Israel Still Marching Toward Disappearance

The Jewish Press ^ | 9-1-06 | Prof. Louis Rene Beres

[parousia]

Technically, the Lebanon war against Hizbullah is over. In fact, however, Israel remains starkly vulnerable to further rocket attacks, and even more ominously to a still-nuclearizing Iran. Making matters worse, Prime Minister Olmert has yet to openly change course from his indisputably catastrophic plan for realignment and convergence. Why has there been absolutely no learning from lessons of the past? The answer is plain. Israel now marches headlong toward disappearance because its current leaders still fail to understand several essential and interrelated truths. One is that the Jewish State has a distinct and fixed obligation to hold on to its own land and has no right to make life-threatening territorial concessions. Significantly, this obligation is both Scriptural and secular. It is certainly rooted firmly in Torah, and is reinforced by authoritative and binding international law. Jurisprudentially, as I have stated many times, no state is ever required to be complicit in its own annihilation. International law is not a suicide pact. A corollary of this fundamentally sacred and legal obligation is that every territorial concession Israel makes for the sake of ‘peace’ is immediately interpreted as demonstrable proof of Jewish weakness. And its Islamic enemies take it as indisputable confirmation of Israel’s transience. Since Oslo (1993), Israel has marched toward disappearance because several of its leaders have failed to understand a basic truth: The Jewish State is despised in the Islamic world not because of anything that it does, but because of what it is.

[parousia]

Whether you agree with Hizbollah and the Arab world that Israel lost this war, Israel is the injured party. Iran's proxy, Hizbollah, based in south Lebanon, was the aggressor when it crossed Israel's border, kidnapped two soldiers and launched thousands of missiles against Israel's cities. In the laws of war, the country that invades or attacks another without provocation and injures it is the aggressor country. The injured country is free to counter-invade, and even occupy and take over the aggressor country. Yet the UN is bent on fixing up the aggressor country and totally ignoring the injuries done by the aggressor to the victim country. Legally and morally, Israel had an obligation to defend itself. The author reveals how Israel's conflicted image played a key role in it's perceived defeat.

[Continental Soldier]

Israel's strike at Hezbollah was so weak and incompetent that, for a minute or two, I thought it was being directed by Jimmy Carter.