Making War!

The thought of war gives me indigestion. For two thousand years Jews have been powerless pawns in the plans of others. Jews have served as soldiers when called upon by the leaders of the nations where they lived, their families lived. They have a record to be proud of in terms of the loyalties they showed to their adopted countries. But the issues that prompted Jews to fight were those articulated by leadership groups wherein Jews could only have been a tiny minority. That is not to say that they might have been issues that Jews fully supported. Often they did do so enthusiastically. But, ultimately the decision-making was not in Jewish hands.

In our history, too often, in too many places, Jews have directly suffered, were the objects of the aggressive actions taking place. And in most cases they were almost helpless against the forces arrayed against them. They had little in the way of weapons. They had no organization. They were essentially individuals facing lethal force aimed at their annihilation. This history must raise in most Jews an inherent abhorrence of war and all its paraphernalia.

Fast forward to the last half of the twentieth century. In a miracle of rebirth, Jews have a state of their own. They have fought wars and have been blessed with victories. Jews have suffered losses in these wars, but they were mostly incurred in wars aimed at ensuring the greater security of the nation’s most vulnerable. It has been difficult for me, ( I have a daughter, son-in-law, and grandchildren, as well as a niece and nephews there, as well as add-ons, directly involved, ) to resist revanchist feelings about the exercise of Jewish military power. I find it difficult to resist saying “take that and that, you so and sos!”

Every defensive action must involve losses on the other side, visiting suffering and death on the innocent as well as the guilty. And this is particularly so in this theatre of war, where using civilians as shields for aggressive military activity against one is the operative strategy of war. In spite of avoidance efforts that cost Israeli lives, there are always losses inflicted on the innocent.

Scenes exhibiting destruction and carnage, the dead and the maimed, the eyes of helpless children, whether real, or simulated, are difficult to digest even when they are just by-products of damage inflicted on an enemy seeking to do you the utmost harm. The despair and rage of victims can be no different than what our own innocent victims felt in bygone days. How do we live with those things?

Israel fought two wars in Lebanon that many Jews felt was unjustified, being less than defensive reactions to immediate threats from Arabs there. Yet that nation remains firmly under the control of Hezbollah, a terrorist organization now financed by the Iranian Ayatollah, swearing to destroy the Jewish state.

 Almost every action Israel has taken to try to resolve the victimhood felt by the so-called Palestinians ( pouring in from adjoining countries under the British Mandate, attracted by Jewish economic activity ). After the 1967 Seven-Days War, Israel was firmly in charge of the whole of the mandated territory, (that is, what remained after Transjordan was hived-off and given to a Hashemite ally of Britain).

Israel withdrew from the occupation of the Gaza Strip, and it was turned into a terrorist enclave by Hamas, holding two million Arabs essentially captive. Israel signed the Oslo Accords, (which were never ratified by the Arab side,) creating the Palestinian Authority, and then had to fence it off to cut off the daily terrorist attacks. The succession of its leaders has continued to call for the elimination of the Jewish State which brought the Authority into being. Elections have been cancelled there again and again for fear of losing political power to Hamas.

My heartburn notwithstanding, Israel is involved in a daily hot war in Syria, trying to prevent the Iranians from implanting missile bases there from which they could bombard Israel. The involvement of Russia, supporting the puppet leader there, complicates the picture. Russia just announced it refuses to recognize Israel’s annexation of the Golan, which Israel occupied to stop the continued Syrian shelling of northern Israel communities. And provocations are occurring daily from the Gaza Strip, even after a month-long campaign to destroy the terrorist infrastructure there. Adjoining communities at that border never know when their lives will be disrupted and their inhabitants have to run for shelters.

No action that Israel has undertaken has defused the potentiality of open warfare on one or another front. A continued cold peace and cooperation with Egypt and Jordan, and warmer relations with four Arab countries under the Abraham Accords, has been a positive development. But some European countries continue to support the most flagrant lies about the nature of the Jewish state, and attempt to damage Israel’s economy through BDS programs, and financing terrorist activity.

Israel’s capacity to make war is being enhanced every day through the breadth and depth of the technological resources exhibited by its scientists and soldiers. Countries around the world are coming to its shores to avail themselves of this expertise. This was not what Israel was created for, but it is what the world we have has forced on it to ensure its own survival. Israel exists to seek peace and will make war, if necessary, to find it.