Dateline Jerusalem — What was it like to live in the 1800s in the American Wild West? Cowboys and lawmen had to wear revolvers on their belts. Women hid derringers hidden in little purses to protect themselves from murderous gun toting outlaws? Just ask Israelis trying to survive in October 2015 from shootings, stabbings, firebombs, explosions, vehicle assaults, suicide bombings, rock throwing, a myriad of unprecedented violent actions on the part of Palestinians and some Israeli Arabs. Whom do these cowardly Arab outlaws target? They try to murder women and small children, the elderly, those going to worship in synagogue, waiting for buses, shopping…those who cannot defend themselves.
Israelis are arming themselves, taking self-defense courses, even using everyday items like umbrellas to protect themselves against the war waged against them. Never Again describes the Israeli mentality against another Holocaust of Jews. Israelis are standing up to the terrorists because no one else in the world will help. The world watches and condemns Israel for defending itself. The world watches and blames Israel for the murders and maiming perpetrated against Israel’s civilian population. The world watches and says nothing when Hamas and Fatah and our alleged peace partner Abbas incite their people to kill Jews, telling them to slaughter the Jew in the name of Islam, when Abbas says he blesses every drop of blood spilled in Jerusalem, spilled for Allah.
The world watches and ignores the videos and literature showing “how to kill a Jew,” the Palestinian-controlled TV teaching hatred of Jews on children’s shows, in schools, in summer camps .
Kerry and Obama encourage this behavior when they use the excuse that settlements are the cause of the violence, when left wing Jews and political opponents of Bibi Netanyahu blame Bibi for all the woes Israel is experiencing. But where were the settlements in the 1920s when Jews were massacred by Arabs, when Israel was not even a state and Bibi was not even born?
History Lesson for Anti-Semites
Who was Prime Minister during the First Intifada, which lasted from 1987 to 1993, or during the Second Intifada,which lasted from 2000 to 2005? Not Bibi. Bibi was Prime Minister from 1996-1999 and did not get reelected until 2009. It is unfair to blame Bibi’s policies on the violence we are now experiencing. The blame should be put on Abbas, Fatah, Hamas, and those who incite their people to violence. Until the Palestinians stop inciting their children to kill, there will be conflict no matter Israel does or doesn’t do.
When the U.S. tells the world that Israel’s settlements are the cause for the Arab violence against Israeli civilians, then the Palestinians are emboldened and feel justified in their murder of innocent Israelis. This irresponsible and misconstrued blame of Israel for Arab terror legitimizes and justifies the stabbings, shootings, firebombs, rock throwing, explosions, vehicle assaults and suicide bombings. When the media gets on the bandwagon and proclaims Israel an occupier and portrays the terrorists as the victims, no wonder Israelis continue to be murdered and maimed.
A Huge Lie
Israel is not an occupier, unless one is to believe the Palestinian view that all of Israel is occupied territory, that Jews never lived here, that they all came after the Holocaust. Not only have Jews lived in the land of Israel for thousands of years, but even the town where I reside was incorporated into a city 125 years ago, in 1890, almost 60 years before Israel became a state. The State of Israel has an international legal foundation in addition to a Biblical one. The League of Nations in 1919 gave the British a mandate to create a national home for the Jewish people from land formerly occupied by the Turks. The mandate included the Golan, Judea and Samaria and the area now known as Jordan. This was reaffirmed in 1922 at the San Remo Conference. Yet, the British instead gave the Golan to the French who occupied Syria and Lebanon as a gesture of friendship, and made Transjordan an independent British protectorate. In 1948 Jordan invaded the new State of Israel and occupied Judea and Samaria, calling it the West Bank, and also occupied parts of Jerusalem including Judaism’s holiest sites. It wasn’t until the 1967 war that Israel was able to recapture and reunite the city of Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria, and recapture Gaza which had been under Egyptian control since 1948.
Occupation Fable
The lines that were drawn are armistice lines and not borders, for final borders were to be determined. Therefore there is no occupation. You cannot occupy your own land. Giving land to the Palestinians for peace in the region is ludicrous. Prime Minister Ariel Sharon gave Gaza to the Palestinians. Look what a nightmare that has become. From the very first day of Palestinian control of Gaza, Hamas and other militant groups have been launching rockets and attacks against Israel. The Palestinians will not be happy until every inch of Israeli land is Jew-free. They have continually and openly said so.
I am fed up with all the armchair critics sitting in the safety of their own homes criticizing and thinking they know better than Bibi, the Knesset, the police, the army, and the average Israeli citizen who must confront terror on a daily basis.
L’hitraot. Shachar