Israel Needs Us

…And the U.S.

Israel is the closest thing to a true ally we’ve got. They are our sister-democracy in the most tumultuous region the world has ever known. Despite the myths and outright lies, Israel’s formation was not an illegitimate one that displaced millions of innocent Palestinians. Jewish investors throughout the first half of the last century steadily purchased almost all of the land that we now recognize as the nation of Israel. (All the United Nations did in 1948, after six million Jews were murdered in Europe, was to affirm the status of Israel as a sovereign nation.)

The bond between Israel and the United States runs deeper than our leadership in the move to make them a sovereign nation sixty years ago. We’ve supported Israel since its conception as they have struggled to maintain some semblance of peace in an area of the world where they are surrounded by more than half a billion people who want them removed from their lands and wiped off the face of the earth. In return for our support we’ve received a necessary democratic ally in the Middle East. Israel provides a good trading partner, an intelligence-sharing friend, and a trusted military collaborator.

It is a nation of roughly 9 million people who speak Hebrew and English and whose Judeo-based society has been able to thrive amidst turmoil and attack for six decades. There are large, but shrinking, percentages of Arab Christians who call Israel home and even formidable populations of moderate Arab Muslims who live, work, and play as Israelis.

The problem is that each of those demographics, as well as the United States and the entire Free World, are all facing the same evil enemy: radical Islam.

Palestinian terror groups (Hamas and Fatah) are just the tips of the iceberg. This summer we learned who the Hezbollah are. Five years ago we learned who Osama and Al Qaida are. If we do not stop him in time, soon we will learn who Mahmoud Ahmadinejad truly is. This is a real and growing threat for everyone who calls earth their home. It is time to wake up and smell the Agent Orange. The radical Islamists hate even moderate Muslims who do not ascribe to their extreme interpretations of the Koran. What hope do we “infidels” have?

Israel has been attacked and terrorized from the word “go”. In the 1960’s, Ariel Sharon and the IDF warded off the Egyptians, Syrians, and Palestinians (amongst others) who invaded Israel, and drove them all back (even though greatly outnumbered by the Arabs). Eventually Israel gave back much of the land they rightly won and deserved for their troubles. For decades the Palestinians have signed peace treaties with the Israelis in return for land and prisoner releases. In return, the Jewish state received the massacre at the Munich Olympics, civilian bus bombings, and assurances from Islamic leaders that they would not have to worry much longer about terror attacks because Israel will soon be wiped off the map.

Israel knows the game, the players, and what is at stake. Their citizens have to look down the barrel of a gun almost every day and what they see are millions of rabid, radical Muslims who want them dead. We went through 9/11, which was horrific, and now think we now what terrorism is all about. Just because our forefathers were lucky enough to settle on a continent surrounded by oceans too far to cross by camel does not make us any safer.

The war on terror is not just about oil and Halliburton and a Texan President that the guy from Hardball doesn’t like. This war on terror is about you, me, and the son who isn’t even a twinkle in my eye yet. All of us want to live to see tomorrow; a tomorrow where truth is still taught in our schools, justice is executed in our courts, and businessmen and women can go to work in the Sears Tower devoid of the fear that, simply because they work in a tall building, that day might be their last.

No amount of negotiating (regardless of what John Kerry says) can reason with the kind of evil that would bombard innocent Israeli women and children with Kaytusha Rockets (supplied by Syria via Iran) one hundred times a day for an entire month, and then have the impudence to claim that they were victims of a “disproportionate” response. No treaty or peace accord will bring to the bargaining table the kind of killer whose conscience is impervious to the fact that the roadside bombs he used to kill American troops end up claiming the lives of his neighbors’ family.

We are at war, and the fate of the Free World hangs in the balance.

Israel knows this. They’ve lived it. The truth is, we have too. The difference here is that we act like we don’t remember the images of bodies burning alive as they plummeted over 80 floors to their death in lower Manhattan. No matter what the United Nations, European Union, or Jimmy Carter may think, Israel must retain our unwavering support and we must continue to take the fight to the groups who kill, and the countries that harbor (a.k.a. the Bush Doctrine).

Israel is constantly under attack and anytime they respond they are criticized more roundly than the terrorists who provoked it. Israel, as a sign of good faith, literally funds the same Palestinian government that recently elected the terror group Hamas to lead them. (The same Hamas whose charter includes the non-negotiable destruction of Israel.) Every olive branch and concession offered by Israel is accepted, exploited, and then returned with gunfire and explosions.

The feud between the Arab Muslims and Jewish Israelis has been ongoing for thousands of years. If you know remember your Sunday school lessons, the Palestinians are primarily comprised of the Philistines (think Samson and Delilah). So, our best ally and democratic comrade has been fighting the enemy we’ve only recently woken up too for more than twenty centuries and we don’t want to be bothered with a war that has lasted four years? Makes sense to me.

The blood of millions of Israelis will be on our hands if the promises of madmen (the Iranian President) to destroy Israel come to pass, and we were apathetic to the calls for help coming from the Holy Land. This is bigger than partisan politics, bigger than who wins the Super Bowl, and more important than the nocturnal habits of Miss America and what Rosie said about Donald. It is time we grew up as a nation and put the selfish mold of our parent’s generation (the Baby Boomers) on the shelf and embrace the characteristics that made the one before theirs’ so great. Sacrifice. Honor. Duty. Courage. Fortitude.

Israel’s fate is our own. Supporting our troops and allies means settling for no less than total victory, not appeasing madmen and abandoning our friends. Millions of soldiers from Israel, Britain, and the United states have physically offered their services in defense of our way of life. The least we civilians can do is not get in their way.

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2006/12/21/why_wont_carter_debate_his_book/
http://www.nysun.com/article/43958