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Friday, December 16, 2011

Defense! Defense!


ב"ה

Imagine you are living in a house that has belonged to your family for several generations. You have raised your family there as you were raised by your parents. You have some issues with the neighbors, but for the most part they leave you alone. Next door to you is a house you own that you rent out.

One day, the people to whom you rent the house next door start saying the house is theirs. They stop paying rent, don't keep up the outside and destroy the inside. They then say that the house that has been in your family for generations is also their house and they want you out. You ignore them at first, after all their claim is patently ridiculous. But the claim isn't enough for them. Their dog starts pooping on your lawn and when you approach him he growls and bares his teeth. The neighbors start throwing rocks into the yard when you and your family are out back (particularly when your children are playing in the yard). You try to ignore it; then you ask them to stop. The other neighbors suddenly rise up and take the side of your tenants, telling you that you have no right to live on their block.

So you hire a lawyer and take them to court and the judge sides with them! The police start coming to your door, threatening you with eviction (from your family's long time home). What do you do? What would you do?

Israel has been subject to just this sort of badgering since its inception in 1948. In actuality, Jews living in Israel have been subject to this sort of harassment since long before 1948. There were pogroms in "Palestine" in the 1930s, long before Israeli statehood. The people that Israel permits to live in her land (unlike other nations in the region, they don't limit their populace to one religion or ethnic group) are trying to kill Israelis, Jew and Gentile (though mostly Jews).

And yet the world keeps blaming Israel. That Abbas won't return to the peace talks? That's Israel's fault. That Hamas is lobbing missiles at population centers? That's Israel's fault. That the "Palestinians" turned the gift (no concessions were required of the "Palestinian" leadership) of the beautiful Gush Katif into a rocket launching pad that is the current "Gaza Strip"? That's Israel's fault.

What is the terrible "thing" that Israel (and Jews in the past) has done that has caused so much hatred, so much vitriol? Surviving. Just by existing and surviving, just by trying to live in peace, just by trying to live as G-d wants us to (something that is so "horrid" that many Jews have rejected it and turned away from the ways of the Tora) we are causing all this hatred.

Until the world makes the "Palestinians" and the rest of the Islamist world accountable for their own lives, accountable for all their crimes against humanity, accountable for living in a free and democratic world, a constructive world, a peaceful and loving world, we in the free world will never have peace. Until we stand by Israel, stand with Israel, stand against hatred, murder and tyranny, we will continue to hear people blaming Israel, something that does nothing toward resolving the issue. If you truly want peace in the region and the world, stand with the tiny democratic nation of Israel, now and forever.