Abandoned? |
Leaving Israel at this time of war, with family in Israel and the United States, is not an easy feeling to describe. We feel as though we have abandoned our people in Israel in their eternal struggle to survive in a sea of hatred. Not only is our daughter, her family, and my mother’s family, the heirs of Holocaust survivors, in this land but so are the other remnants of the Jewish people. Although Israel, tiny as it is, contains 10 million people, less than 8 million are Jewish. The others are Muslim Arabs, Christians, and various other minorities.
Leaving Israel raises the question as to whether we are abandoning family and friends in the greatest ally that the United States has. That was not always the case. In 1948, Harry Truman recognized Israel’s right to exist in what was Jewish Palestine since the Roman era, but then when the Arabs attacked, using the weapons that England had left them, the United States embargoed arms to the nascent state. Israel barely survived that 1948 war, leaving it with indefensible temporary borders.
In 1967, the Arabs attempted to finish the job, but Israel succeeded not only in surviving but also in establishing defensible borders. The world was not happy about that. Israel was supposed to die or go back to the 1948 Armistice Lines.
In 1973, when there was a surprise attack from Egypt, also attempting to destroy the land of Israel, Richard Nixon did little to help after Israel repelled the savage attack on Yom Kippur, the holiest day on the Jewish calendar.
Fast forward to October 7, 2023. The world agreed that Israel had a right to defend itself from the surprise attack........