Israel: 3,500 Years Old, 59 Years Young
Pastor Dale Morgan
Israel: 3,500 Years Old, 59 Years Young*
by Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu
(IsraelNN.com) Jews and others around the world are celebrating the 59th
birthday of the re-birth of the Jewish State. The faith and fears that
faced the Jews in their 3,500-year history remain today.
Since the birth of the Jews as a nation in ancient Egypt, enemies of the
Jewish people have waged wars against them until today, 59 years after
the reborn State of Israel survived the War of Independence. The Jews in
Israel survived an onslaught from seven better-armed neighboring Arab
armies who marched into the nascent state to annihilate any Jewish
sovereign presence. The Arab states rejected a United Nations mandate to
split Israel between a smaller Jewish state and a larger Trans-Jordan
country.
'We have won before and we will win again'
"We have won before and we will win again, for we have no other choice,"
Knesset Speaker Dalia Itzik said at the opening Independence Day
celebrations Monday night in Jerusalem. We have been living for 59 years
in a war, the end of which is not yet in sight.
"Residents of Iran, Syria and the Palestinian Authority: has there not
been enough blood spilled, yours and ours? Replace your Katyushas and
Kassams with computers and education, and finally, be rewarded with
peace and quiet," she said. "Israel lives and lets live."
At the same hour she spoke, Arab terrorists attempted to fire another
Kassam rocket on Israel. It backfired and exploded at the launching
site. No one was injured.
The festivities began immediately after the torch-lighting ceremony at
the conclusion of Remembrance Day for Fallen Soldiers
Former President Yitzhak Navon led the torch-bearers, who included
Eliyahu Sakharov, an aide to the Haganah chief in the 1930s and Shulamit
Cohen-Kishik, a Mossad agent from the late 1940s who helped bring
persecuted Jews from Arab nations to Israel and escaped a death sentence
in Beirut.
Other torch-bearers were world obstetrician/gynecologist Professor
Joseph Shenkar of Hebrew University; actor Avinoam Mor-Haim, whose son
Dvir was killed in Lebanon; former Lechi underground fighter Rachel
Saad-Nakar; Holocaust survivor Mordechai Eliav, founder of the Western
Wall Heritage Foundation; Uri Amadi, who works with eastern Jerusalem
youth; Prof. Nava Ben Tzvi, founder of the Open university and president
of Hadassah College; Jerusalem Foundation president Ruth Heshin; police
sapper Yehuda Shriki; Kiryat Shmona police commander Faras Faraj; Yosef
Lieberman, who served in almost every war; and orthopedic surgeon Dr.
Dor Yehuda, who volunteered in the Second Lebanon War last summer.
The view on Israel from Jews around the world
An Australian Jewish News column noted, "As Israel marks its 59th
birthday, the Jewish State is caught between the celebration of its
incredible achievements and the specter of a nuclear Iran vowing to
“wipe it off the map”--not to mention a scandal-ridden public service,
from the president and prime minister down.
"What Israel desperately needs--and doesn’t seem to have right now--is a
leader who can resuscitate a belief in the true essence of Zionism, who
can convince people that things can still change for the better and who,
yes, can import some Diaspora optimism--especially the Australian
brand--to offset the perpetually prevailing Israeli doom and gloom."
The Los Angeles Jewish Journal described the situation in Israel today
with two caricatures--one of a birthday cake with the words "Peace
Hopes" under the banner of Israel Independence Day, 2005, when the
Sharon government expelled 10,000 Jews, destroyed their homes and
communities and turned over the areas to the Palestinian Authority
promising improved security for the Israeli citizens. The second picture
shows a cake with a rocket stuck inside it and labeled "The next
Hizbullah attack" under the banner Israel Independence Day, 2007.
An editorial in The New York Jewish Week stated, "Israelis are
resilient, and whether one sees their modern history as miraculous or
merely remarkable, the fact is that they have overcome horrific efforts
to destroy them and have not only survived but thrived.... For its
citizens and for so many Jews around the world, Israel remains
“Hatikva,” the hope--of a brighter future and, in the words of the
state’s national anthem, “to be a free people in our land, the land of
Zion and Jerusalem.”