Israel's Right to Exist
In the modern history of mankind has any nation on earth, once established as a state among states, a nation among the world's other nations, had to defend itself on an ongoing basis against the active, military hostility of its neighbours? What other country on earth in our times has had to build its armed forces on the premise that without nurturing the ability, however unwilling, to strike back hard in defense, they would cease, forthwith, to exist. What other country's nationals have urged their leaders time and again to make peace with the enemy only to have that peace thrown back in their faces time after time?What other country would, under these circumstances, be faced time and again with blanket censure from a world body set up to ensure peace between and among its member nations and which body itself had a hand in declaring the State of Israel a reality in 1948?. Censure unlimited for reacting to deadly aggression whose final purpose is to drive the country from the region. Israel alone is expected to absorb constant deadly assaults upon her sovereignty, her people, her government, her values, expectations and way of life.
Truth of the matter is, a bitterly undying conviction of the presence of a permanent alien occupying entity in what is perceived to be Arab and Muslim territory has led to the utter inability of Israel's neighbours to accept her presence in what they believe to be hallowed Islamic land. An ongoing and everpresent rage against the perplexing existence of an unacceptably foreign culture laid down in a geographical location which the Koran quite explicitly forbids. An insoluble dilemma? Well, as long as the mass tribal culture clinging to the dictates of a long-expired era in history continues to espouse and demand strict adherence to, and reverence for an original Code of Existence and Quest, yes.
Flying in the face of modernity, of subtle changes in peoples' apprehensions, of the expectations of modern societies. When to cling to a religious dictum of such humanly-damaging magnitude expresses a denial of all that history, philosophy and humanity strive to live with, the boundaries of human acceptance leading to an emerging universality of purpose and understanding. Instead, the xenophobia, suspicion and hatred of "the other" rages on leaving the world continually on edge, wondering when the sword of Islamic righteousness and justice will next smite the infidel.
We would all like to believe, simply because it is a rational belief that all humans are similarily endowed with the ability to learn, to adapt, to rely on the human instinct of hope for the future, that eventually that ingrained hatred and dance with death will join the fate of extinct animal species if our own race is ever to survive the outcome of our own frail sensibilities and emotional prejudices.
Does one hear Israel declaring that those who strive so mightily to destroy her are the devil's spawn, lesser than human, insects upon the earth? Does Israel issue official statements indicating her desire and intention to wipe any of her neighbours from the map of the region? Does Israel invite her declared enemies to war time and again, the very conditions which are imposed upon her? Those ignoble distinctions go to its implacable neighbours whose collective psychotic revulsion of her presence inures them to the possibility of peace.
Can such people ever move beyond the fondly held mantra of "Zionist aggression" linked with the piteously pious assertions of "Arab humiliation"? Was language, understanding and communication ever so perverted to indicate the exact opposite of historical truth?
posted by Pieface @ Sunday, July 30, 2006
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