To
My Dear Students,
Much
of the world media and many governments and peoples
indulge in reflexive Israel-bashing, applying
a double standard and consistently branding Israel
as guilty.
Over
the past four years, the misnamed U.N. Human Rights
Council (which voted last month to add tyrannical
Libya to its ranks), issued 40 condemnations of
countries, of which 33 centered on Israel.
This obsession with Israel, a tiny country surviving
in a vast sea of enemies howling for its destruction
and amassing the weaponry to accomplish it, depicts
the Jewish State as the embodiment of evil.
Israel
desperately wants peace. In 2005, Israel
left the Gaza Strip (by the way, Egypt also is
blockading Gaza) in toto, uprooting 9,000 Israeli
citizens, 21 communities, military bases, and
greenhouses. Prime Minister Sharon said
that the withdrawal from Gaza was the initial
step in creating a Palestinian state living in
peace alongside Israel.
In
2007, in a brutal coup, the terrorist gang Hamas
took control and ousted the Palestinian Authority.
It proceeded to launch thousands of rockets and
missiles into Israel, each an act of aggression
and war. Hamas is dedicated not to the welfare
of the residents of Gaza but to the eradication
of Israel. It refuses to abide by established
treaties between Israel and the Palestinian Authority.
It refuses to recognize Israel's right to exist.
Why
did Israel stop the ships running the blockade?
Because it had to! Israel cannot allow Iranian
weaponry to reach its client, Hamas, because Tel
Aviv is only 40 miles from Gaza. I recently
traveled to Los Angeles Airport. From my
home in Irvine, the distance is 45 miles.
I realized how little territory there is between
Gaza and Dizengoff Street in Tel Aviv and that
no country would allow an enemy the opportunity
to rain bombs on its major population centers.
A
columnist wrote: "There was much international
outrage because of the flotilla incident.
The U.N. Secretary General condemned the violence
and said that it was 'vital that there is a full
investigaion and Israel,' he said, ''must urgently
provide a full explanation.' Oddly enough
no similar international outrage and demand for
explanations was recently evident in reference
to other even more tragic events: not when Iran
again hanged political dissidents, bringing the
total to nearly 300 since early 2009; nor when
the North Koreans sunk a South Korean ship killing
46 seamen; nor when attacks on two Ahmadi mosques
in Lahore killed at least 93 worshipers.
International outrage is awfully selective."
The
late Abba Eban wrote: "If Algeria introduced
a resolution declaring that the earth was flat
and that Israel had flattened it, it would pass
by a vote of 164 to 13 with 26 abstentions."
Israel will not commit suicide in order to win
the world's praise.
Shabbat
Shalom,
Your
Rabbi
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