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Is There Justice for the People Called Israel?

by H. Druks

For some observers there seems to be no justice for the people of Israel. They lost six million of their brothers and sisters as a result of the German Nazi final solution and an indifferent world. The Jewish State of Israel was reborn in 1948 and since that time the Jewish people of that state have been subjected to Arab terrorism and war, and major power interventionism. During the War of Independence Israel lost some 6,000 people, one percent of the total Jewish population of the Land of Israel. As a result of the Yom Kippur War of 1973 Israel lost some 3,000 men.

Israel won the War of Independence, the 1956 Sinai war, the Six Day War and the Yom Kippur War, but since 1973 Israel has been surrendering territories in order to achieve peace with the Arabs, and it has not achieved peace.

Prime Minister Menachem Begin surrendered the entire Sinai to Egypt during the Camp David talks with Presidents Jimmy Carter and Anwar Sadat. All in order to achieve "Peace" with Egypt. But since 1977-1978 there is only a fragile and tentative peace with Egypt.

Prime Ministers Rabin, Peres, Netanyahu and Barak gave up Gaza, Jericho and Hebron among other territories in order to achieve peace with "Palestinian Arabs" and Jordan. But there is no peace with those Arabs. There is talk and there is nothing but savage butchering of Jews. Ehud Barak talked with President Clinton, and Secretary Madelaine Albright and was prepared to surrender Israeli communities like Efrat that hold fifty thousand Israeli citizens. American Presidents Bush, The First and Clinton pressured and twisted the arms of Israel's prime ministers and eventually got what they wanted.

Jews reestablished their state in their homeland of Eretz Israel. They believed as Herzl did that in the Jewish State they would finally be free men and women and that once they would be a free people no one could harm them. How wrong they were. They are not safe in Jerusalem. They are not safe in the territories. They are not safe in Tel Aviv or Kfar Saba. Benjamin Kahane and his wife were assassinated on Sunday, December 31, 2000, the eve of the secular New Year, as they drove to their home. Their children were wounded. Ehud Barak, Israel's acting Prime Minister, urged Israelis to take it easy and not to seek revenge, but to let the IDF protect them. That is exactly what Israelis have done for decades, but in recent years that approach has not worked so well. Benjamin Zeev Kahane and his wife now rest in the cemetery of Har Minuchot, Jerusalem, just outside of the city of Jerusalem. Despite all the concessions Israel made and is ready to make to the "Arab Palestinians" there is no peace. Apparently concessions and surrender of Israeli sovereignty will not bring peace to Israel. The appeasers may win Nobel Peace Prizes, but Israeli Jews do not have a state upon which they can rely. They made Aliyah to the Homeland, but it is neither safe not is it a Homeland today.

Palestinians have learned a valuable lesson, the more they demand, the more they demonstrate, the more they throw stones, the more they shoot and kill Jews, the more concessions they will get from the Israeli Prime Minister, with the help of the Americans. And the Arabs have learned that they can in this way, without tanks and missiles, destroy the Jewish State. The armies of Israel are armed, but they are ineffective. The diplomats of Israel believe that they can make treaties, but they have not brought peace to their country. They have brought a condition that spells the end of Zionism and the Jewish State.

Will we witness the end of the Jewish State? Many of us went through the Holocaust and a time when Christians and most Jews of the 'free world' chose to remain silent while the slaughter took place. Will Israel choose silence as its people and nation is slaughtered? Will they choose silence while their traditions and Holy Lands and Holy institutions are devastated? Will they surrender the place of the Holy Temple? Will American and European Jews choose silence and worry more about their new German made Mercedes cars than their identity and the Land of Israel?

We now bear witness to a time in history that is as crucial as any time was for the Jewish people and Israel. We must not try to escape our responsibilities and obligations. We must not be like the American Jews of silence of the Holocaust.

Professor Herbert Druks is the author of the recently published book: The Uncertain Friendship, the U.S. and Israel from Roosevelt to Kennedy. Published by Greenwood Publishers, CT.