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Israel’s Incredible Odds
A Patriot writer’s trip with the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, Part 2 of 2
By Kerry Eskenas
Posted on 08/29/05
I noticed how careful Israeli soldiers are during their anti-terror operations. Israeli soldiers will risk their own lives to avoid killing even one civilian. Mistakes do happen when defending Israel, but innocent people are never deliberately targeted. Israel is—and must be, because of the scrutiny of the world community—more careful than any other country to gather accurate intelligence and to clear out the area of civilians using Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs). These UAVs spot terrorists from miles above before any attack commences. The Jerusalem Undercover Unit is highly trained to kill only the terrorist—and only out of defense would they shoot anyone else on the scene.
What struck me so much during my trip was that those who claim that the Israelis act out of ‘revenge’ or ‘racism’ are completely wrong. Israel is facing incredible odds, yet it is largely successful in dealing with terrorism, the Israelis have maintained the only democracy in the Middle East, and they’ve also managed to prosper economically. Israel is also very accommodating. I visited Israel in the days leading up to the Gaza pullout, which Israel voluntarily conducted even though they legitimately won the land by defending themselves in the 1967 Six Day War. Even though Jerusalem is officially a part of Israel, the city is divided into quarters, only one of which is Jewish. I was surprised to learn that many countries, including the United States, do not even recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capitol. For this reason, the U.S. Embassy is actually located in Tel Aviv.
Israel is not only a democracy, but it is a country in which there is freedom of worship. In the city of Jaffa, I saw a temple, a church, and a mosque all situated near each other. I spoke to Arab-Israelis who said that they enjoy the benefits of living in Israel’s democracy, that they are better off economically in Israel than they would be anywhere else in the Middle East, and that “there is a common destiny for all Israeli citizens—Jews and non-Jews alike.”
The country is commendable in a lot of ways, yet mistakes made by Israel are often trumpeted by the rest of the world as great crimes. Meanwhile, Palestinian mistakes are often looked upon sympathetically. Israel has to deal with a world in which many continue to insist that it has “no right to exist,” despite its legitimate formation by the United Nations. It’s a country that has to deal with the Palestinians’ claims of unbearable oppression by the Israelis even though World Bank statistics show that the Palestinians had the highest standard of living while they were actually under Israeli control. Today, their standard of living has decreased, and money that Israel could have given the Palestinians to improve their livelihood must instead be used for security precautions.
The situation is complex, and it doesn’t seem that a solution is going to be found in the near future. When we spoke to the convicted terrorists, they mentioned some outrageous demands that had to be met before they even would consider peace as an option—demands such as Israel surrendering Jerusalem entirely to the Palestinians. After all that I saw on my trip, I agree with Yoel Tzur’s notion that this conflict cannot be resolved through surrendering some land or taking down security barriers to allow free movement throughout the region. The only way to defeat terrorism is to convince the world that terrorism is never a justifiable method of fighting for any professed cause. The international community must take a stand to denounce an extremist ideology that claims that murdering innocent people is only immoral under certain circumstances.
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