Despite Israel s constant state of war, it has achieved great economic success. by Rabbi Ken Spiro

Transcription

1 2008 Despite Israel s constant state of war, it has achieved great economic success. by Rabbi Ken Spiro No sooner had Israel become a state that it was plunged into war. Five of the neighboring Arab states attacked. These Arab states had previously voted against the UN partition of Palestine and now simply refused to recognize that historic and democratic vote. Little Israel, which had virtually no heavy artillery, no tanks, no airplanes, had to defend itself against Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and Iraq! That s 600,000 Jews against 45 million Arabs, while the United Nations did nothing. And yet the Jews won. It was nothing short of a miracle. But the victory was bittersweet. The Old City of Jerusalem including the Jewish Quarter and access to the Kotel, the Western (Wailing) Wall fell to 1

2 the Jordanians. The Jews were driven out of the Old City and their homes and synagogues were looted and destroyed. Even though the Jordanians signed an armistice agreement that would allow Jews access to the Western Wall and the cemetery on the Mount of Olives, they nevertheless barred Jewish access to these sites and desecrated thousands of tombs on the Mount of Olives. And the world again did not lift a finger to protest that the religious rights of a people were being violated. 1 New Borders The War of Independence had lasted 13 months. Some 6,000 Israelis died or a full 1% of the Jewish population at that time. (If that had happened in America, proportionally, 3 million people would have died. As upset as America was about the Vietnam War, it lost 52,000 soldiers in that conflict.) Mount Herzl, the national cemetery, is full of graves without names. These are graves of Holocaust survivors who made it to Israel only to be handed a gun in order to fight for the survival of the Jewish nation. No one had time to get to know their names. They went down in history only as Yossi or Hershel or Moshe. It is a tragic thing to see all these graves marked Plony (which is the Israeli version of John Doe ). The War of Independence was Israel s costliest war. The end of the war defined the borders of the new State of Israel in a radically new way. The borders were not the ones that the UN had set in their partition vote. In sum total, Israel got more land, though it lost the Old City of Jerusalem. 1 For fascinating details about Israel s War of Independence see: Slater, Leonard, The Pledge, New York, Simon & Schuster,

3 JEWISH CONTROL As per UN vote: Narrow strip along Mediterranean (Tel Aviv and Haifa) Land surrounding Sea of Galilee Negev Desert After the 1948 war: Narrow strip along Mediterranean (Tel Aviv and Haifa) Land surrounding Sea of Galilee Negev Desert North and Western Galilee (Tzfat) Entire West Bank of Jordan River (Judea and Samaria) Entire West Bank of Jordan River (Judea and Samaria) ARAB Gaza Strip Gaza Strip CONTROL North and Western Galilee (Tzfat) Jerusalem Under international control In Jordanian hands Already, at the time of the UN partition vote, Arab residents of Palestine began fleeing in anticipation of war. The first to go were the 30,000 of the wealthiest. By January 1948, the Palestine Arab Higher Committee asked other Arab countries to bar entry of refugees because the Arab exodus from Palestine was so alarming. At the time of the declaration of the State of Israel, 500,000 Arabs fled as war broke out. 2 At the same time, 820,000 Jews (out of total estimated population of more than 870,000) were forced to flee Arab lands such as Syria, Iraq, Egypt etc. Most of the property of these Jews, many of whom were wealthy people, was confiscated, never to be returned. (Of these Jews, about 580,000 settled in Israel.) 3 2 Gilbert, Martin, The Arab-Israeli Conflict: Its History in Maps, Jerusalem: Steimatzky, There is much debate about the exact number of refugees, both Jewish and Arab, and the causes of the refugee problem. The vast majority of Jewish refugees from Arab lands were either expelled from these countries or chose to leave due to rising anti-semitism caused by the Arab-Israeli conflict. The Arab refugees from Israel (both in 1948 and 1967) also left for a variety of reasons: many heeded the advice of Arab leaders to get out of the war zone and to return after Israel was destroyed; others chose to flee from the fighting; and some were also driven out by Israeli forces. Whatever the causes, two points are clear: 1) Had the Arabs not attacked Israel there would have been no cause to flee and therefore no refugees; 2) While Israel absorbed hundreds of thousands of Jewish refugees, the Arabs world deliberately refrain from doing the same with Arab refugees out of recognition that even 60 years later these refugees remain a powerful tool in the propaganda war against Israel. 3 Gilbert, Martin, The Arab-Israeli Conflict: Its History in Maps, p

4 Once the war was over, Israel s Jewish population began to rise by leaps and bounds with Jewish immigrants coming not only from Arab countries but also from other states and more recently from Ethiopia and Russia. Israel s population statistics line up as follows: 1948: 600,000 Jews 1956: 1.2 million Jews 1973: 1.8 million Jews 1999: 4.7 million Jews 2007: 5.4 million Jews 4 Note that the population of Israel has increased 900% (!) since the founding of the state. This increase has presented a special challenge, because of the huge economic burden of absorbing such a huge number of newcomers. However, while it has been a burden, the population growth has also been a big blessing. Immigration has done tremendous things for the country. The standard of living in Israel which was so low in 1948 that food was rationed has gone up tremendously in the last two decades. Was this a miracle? Clearly. But it certainly sounds like a step toward the fulfillment of the biblical prophecies: And the Lord your God shall return you from your captivity, and have compassion upon you. He shall return and gather you from among all the nations. And the Lord your God will bring you back into the land your fathers inherited. He will make you even more prosperous and numerous than your fathers. 5 For thus says God, Shout with joy for Jacob, exult at the head of the nations; proclaim your praise and say: O God, deliver your people, the remnant of Israel! Behold, I will bring them back from northern lands, and gather them from the ends of the world As of 2007, Israel is now considered the largest Jewish population in the world, surpassing that of the United States. More Jews now live in Israel than at any time since the destruction of the 1 st Temple and the Babylonian Exile 2,500 years ago. Given current demographic trends, it is now estimated that within a few decades, the majority of the Jewish people will be back in the Land of Israel. 5 Deuteronomy 30: Jeremiah 31:6-7. 4

5 But Israel has not only been able to absorb huge masses of people and it has not only survived living in a constant state of war, but it has also grown economically. And this, despite various trade boycotts instigated by Arab nations. (For example, Pepsi Cola didn t sell in Israel for years because of the boycott. For many years, Subaru was the only Japanese car manufacturer to sell here.) Keeping this in mind, what Israel has been able to do is absolutely miraculous. Not only did the desert bloom, but in a relatively short time the once barren land was producing a surplus! This surplus was then exported to other, far more fertile countries like the United States. Another fulfillment of prophecy: But you, O mountains of Israel, shall yield your produce and bear your fruit for My people Israel, for their return is near. For I will care for you; I will turn to you, and you shall be filled and sown. I will settle a large population on you, the whole House of Israel; the towns will be resettled, and the ruined sites rebuilt. 7 In 1997, the International Monetary Fund took Israel off the list of developing countries, because it was by then fully developed, boasting the 19 th highest standard of living in the world, just behind that of England. 8 Six Day War The Arab countries did not easily accept their defeat in All the while they were plotting a comeback. On May 22, 1967, Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser ( ) declared the Strait of Tiran that is Israel s sea access to Eilat closed to all Israeli ships and any other ships bound for Israel. This attempt at economic strangulation would have been an act of war to any other country, but initially Israel did not react, attempting to find a political solution. 7 Ezekiel 36: All of this development was accomplished in less than 40 years, in a constant state of war, terrorism and economic boycotts and in a country with no natural resources which had to absorb millions of immigrants, many of them destitute. 5

6 Meanwhile, Nasser became more and more aggressive in his verbal attacks on Israel. On May 27, 1967, he declared: Our basic objective will be the destruction of Israel. A few days later, on June 1, 1967, Iraq s president, Abel Rahman Aref, echoed Nasser s words: Our goal is clear to wipe Israel off the map. Egypt and Syria already had an alliance combining their armies and now Egypt made a similar agreement with Jordan. It was clear that war was imminent. On June 5, 1967, Israel, realizing that the entire Arab world was about to attack, launched a preemptive strike. It was one of the most brilliant preemptive strikes in history. In one fell swoop, Israeli planes bombed the entire Egyptian Air Force still sitting on the ground, and a day later did the same thing to the entire Jordanian Air Force. Why didn t the Jordanians react after the Egyptians were bombed? Because the Egyptians were broadcasting that they had achieved a tremendous victory (when they were completely crushed). Not knowing what was truly happening, the Jordanians believed the propaganda and thus were unprepared. In just six days, Israel captured huge chunks of territory and won what is generally considered to be one of the greatest military victories in history: In the south, Israel seized the Sinai Peninsula (from Egypt). In the north, Israel seized the Golan Heights (from Syria); note that Syria, initially part of the French Mandate after World War I, became part of the United Arab Republic (together with Egypt and Yemen) in 1958; in 1961 Syria withdrew from the union, creating its own borders which included the Golan Heights. In the east, Israel captured the West Bank of the River Jordan, which Jordan annexed after 1948, though this land was never meant to be part of the country of Jordan when its borders were first drawn by the British in

7 And most importantly, Israel re-claimed the Old City of Jerusalem, which should have been international under the UN plan, but which Jordan unilaterally took over in 1948 barring all Jews from it. For 19 years, Jews had not been able to enter the Old City or pray at their most holy of sites, the Temple Mount or the Kotel (the Western Wall of the Temple Mount). Many of the soldiers fighting the Six Day War had not been born yet when the Jewish people lost this site. They had only seen it in photographs. Entering the Old City, they did not know where to go, and when they found it, they openly wept. On the radio, the paratrooper, who was leading the Old City forces, announced: Har HaBayit b yadenu the Temple Mount is in our hands. People were jubilant. They couldn t believe the miracle that had happened. It must be stressed that the Jewish behavior in victory was in stark contrast to the Arab behavior after their victory over the Old City in 1948, when five dozen synagogues were looted and destroyed. Jewish soldiers did not dynamite the Dome of the Rock or any other mosque in the Old City and access to these sites for Arabs has continued uninterrupted. PLO The Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) was founded in January 1964 by Ahmed Shukeiry as a representative organization of the Arab refugees of the 1948 war. It was never a peaceful organization, however. In fact, Shukeiry once predicted an Arab victory over Israel, saying: Those [Jews] who survive will remain in Palestine. I estimate that none of them will 7

8 survive. The first and consistent aim of the PLO was the elimination of the State of Israel and its replacement by the State of Palestine. (It is important to note that a State of Palestine had never existed in history. The Arab people living in this land during the days of the Ottoman Empire were simply Arabs with no national identity. After the Ottoman Empire collapsed, in the days of the British Mandate, both Jews and Arabs were considered Palestinians by the British.) Egyptian-born Yasser Arafat ( ) was the head of Fatah, the PLO s terrorist group, and after the Six Day War, he took over the entire organization. One of the most infamous acts carried out under Arafat s direction in the early days was the kidnapping and murder of 11 Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympics. It is important to remember that when this atrocity happened, the world again stood silent. The Olympic Games went on, while the terrorists were holding the Jewish athletes. The Israelis wanted to intervene but the Germans refused their help. In the end, the Germans totally botched the rescue attempt, which led to the deaths of all the athlete hostages. Israel later hunted down and killed many of the terrorists responsible for Munich. Since that time, the PLO has carried out literally countless terrorist attacks against Israelis. To list them all would take a course in itself. 8

9 Peace Process Since the UN partition vote in November of 1947, Israel has consistently called on the surrounding Arab nations to live in peace with the Jewish state, but these offers have almost always been rejected. On May 14, 1948, the day the State of Israel was created, its Declaration of Independence stated: In the midst of wanton aggression, we yet call upon the Arab inhabitants of the State of Israel to preserve the ways of peace and play their part in the development of the state, on the basis of full and equal citizenship and due representation in all its bodies and institutions... We extend our hand in peace and neighborliness to all the neighboring states and their peoples, and invite them to cooperate with the independent Jewish nation for the common good of all. The Arab response was a declaration of war, delivered the next day by Azzam Pasha, Secretary General of the Arab League; it characterized the uncompromising Arab attitude toward the fledgling Jewish state: This will be a war of extermination and a momentous massacre which will be spoken of like the Mongolian massacre and the Crusades. 9 Immediately following Israel s victory in the Six Day War, the Israeli government, led by Prime Minister Levi Eshkol, accepted the UN Resolution 242 and offered to return the captured territories to the surrounding Arab countries in return for peace treaties with its Arab neighbors. In August 1967, the Arab League rejected the offer with three loud NO s: NO PEACE with Israel NO NEGOTIATIONS with Israel 9 New York Times, May 16, See also Morris, Benny, Righteous Victims: A History of the Zionist-Arab Conflict , New York: Vintage,

10 NO RECOGNITION of Israel In 1979, Egyptian President Anwar Sadat, in a bold move that ultimately cost him his life (he was assassinated by radical Muslims in Cairo in 1981), broke from the traditional Arab rejectionist position and signed a peace treaty with Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin. In return Israel returned every square inch of the Sinai Peninsula it won in Israel has proven time and time again that it desires peace above all else and has been willing to make serious territorial concessions for the sake of peace. In return, all it got was war. It is beyond the scope of this course to attempt to outline the turbulent history of the State of Israel which has, in addition to the 1967 Six Day War, included the 1973 Yom Kippur War, 10 the 1982 Lebanon War, 11 and the attacks by Iraq in the 1991 Persian Gulf War and by Hizbullah in the 2006 Lebanon War. Likewise, it is beyond the scope of this course, to outline the various peace initiatives such as the Oslo Accords of 1993, the treaty with Jordan in 1994, or the famous Camp David conference of 2000 where Israeli Prime Minister 10 The Yom Kippur War was fought October 6-26, 1973, by a coalition of Arab states led by Egypt and Syria. The war began with a surprise joint attack against Israel by Egypt and Syria on the Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur. Egypt and Syria crossed the cease-fire lines in the Sinai and Golan Heights, respectively, and advanced during the first hours, after which momentum began to swing in Israel s favor. By the second week of the war, the Syrians had been pushed entirely out of the Golan Heights. In the Sinai, the Israelis struck at the seam between two invading Egyptian armies, crossed the Suez Canal (where the old ceasefire line had been) and cut off the Egyptian Third Army just as a United Nations cease-fire came into effect. In the end, Israel had won a greater victory in 1973 than in 1967 but at a much higher cost with 2,378 soldiers killed as opposed to the 766 killed in (Total Arab casualties in both wars were never announced.) 11 The 1982 Lebanon War, called by Israel the Operation Peace for the Galilee and later also known in Israel as the First Lebanon War (there was a second Lebanon War during July-August 2006), began June 6, 1982, when the IDF invaded southern Lebanon, which had been largely taken over by the PLO and used as a staging area for attacks against Israel. The government of Israel ordered the invasion as a response to the assassination attempt by the Abu Nidal Organization against Israel s ambassador to the United Kingdom, Shlomo Argov. Surrounded in West Beirut, the PLO and the Syrian forces negotiated passage from Lebanon with the aid of international peacekeepers. Israeli forces (with their South Lebanese allies) maintained a security buffer zone in south Lebanon until the IDF s withdrawal in

11 Ehud Barak offered a complete Israeli withdrawal from virtually all lands taken in 1967 so that a new Palestinian state could be created on this land. Yasser Arafat walked out of those talks and initiated a five-year-long terrorist war, known as the Second Intifada. If one studies the history of the Arab-Israeli conflict, or more specifically the Israeli- Palestinian conflict, it becomes clear that the issue has never really been about creating a Palestinian state (since such a state could have been created numerous times in the past 60 years), but rather it has really been about destroying Israel because of the Arab world s inability to accept a Jewish state of any kind, no matter what the borders. Prime Minister Golda Meir once remarked that: We will only have peace with the Arabs when they love their children more than they hate us. Events of the past few years have unfortunately shown that the Arab world, for the most part, is not moving in the direction of peace. The Muslim world, especially Iran, continues to demonize, de-legitimize and threaten to destroy Israel. Palestinian children are taught to hate Jews and Israel, and to aspire to be martyrs and suicide bombers. Despite Israel s painful withdrawal from Gaza in the summer of 2005, the situation there has further deteriorated with the Hamas take-over in 2007 and the daily firing of rockets and mortar rounds into southern Israel, some reaching as far north as Ashkelon. Yet, despite all these obstacles, Israel continues to strive for peace; the economy continues to expand; the high-tech industry is booming and the population continues to grow, as the Diaspora slowly diminishes and the Jewish people return home. Perhaps the Israel Ministry of Tourism said it best when they coined the slogan: Israel: The Miracle on the Mediterranean 11

12 SIGNIFICANT EVENTS IN THE HISTORY OF YEAR THE MODERN STATE OF ISRAEL First Aliyah, large-scale immigration since Roman Exile brings 30,000 Russian Jews to the Land of Israel 1896 Theodor Herzl publishes The Jewish State 1897 First Jewish Zionist Congress convened in Basle, Switzerland Second Aliyah, mainly from Russia and Poland, brings 40,000 to the Land of Israel 1909 First kibbutz founded in Israel at Degania 1918 World War I ends and with it the 400-year rule of the Ottoman Empire over the Middle East 1917 Balfour Declaration promises a Jewish homeland in Palestine Third Aliyah, mainly from Russia, brings 35,000 to the Land of Israel 1920 Britain granted the Mandate for Palestine Kingdoms of Jordan and Iraq established Fourth Aliyah, mainly from Poland, brings 80,000 to the Land of Israel 1929 Arab massacre of Jews in Hebron and Jerusalem 1933 Adolf Hitler becomes chancellor of Germany Fifth Aliyah, mainly from Germany, brings 250,000 Jews to the Land of Israel 1937 Peel Commission rescinds Balfour Declaration but still envisions Jewish presence in the Land of Israel Anti-Jewish riots by Arab militants 1939 British White Paper severely limits Jewish migration World War II and Holocaust 1947 UN resolution calls for the partition of Palestine into Jewish and Arab states May 14, 1948 End of British Mandate and Declaration of Independence by the new State of Israel May 15, 1948 Israel invaded by five Arab states Israel s War of Independence 1948 Mass migration to Israel of 580,000 Jews driven out of Arab states 1948 Jordan seizes West Bank of the River Jordan and the Old City of Jerusalem 12

13 Jerusalem divided, Jordan bars Jews from the Old City and the Western (Wailing) Wall 1949 Israel signs armistice agreements with Egypt (February 24), Lebanon (March 23) Jordan (April 3), Syria (July 20) 1956 Suez Campaign 1964 Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) established 1967 Six Day War; Jerusalem reunited Egypt s war of attrition against Israel 1972 Eleven Israeli athletes murdered at Munich Olympic Games 1973 Yom Kippur War 1976 Israel s dramatic rescue of hostages at Entebbe, Uganda 1979 Israel-Egypt peace treaty signed; Israel gives back Sinai 1981 Israel bombs Iraq s nuclear reactor 1982 Israel enters Lebanon to roust PLO 1984 Operation Moses, airlift of 7,800 Ethiopian Jews to Israel First Intifada widespread Palestinian violence against Israelis 1988 US recognizes the PLO 1989 Start of mass migration of Jews from the former Soviet Union 1991 Persian Gulf War; Israel attacked by Iraqi Scud missiles 1991 Operation Solomon, airlift of 14,500 Ethiopian Jews 1993 Oslo Accords signed establishing Palestinian autonomy and the Palestinian Authority 1994 Israel-Jordan peace treaty signed 1995 Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin assassinated at peace rally 1996 Israel retaliates for Hizbollah attacks from Lebanon 2000 Israel withdraws from Lebanon 2000 Camp David meeting between U.S. President Bill Clinton, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat; it ends when Arafat walks out Second Intifada widespread Palestinian violence against Israelis 2005 Israel withdraws from Gaza 2006 Second Lebanon War launched by Hizbullah against Israel 2007 Terrorist organization Hamas takes over Gaza 2008 Israel celebrates 60 th Birthday 13