What Israel Means

For much of the last several centuries, Jews have wandered back, disorganized but hopeful, to Palestine and the land of the Old Testament. As part of the settlement after the first world war the British, still locked in their fading struggle with France, took control of this area called the British Mandate and, in July of 1922, divided Palestine into two administrative sections, east and west, where Jews were allowed only in the west. (The Balfour Declaration in November 2, 1917 to "establish a national home for the Jewish people" was a hope, not a policy.) November 29, 1947 the General Assembly of The United Nations voted 66% to partition western Palestine into two separate states, one Jewish and one Arab. (The Arabs rejected it.) Israel became a recognized separate state and Egypt, Iraq, Jordan Syria and Lebanon invaded it, fought a war, and lost. About 600,000 Jews left Arab lands for Israel, 720,000 Arabs left Israel for Arab lands. An armistice was signed in 1949.

In 1966-67 Syria began shelling Israel from parts of the Golan Heights, Egypt expelled the UN peacekeepers from the Israel border and attacked in the "Six Day War' and lost again. When the dust cleared Israel held the Gaza Strip, The Sinai Desert, Judea and Samaria and the Golan Heights.

In 1970 a civil war broke out between Arafat and King Hussein in Jordan. Arafat ended up with better control of the West Bank but no control over the rest of Jordan.

In October 6, 1973, Syria and Egypt again attacked Israel and lost. To get peace, Israel returned the Sinai to Egypt and signed an agreement with Jordan.

What are we to conclude from this history? Debate continues over the Arab handling of Arab refugees, of Hamas and Hezbollah, of bombing schools and strapping bombs to children. But as important as these points are individually there are some overwhelming truths here. One, Israel was created out of whole cloth; there were people there whom the British displaced to create the state. Britain can claim the land was gained as a spoil of war but the circumstances are still the same. Two, the Arabs will continue to throw themselves at Israel forever. They are not deterred by defeat--regardless how humiliating. They will come back. And each time they are better armed and better prepared. Two Arab states have nuclear capability. Three, Israel will, with its last breath, destroy all her enemies. There will be no TKO with Israel led bleeding to the side to decline in a new Palestine state; Israel, at its end, will take all of its tormentors to hell with her.

This brings us to the fourth point: This nightmare--which could easily blow the industrialized world back to the steam age--is a direct result of political arrogance and stupidity. The political leaders--from the British to the U.N. to the Americans now--have guided this area through one devastating, homicidal period to another without any apparent second thoughts or guilt about the destruction and death they have unleashed or the clear danger to all the world that lies ahead. This homicidal fine-tuning, this murderous good will, this apocalyptic optimism is repeated and repeated by administration after administration, state after state, until now we are faced with real Arab power staring back at the West and their feckless leaders while we poor souls wait and wonder how much the dead and wounded will be expanded this time and whether we will be included.