What Are We Willing To Die For?

It has been a long time that we have lived under the umbrella of the Pax Americanus that we inherited from the arming of the U.S. lion to bring us that monumental victory. We have had the good part of one hundred years of relative peace under that umbrella. But that time is over as America must share world leadership with other great powers, China being the most important. There are others as well that hold the nuclear deterrent, different from the time when this was shared only with the Soviets. Even a trimmed down Russia is a principal because of its nuclear missile holdings.

Before many were having to struggle to stay alive. Before that time millions died to defend the lives they had lived, were hoping to live. The choices were being confronted every day, and people did what they had to without thinking. There were few in the way of choices. During World War II  we knew what we were fighting for, what we were willing to die for.

Has this period when we have concentrated on improving the quality of our lives softened our devotion to defending the quality of our lives? Do we recognize that the safety and security we inherited from the past is no longer there? Do we recognize that the forces challenging the status quo we have taken for granted are advancing their agendas? Do we appreciate that the future may be very different from the past we have taken for granted? Are we willing to make the sacrifices that may be necessary to retain our ways of life? What is made a principal through its retention of a nuclear trigger.

Before this time, people around the world are the things we are willing to die for to keep?

I have children and grandchildren who live in Israel. I have a sister and nephews and nieces who live there as well. My family members have all served their obligatory military service. In that country they have never been able to take the status quo for granted. They live each day having to be prepared to die for the kind of lives they are leading.

This is not new. When the League of Nations established the British Mandate in 1920, the goal was the creation of a Jewish National Home where Jews from around the world could live safely. Jews from around the world had been coming to live in their ancient homeland. Britain’s first move was to cede the majority of the territory to create the state of Jordan. For years afterward the Mandate discriminated against the arrival of Jews and encouraged the entry of Arabs from surrounding territories. Efforts of philanthropic Jews, and their beneficiaries, striving  to develop the territory, attracted thousands  of Arabs in a region that was an economic wasteland.

Jews resisted Mandate authorities and launched illegal midnight arrivals on the beaches. Those caught, not jailed or shot by the British authorities, were held in camps in Cyprus. As the rise of Nazi Germany endangered Jewish lives, and with the world-wide closure of borders to Jews, a campaign of terrorism was launched by some Jews against the Mandate. Those caught by the authorities were  hanged. Survivors of the Holocaust were being held in European camps and denied entry.

The British surrendered the Mandate under this pressure. The U.N issued a partition plan that offered disconnected pieces of territory for the Jews. The Jews declared an independent State of Israel on the date of the British departure. The armies of seven Arab states attacked and many Arab residents attacked their Jewish neighbors. These Jews in Israel knew what they were willing to die for. Casualties amounted to ten per cent of the Jewish population. The State survived with enlarged borders, but with territory occupied by Egypt and Jordan.

In 1967 Israel was attacked by its neighbors again. The Jews captured the balance of the mandated territory in seven days. It was attacked again in 1973 and occupied the Egyptian Sinai and some Syrian territory. The Sinai was returned to Egypt as part of a peace agreement. A peace agreement was also signed with Jordan .The Syrian territory that had been used for continuous shelling from the heights of the Golan was annexed. These Jews knew what they were willing to die for.

We are living in an era during which democracies appear to be on the retreat. The presence of large autocratic regimes in our current world order, with aggressive territorial ambitions of one kind or another, and the war chests to advance those ideas, make us less safe than we have been. How strong is our attachment to the principles of personal freedom that we say motivate us? When we see how narrow political objectives are being pursued in the United States, against the wishes of popular majorities, we have to wonder. Can we count on that county’s politicians to support international freedoms? Would we be willing to go it alone if we had to? We see our fear of a nuclear Russia preventing us from doing the right thing in the Ukraine.

What are the things we are willing to die for as we were during World War II. The people of Israel seem to know. The people of the Ukraine seem to know. They know what the alternative is.