The Middle East

Israel and the Islamic republics will be at odds for a long time because their Weltanschauung (world view) is so diametrically different. Israel thinks it has an historical, legal, national, religious, cultural, racial, and Biblical claim to the land. The Arabs do not.

Israelis think they have a right to exist. The Islamicists think they do not. The modern state of Israel won its independence with guerrillas whom they called freedom fighters and the British called terrorists. Palestine is run by and Palestinians in other countries support what the USA considers terrorist organizations.

Exactly what makes one a terrorist? Blowing up a hotel full of civilians? Certainly if you put on a vest full of C4 and shrapnel and blow yourself up in a bus full of schoolchildren or at a shopping mall, then most Americans call that terrorism. Hijacking a plane full of people and killing them is called terrorism. There was a time when Islamic terrorists would target only Israelis but since Israelis tend to be tightening security, terrorists started attacking Jews in other countries who may never have been Zionists or sympathetic to Israel thus creating more allies for Israel. Then terrorists started attacking Americans who weren't even Jewish thus creating more allies for Israel. Then word got out that Islamic terrorists used the phrase "first the Saturday people, then the Sunday people". This creates still more allies for Israel.

In Afghanistan, the Taliban blows up Buddhist shrines and archaeological sites. In Kashmir, once a place with a crime rate so low that murder was unknown, control by India (primarily a Hindu nation) was contested by Pakistan, an Islamic nation. In Iran, the birthplace of two world religions, Zoroastrianism and the Baha'i faith, those religions face extinction under the rule of Muslims. It does not take a rocket scientist to figure out that Islamicists do not care for any religion that is not Islam and that Christians and Jews are not the only one targeted by terrorists.

So when some uninformed Americans scratch their heads wondering why Israel continues to get moral support from the USA if not military, financial, and political support, at least you have a clue: it is mutual self-interest and survival.

As for walls, why shouldn't the Israelis build them? Yes, the Palestinians need to get to their fields and their jobs but, invariably, sneaking in with them are suicide bombers.

Israel can continue to trade land for peace (Perea a.k.a. West Bank, Ituraea a.k.a. Golan Heights, Jerusalem, Galilee, Judea, Gaza Strip, Idumaea a.k.a. the Negev etc.) until there is no longer any left for the Israelis to trade and still never get peace. Some say this is exactly the Arab plan and the Israelis are deluding themselves to hope for peace anytime in this millennium.


If you think that Israel has plenty of land, then find Israel on a globe. It is tiny compared to its neighbors. If you think any country likes giving up land, then check your history on the Panama Canal Zone. The USA was only leasing the land! There would have been a second civil war if the USA had outright managed to buy the Canal Zone and then decided to give it back to satisfy Panamanian demands.

If you still think that Israel has plenty of land, then consider that in Biblical times the Kingdom included parts of modern day Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, and Egypt. Modern Israel is a fraction of Ancient Israel. I am one those who think the Israelis should never have given up any of the land they won during the Six Day War. They wanted peace with their neighbor which is a hopeless cause.

Samaria, the very heart of ancient Israel, is now part of Jordan. The hymn about the balm in Gilead refers to a place now in Jordan. Bethlehem where Jesus was born is not in Israel. It is in Jordan. When the terrorists a few years ago barricaded themselves inside the Church of the Nativity, do you think that violating the holiest place in Christendom bothered them? Did it even enter their minds?

Now you know why some people would have no problem with nuking and vaporizing Mecca and Medina. Of course, the Muslims may do it themselves. Muslims supposedly regard the Dome of the Rock as the third holiest place in Islam. Yet the Iranian leaders want to be able to blast Israel with nuclear missiles (which would destroy the Dome of the Rock, a minor detail).

Even what constitutes the people has shrunk: there were huge Hebrew colonies worldwide even as far as China, southern Africa, and modern day Russia. The family of Jesus lived for the first twelve years of His life in Egypt where many communities of Hebrews lived permanently even after that falling out with Ramesses . Nowadays, they are called Karaites or Kara'im. The Samaritans or Shomronim live in Jordan near Mount Gerizim which is the geographic center of ancient Israel. The ancient Israelites constituted the Northern Kingdom. The ancient Jews constituted the Southern Kingdom of Judah or Judea. What about the other Lost Tribes that every Jewish wannabe claims to be? The conspiracy theorists and the Mormons, among many others, claim to be lost tribes. In fact, geneticists have long been able to identify lost tribes such as the Falasha.

So what constitutes the people has shrunk. The Hebrews were twelve tribes and the Jews claim descent from Judah. In practice, modern Israel allows in more than rabbinical Jews. Those claiming right of return include Karaites fleeing persecution in Egypt, Saudi Jews fleeing Arabia, Persian Jews fleeing Bukhara, Kurdish Jews fleeing Kurdistan, and even Native Americans from the Andes who converted to Judaism long ago but were not allowed into the synagogues of European colonists.

There is a group of Japanese Jews who claimed right of return after German Jews and others came across Russia and down from Vladivostok through Japan on the way to Israel. Neither Imperial Japan nor postwar Japan had a tradition of anti-Semitism. Nor has China or India but those communities died in isolation from the rest of the world community.

Most of these groups, particularly the Falasha, predate rabbinical Judaism in Europe by centuries and resent being talked down to as if all Jews were blue-eyed blonde whites. The conversion of the Khazar Empire ruling class to Judaism in 740 AD is often quoted by some conspiracy theorists to say that European Jews are not Jews. This is nonsense. What is real is that Jews themselves recognize Ashkenazi, Sephardi, Mizrahi, Oriental, and "other Jewry". Older communities such as the Falasha resent being made to adopt European rabbinical ways when their community is far older and their tradition unbroken since the time of Solomon. These older communities use the Torah or Pentateuch (what we call the Bible) while the rabbinical communities use the Talmud.

Okay, so you have Jews of every race immigrating to Israel from every nation. But it is more complex than that. Besides Arab Jews there are Palestinian Jews. Hebrew and Jewish presence in the Holy Land has been continuous. Even after Samaria fell to Assyria and the Israelites were deported, the Southern Kingdom of Judea continued. When the First Temple was destroyed in BC 586 and most of the tribe of Judah taken into Exile, some Jews managed to be overlooked by Nebuchadnezzar. In 135 AD, the Romans put the dispersion into the Diaspora but again some were overlooked. Formal attempts to reestablish a Jewish government began in 1567 AD. The first returnees arrived in 1881. The League of Nations gave Britain a mandate over Palestine in 1922 which they used to limit Jewish immigration and land purchase. Note that they were trying to dot all the eyes and cross all the tees by buying not stealing the land as some claim.

But it is still more complex than that. There are also Armenians, Greek Orthodox Christians, and Baha'is living in Israel. There are Muslims who much prefer to be citizens of Israel than citizens of Palestine at the whim of a government of terrorists. There are Druze who claim descent from Jethro (Moses' father in law) and who are the only non-Jewish military in the Israeli Defense Force.

The whole problem is the same as the debate over the effectiveness of the surge. Who cares? We shouldn't be in Iraq in the first place. Who cares whether the surge is effective or not? Let the Palestinians and Israelis kill each other. In Northern Ireland, nothing worked until the British let the Protestants and Catholics kill each other for the better part of two centuries until they got it out of their systems. If Iran and Israel come to blows in a nuclear exchange, we can't stop it. We blew that chance when Bush got Iraq and Iran confused. If you think that is a joke, then how many times has McCain confused Sunni and Shiite? A disruption of oil supply is our problem. We should never have gotten addicted to a substance owned by the very terrorists who want to kill us. The Founding Fathers warned us about entangling alliances dragging us into wars.

The use of nuclear weapons by Israel and Iran (and Pakistan and India) will scare the rest of world into finally getting rid of nuclear weapons altogether.

Just in time for those aliens in Independence Day. Oh my God.