c. 2006 Religion News Service
(UNDATED) I hold these truths to be self-evident:
Truth No. 1: Israel has “won” only a single conflict with its hostile Arab neighbors: the 1967 Six Day War.
Because Israel’s defeat of three Arab armies nearly 40 years ago was so swift, the United Nations and the “international community” could not snatch victory from Israel. But that has never stopped them from trying.
Two decades earlier, during Israel’s 1948-49 War of Independence, an irate U.N. and the punitive actions of the “family of nations” nearly prevented the Jewish state’s birth. A cease-fire created a jagged “Green Line” that was a strategic disaster for Israel.
In 1956, the U.N. and President Eisenhower compelled Israel to withdraw from the Sinai Peninsula in return for an “international guarantee” that a vital Red Sea entrance for the Israeli port of Eilat would remain open. When Egypt closed that entrance, it sparked the 1967 war.
In 1973, the U.N. _ aided by Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev _ halted the Yom Kippur war as Israeli troops neared Cairo, Egypt, and Damascus, Syria.
In 1982, Israel expelled the Palestine Liberation Organization from Lebanon, only to see the vacuum filled with an even deadlier enemy: Hezbollah, supported by Iran and Syria.
In this summer’s battle against Hezbollah, the results for Israel remain the same as in the past: neither a defeat, thank God, nor a decisive victory over an opponent who seeks the Jewish state’s destruction.
Andrew Marvell’s poetic words are a permanent leit-motif for Israel: “Had we but world enough, and time …” But it’s clear “international public opinion” will never grant Israel either one.
Truth No. 2: “Victory Through Airpower” is a false slogan.
As an Air Force chaplain in the early 1960s, I was required to view the Walter Cronkite-narrated documentary that claimed airpower essentially won World War II. But the truth is a battered Britain did not collapse under repeated German aerial attacks, and Germany persisted despite enormous air assaults carried out by American and British bombers.
Japan, too, endured repeated B-29 air attacks by American forces. A large American invasion of the Japanese home islands was in the works until a new weapon _ the atomic bomb _ finally forced Tokyo to surrender.
The truth is thousands of infantry troops _ including members of my family _ were needed to smash into Germany to win the war. A similar ground force would have been needed in Japan if we hadn’t dropped the bomb.
Victory happens only when young men and women risk their lives and physically control contested real estate. And that rarely comes easily or cheaply.
Truth No. 3: Dictatorships and terrorist groups will ultimately lose to strong democracies when the latter become fully knowledgeable about their foe and fully committed to win the battle.
My Uncle Hy was wounded in 1943 fighting German SS troops in Tunisia. It was the first time American forces faced Hitler’s elite, racially pure and highly indoctrinated killers. The SS, a notorious military organization, routed the Americans. But my uncle and millions of other American GIs quickly learned what citizen-soldiers must do, not only to survive, but to triumph over evil, brainwashed fighters.
Hezbollah is another ideologically driven military group. Fortunately, the U.S. and Israel are learning what’s needed to defeat Hezbollah. It will require strong unified efforts by aroused citizens of both democracies _ nations that are inextricably linked by history, heritage and hope, faith and family.
Truth No. 4: The public will swallow Orwellian language, even when it disguises the truth.
When Hezbollah launches nearly 4,000 rockets that kill Israeli civilians _ 44 percent of the victims were Arabs in the Galilee, by the way _ it is called “resistance to Zionists,” and the terrorists win.
When Lebanese civilians are used as human shields, and when, in response, Israel unfortunately kills civilians, it is always termed a “massacre,” and Hezbollah wins.
When Hezbollah fighters are killed, they become instant Islamic “martyrs,” and Hezbollah wins.
When Israeli soldiers are killed, it is called a “divine victory,” and terrorism wins again.
KRE/JL END RUDIN
(Rabbi Rudin, the American Jewish Committee’s senior interreligious adviser, is the author of the recently published book “The Baptizing of America: The Religious Right’s Plans for the Rest of Us.”)
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