jerusalem on April 16 when Shimon Peres hosted 120 outstanding soldiers and officers.

Apart from anything else, each of these valued members of the IDF deserves a medal for keeping a straight face as the country’s leaders participated in a very public singalong, under the title “Singing Independence with the President” – an only-in-Israel experience if ever there was one.

The sound of Peres, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, Defense Minister Moshe “Bogie” Ya’alon, and IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Benny Gantz struggling in turn to perform their favorite Hebrew songs, even with professional singers to help them along, was not pleasant. None of them should give up their day jobs (or more accurately their 24/7 jobs).

The sight and sound of a far-from-harmonious Netanyahu tempted me to hit the “off” button on my TV, where the performance was being broadcast live on Channel 1.

Who knows what button the Iranian regime was itching to touch? If this was not music to my ears it must be far worse for our enemies – a reminder that no matter what they do, we’re still here and singing. A peculiar people indeed.

The second point in the Independence Day celebrations when I smiled and thought that the joke’s on those who hate us was during the broadcast of a special Yom Ha’atzmaut broadcast of the satire show Eretz Nehederet (“A Wonderful Country”) in which Netanyahu starred opposite himself – or at least his impersonator Mariano Idelman – and almost had host Eyal Kitzis licked with jokes about the premier’s now well-known weakness for pistachio-flavored ice cream.

The show’s success is such that US President Barack Obama acknowledged it during his keynote address in Jerusalem last month during his official visit, quipping: “I want to clear something up just so you know – any drama between me and my friend Bibi over the years was just a plot to create material for Eretz Nehederet.”

Although there was clearly little ad-libbing in either Obama’s speech or Netanyahu’s television appearance, “his friend Bibi” cracked enough funny jokes to keep Channel 2’s audience (and Keshet station shareholders) happy. At the same time, it probably set on edge the teeth of Netanyahu’s enemies (both political opponents at home and real enemies abroad). For them, this must have been worse than his singing; especially in places where political satire is banned.

Unfortunately, I couldn’t quite forget a study I read years ago that concluded that the worse the country’s situation is, the better its satire programs.

For all is not well – not here, and not in the world.

The Happy Little Country - Israel

Caroline Glick..
carolineglick.com..
19 April '13..

As Independence Day celebrations were winding down Tuesday night, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu made a guest appearance on Channel 2's left-wing satire show Eretz Nehederet. One of the final questions that the show's host Eyal Kitzis asked the premier was how he would like to be remembered after he leaves office.

Netanyahu thought a moment and said, "I'd like to be remembered as the leader who preserved Israel's security."

On the face of it, Netanyahu's stated aspiration might seem dull. In a year he'll be the longest-serving prime minister in the state's history, and all he wants is to preserve our national security? Why is he aiming so low? And yet, the studio audience reacted to Netanyahu's modest goal with a thunderclap of applause.

After pausing to gather his thoughts, a clearly befuddled Kitzis mumbled something along the lines of, "Well, if you manage to make peace as well, we wouldn't object."

The audience was silent.

The disparity between the audience's exultation and Kitzis's shocked disappointment at Netanyahu's answer exposed - yet again - the yawning gap between the mainstream Israeli view of the world, and that shared by members of our elite class.

The Israeli public gave our elites the opportunity to try out their peace fantasies in the 1990s. We gave their peace a chance and got repaid with massive terror and international isolation.

We are not interested in repeating the experience.

We will be nice to leftists, if they are polite. We might even watch their shows, if there's nothing else on or they are mildly entertaining. But we won't listen to them anymore.

This is why US President Barack Obama's visit last month had no impact on public opinion or government policy.

The miracle that is the modern state of Israel

Michael Freund..
Pundicity/Jewish Press..
17 April '13..

The state of Israel this week turned 65, defying history and the odds to celebrate its continued existence in a very dangerous part of the world.

Countless flags fluttered from cars and homes throughout the country, and numerous families took advantage of the weather to barbeque meat and enjoy a well-earned day of celebration.

Frankly, there is plenty to rejoice about. The Jewish population of Israel has reached 6 million, and the country has become a leading force in fields such as computer science and medical technologies. The Land of Israel is steadily being built, and Israel's economy has proven remarkably resilient.

And yet, despite all this, one cannot help but feel a gnawing sense of concern about the future. Indeed, all around us it seems that the country is facing a mounting series of perilous threats.

To the north, the terrorist Hizbullah movement in Lebanon has been rebuilding its arsenal, with tens of thousands of rockets aimed at the Jewish state. And then there is Syria, where many of the opposition fighters trying to topple the brutal regime of Bashar al-Assad have themselves sworn allegiance to Al Qaeda. To the south is Gaza, whose Hamas leadership remains intent on Israel's demise, while to our east is Iran, whose president speaks openly of finishing off what Hitler began.

So which is it, then, on Israel's 65th Independence Day? Doom or delight, glee or gloom? Or perhaps some mixture of the two? The very question, I think, is remarkable, if only because it betrays an utter lack of appreciation for historical context and perspective.

After all, in the life of an individual, a span of sixty-five years may represent the bulk of his productive days on this earth. But for a nation, it is an infinitesimal period, a mere episode or interlude in the great sweep of history.

Nonetheless, look at what we the Jewish people have managed to achieve here since 1948.

Yom Ha'Atzmaut - “Oh brave new world, That has such people in’t."

Chloe Valdary..
cameraoncampus.org..
16 April '13..

“Oh brave new world, That has such people in’t.”
-Miranda, From Shakespeare’s The Tempest.

Act 1, scene 1

Enter the shackled. Enter the despondent, wretched souls. Enter the man and woman, boy and girl, deemed “menace to society,” destined to roam endlessly about. Number the stars upon their lapels and the Chai’s upon the chains that grace their necks. Note the fire in their eyes and the resilience in their hearts. See the laws they transcribed from the lips of Hashem, the bulwark of civilization.

Let the backdrop be constructed, the set pieces raised onstage. Livid and malevolent minor characters fill the void, the dark world of apathy and contempt. They seek redemption, to purge themselves from their nightmares and their guilty conscience. They would fly away if they had the means. But instead, they gather scapegoats and project their hate onto the usual suspects.

These be our antagonists.

Act 1, scene 2

Enter the dreamer, the conceiver of a noble and ambitious project. Distraught over the subjugation of his people, he deems it necessary to act and to will the dream into being. There are no doubts in his mind, no second thoughts. He is sure of the task in front of him and the weight he must carry. The weight of millions alive and yet to be born. He is blessed with a burden, an obligation to freedom. He yearns for the soil, the earth that gave birth to his people.

To Get the Fuller Sense of Israel Independence Day

So when we toast Israel's 65th birthday, it behooves Israel and all its supporters to refresh memories of 1967 because today, like then, Jerusalem beckons as the touchstone of maintaining the independence of Jewish sovereignty in the Promised Land.


Leo Rennert..
American Thinker..
First posted 19 April '10..

Jews all over the world will celebrate by the Jewish calendar the 65th anniversary of Israel's independence this year on April 16. It has become traditional on such occasions to focus almost entirely on the events of May 1948, when a nascent Jewish state, authorized by a U.N. two-state partition vote the year before, faced half a dozen Arab armies intent on destroying it. In the ensuing battles, that Jewish state managed to survive and lay the foundation for a return of Jewish sovereignty in the Holy Land.

This year, however, I would argue that while reminiscing about the events of 1948, it would behoove us to focus more on 1967, when Israel again was under siege and marked for extinction by Egypt, Syria, and Jordan.

Why 1967 more than 1948? Because an exclusive focus on 1948 tends to abet a misleading impression that the events of that year permanently guaranteed Israel's independence. They did not.

Instead, Israel has had to fight for its independence without much respite for the last 65 years -- and at least three times has faced imminent threats of extinction. Such threats, while not imminent today, nevertheless continue into the present , as Iran with its surrogates (Hamas and Hezbollah) now seeks to pick up the mantle of Egyptian President Nasser.

To get a full sense of Israel's repeated and continuing challenges to confront enemies bent on extinguishing its independence, the Six-Day War of 1967 offers a perfect paradigm, if fully and properly recalled. It's all too easy and misleading, when examining 1967, to concentrate only on the totally unexpected and lightning-fast speed of Israel's victory. That's just the triumphant finale. What also needs to be recalled is what Israel actually faced in June 1967, in the days leading up to the Six-Day War.

There is no Hope for Peace

Dr. Alex Grobman
Israelnationalnews.com
04 May '10

There are many attempts to understand why the Arab/Israel conflict remains unresolved. Among the reasons advanced for this impasse are that: years of suspicion, fear, feelings of injustice and stereotyping have created a psychological barrier between Israelis and Arabs.[1] Negative perceptions have reduced incentives to accept peace proposals, prejudice the viability of these proposals and preclude feelings of empathy.[2]

On the most personal level, there are differences in Arab and Jewish life-styles. Meron Benvenisti, a former deputy mayor of Jerusalem, laments the gulf dividing Arabs and Jews even when they live together as neighbors. They patronage the same stores, exchange information on common neighborhood issues, drink coffee in the afternoon, and watch their children growing up from opposite sides of the fence.[3]

Yet they do not share common holidays, days of rest, or free time activities. Holidays are especially alienating. Benvenisti would not invite his neighbors to sit in his sukkah (booths used during the Feast of Tabernacles) lest they be offended when he recites the prayer over the wine. Similarly, when one of his neighbor’s children returned from the hajj, the annual religious pilgrimage to Mecca, his family would not be invited to celebrate to save them embarrassment for not knowing how to behave.[4]

Estrangement is even more pronounced the moment visible symbols are involved. When Benvenisti displays the flag on Israeli Independence Day, he knows his neighbors will be upset. On Yom Kippur, work ceases throughout the country. During the month of Ramadan, Arabs rise at 3: 00 a.m. A blind man in his neighborhood, who is escorted by a drummer, wakes-up the pious at 3:a.m. to prepare the meal before the fast. [5]

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A spark of Zionism

Noam Bedein
Israel Opinion/Ynet
25 April '10

April 19, 2010: It was Monday, the eve of Israel's Independence Day and the fifth day in the world's largest aviation crisis that has paralyzed Europe, following a volcanic explosion in Iceland which left the sky of 23 countries clouded in volcanic dust.

I was left stranded in Holland, but after hearing that El Al had promised to send more Israeli jets to Europe to collect stranded Israelis, I found myself traveling to Rome, halfway across the European continent by train.

After 27 hours of a nerve-racking trip, I remained doggedly determined to join the rest of the people of Israel in celebration of Israel Independence Day. I finally arrived at Terminal 5 in Rome at 23:30.

Much to my amazement, I found a nearly empty terminal, deserted of passengers, aircrafts, and airline employees. Only one ticket counter had a long line of people and that was of course El Al. Exhausted Israelis from all corners of Europe had arrived to board the jumbo plane decked with Israeli flags. El Al specifically sent the plane to gather Israeli travelers and bring them back home to celebrate Independence Day with their families. It was a sort of in gathering of the exiles sponsored and facilitated by El Al.

El Al, Israel's largest airline, privatized in 2003, serves as the national airline of Israel. It was one of the first if not the only airline that was able to adjust to a state of emergency in less than 24 hours when airports across Europe were forced to shut down.

It is amazing how every time there is a national disaster or international crisis, Israel, somehow, is always among the first countries to act and lend a hand. As such a tiny country, which since its establishment has existed under constant terror and threat, Israel is constantly in a state of preparedness as well.

Zionism still here and kicking

On my way to Rome during the weekend on the train, I heard from many other Israelis that countless airlines on which they had flown did not open emergency centers in order to instruct passengers how to act during this emergency situation.

Israeli media did not stop broadcasting the news that El Al was operating to return stranded Israelis back to Israel and consequently the airline established an emergency information center to receive calls and share information on flight location points where Israelis could verify where to catch a flight back to Israel.

El Al sent 15 additional jets to transport 20,000 Israelis stuck across Europe in places including Munich, Madrid, Barcelona and Rome. El Al also ensured that the same ticket could be used regardless of the country from which travelers were scheduled to fly from in Europe, even if the flight from that particular country had been cancelled to Israel.

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Israel and the Meaning of Independence

AviDavis
The Intermediate Zone
21 April '10

Many people are confused why the State of Israel seems to celebrate the anniversary of its establishment on a different date every year. After all, the State of Israel came into existence after a declaration by the Provisional Council of State in Palestine, led by David Ben Gurion, on May 14, 1948. But in the intervening 62 years, Israel Independence Day has been celebrated on May 14 only once.

The answer is that Israel marks its anniversaries by the Hebrew calendar, not the universal secular calendar, which means that from year to year, anniversaries, holy days and even birthdays, are often celebrated as much as a month apart from the dates to which they are attached in the Gregorian calendar.

But another fact that is often glossed over is that Israel did not actually achieve independence 62 years ago because there was nothing to claim independence from. British suzerainty of Palestine had been mandated, not by the international body, The League of Nations, but under a resolution of the San Remo Conference (1920) which was later ratified by the Treaty of Lausanne (1923). Both effectively recognized British conquest of Palestine and ended Ottoman rule. In fact, the British Mandatory Authority, established thereafter, was not a sovereign body and was not universally recognized by all nations ( the United States being the most prominent among them). Its legal legitimacy was in fact in question for 30 years. So while the creation of the state in 1948 derived its standing in international law from U.N. Resolution 181, Israel’s declaration of “independence” was no more than a dramatic means of stating its formation as a contiguous and indivisible state. But on May 14, 1948 it became independent of nothing.

Those might seem like picayune legal arguments, with no particular relevance to today’s politics or diplomacy. Yet the importance of understanding the concept and meaning of independence is vital to appreciating how Israel sees itself today.

For the question of the country’s independence has been a determining factor in Israel’s survival until now and today is a deciding factor in how it proposes to deal with the menace arising to its existence from the Persian Gulf .

History has some important things to say about the matter.

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Genocide, universalism and the degradation of memory

The attempt to de-Judaize the Holocaust is quite shocking


Seth Frantzman
Opinion/JPost
20 April '10

Every Holocaust Remembrance Day and every Independence Day the public and the world Jewish community is subjected to a soft barrage of messages. The central thread in them is that the Holocaust is not a unique event, that Jews are exploiting their genocide in some way and that the Palestinian Nakba (“tragedy” of 1948) is somehow linked or equivalent to the Holocaust.

This degradation has at its core a supposedly positive message: The Holocaust was a universal event from which all humanity must learn and the Palestinians can better understand the Jews if they think their Nakba is like the Holocaust and if the Jews also accept this. Last year one of the messengers was Bradford Pilcher who titled his article in the on-line magazine Jewcy: “The Holocaust... not just for the Jews.”

Pilcher tells us that the Jews practice “one-upsmanship” by daring to think of the Holocaust as an event that affected them and did not equally affect others such as homosexuals and Roma. He writes, “We shouldn’t be drawing up borders between Jewish suffering and others’” because otherwise the Holocaust will reflect merely our “bitterness.”

This year the message began on March 23 with the revelation that Hanna Yablonka of Ben-Gurion University and head of the Education Ministry’s advisory committee on history studies had claimed “studying details of the Shoah has no educational value” and merely constitutes a “pornography of evil.” There is no use in people learning “how Jews were murdered, the stages of the final solution.”

The next day she was one-upped by an unnamed senior figure in one of the institutes for Holocaust studies who claimed “there was too much emphasis on the Jewish aspects of the Holocaust.” Haaretz writer Anshel Pfeffer followed with an editorial entitled “The Holocaust isn’t just about the Jews.” Pfeffer asked if “Jews [can] honestly demand to reserve sole usage rights of the Holocaust for political purposes?” The Holocaust “has an immense universal meaning as well.”

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One question for Bradley Burston

Fresnozionism.org
20 April '10

Bradley Burston published a passionate attack on “The Occupation” yesterday, in honor of Israel’s Independence Day. Here’s some of it:

In a country where polls show that nearly two-thirds of the population would cede the West Bank under a future peace deal, Israelis are hostages to the nightmare scenario of permanent Occupation…

The Occupation has become the greatest single threat to the social fabric of the Jewish state. The Occupation causes division, strife, tension and alienation in Jewish families and Jewish communities the world over.

Nothing causes Israel more diplomatic damage than the Occupation, and its outrider, the siege of Gaza.

Nothing delegitimizes Israel more in the eyes of the world – and in the eyes of many Jews – than the nation’s unwillingness or inability to dismantle and end the Occupation…

What will permanent occupation mean for Israel? Not only that the nation will cease to be a democratic state, disenfranchising millions of Palestinians. In the end, permanent Occupation will see to it that Israel will cease to be a Jewish state as well. Israel will have delegitimized itself out of existence.

It will have knowingly opted for and adopted apartheid, and, in the end, either through democracy or through fire, and, thanks to the Occupation, the world community will see to it that an Arab-ruled Palestine from the Mediterranean to the Jordan River will finally come into existence.

I have a question which I hope Burston will answer. Because it is just impossible for me to understand his mindset, or that of others who say the same sort of things. Here it is:

How?

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For the Real Meaning of Israel Independence Day

Leo Rennert
American Thinker
19 April '10

Jews all over the world will celebrate by the Jewish calendar the 62nd anniversary of Israel's independence this year on April 19. It has become traditional on such occasions to focus almost entirely on the events of May 1948, when a nascent Jewish state, authorized by a U.N. two-state partition vote the year before, faced half a dozen Arab armies intent on destroying it. In the ensuing battles, that Jewish state managed to survive and lay the foundation for a return of Jewish sovereignty in the Holy Land.

This year, however, I would argue that while reminiscing about the events of 1948, it would behoove us to focus more on 1967, when Israel again was under siege and marked for extinction by Egypt, Syria, and Jordan.

Why 1967 more than 1948? Because an exclusive focus on 1948 tends to abet a misleading impression that the events of that year permanently guaranteed Israel's independence. They did not.

Instead, Israel has had to fight for its independence without much respite for the last 62 years -- and at least three times has faced imminent threats of extinction. Such threats, while not imminent today, nevertheless continue into the present , as Iran with its surrogates (Hamas and Hezbollah) now seeks to pick up the mantle of Egyptian President Nasser.

To get a full sense of Israel's repeated and continuing challenges to confront enemies bent on extinguishing its independence, the Six-Day War of 1967 offers a perfect paradigm, if fully and properly recalled. It's all too easy and misleading, when examining 1967, to concentrate only on the totally unexpected and lightning-fast speed of Israel's victory. That's just the triumphant finale. What also needs to be recalled is what Israel actually faced in June 1967, in the days leading up to the Six-Day War.

(Read full article)

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