Jews and Jewish history have always confounded the experts.
Thrust into the role of the most persecuted people on the planet, they never stopped contributing to that world and being hated for it all the more.
Historians, anthropologists, sociologists, psychologists, political scientists, and "the candlestick maker" have never been able to explain this unique tiny small nation. How does it still exist - and thrive?
How did these tiny, persecuted, dispersed people survive and then even come home after two thousand years?
Lately, Jewish history like history in general seems to be speeding up.
The twentieth century has more change packed into it than all those preceding it.
This is even more so for Jewish history.
With the establishment of the Jewish state in 1948 Jewish communities of the Diaspora saw a rapid decline in its significance for Jewish history and destiny.
Rapid demographic trends point to the unavoidable disappearance of Jewish communities outside the homeland.
History has removed the Jews from the stage of the Gentiles to one built by themselves.
What transpires on this platform attracts disproportionate attention.
The close scrutiny paid to the flourishing Jewish state is often of envy and hate. The same scorn reserved for their Jewish guests is now directed toward the Jewish state.
As it was in exile, so today Israel, there is nothing to be done to change it. Acceptance will never be won. (Respect is another matter).
This most illogical state of affairs was predicted by our prophets and our greatest rabbis of old.
Did they not try to eliminate the newly-born state in 1948? Our enemies close and far were convinced that the handful of Jews would be wiped out in a short time. This time there will be no survivors as there were in the Holocaust three years earlier.
On paper, the warnings/command of the US Defense Department, not to declare a state were logical. The British armed, trained, and led the numerous standing Arab armies surrounding the hated Jews. All experts agreed that tiny Israel with no army and isolated and embargoed by the world stood no chance.
Israel won.
The world was stunned.
How?
In May 1967 the USSR and the Communist Bloc replaced the British Empire as the main instigator and supplier of the Arab world surrounding Israel. The lust for Jewish blood was certain to be quenched this time around. Who imagined any alternate scenario? Miracles can't happen twice.
The USA and the West once again embargoed the tiny Jewish state Israel and demanded that Israel not act.
I remember as a child in NY how we said prayers and were glued to the radio for weeks praying for a miracle.
On June 5, 1967, the war began. Six days later it was over.
Israel won. How?
Like in 1948, none of the experts could explain.
In 1973, I came to Israel as an exchange student for a one-year program at Hebrew University.
I found an Israel that was very calm and upbeat.
All that changed on Yom Kippur, October 6 at 2:00 pm.
The sirens were sounded. We were all dumbstruck, including the Israeli government and armed forces.
The combined surrounding Arab armies with close and massive Soviet support launched a devastating coordinated attack.
American promises of aid were ignored (by Kissinger) as Israel was bleeding to death.
We only later learned just how close Israel was to being overrun and destroyed.
Israel managed to turn back the invaders and was on the way to Damascus and Cairo.
The most amazing successful counterattack in history had just taken place.
The experts were puzzled yet again.
How?
In 1991 during the first Gulf War, Saddam Hussein fired scores of scud missiles, each one the size of a bus, into Israel's metropolitan areas. The US demanded that Israel not respond
During that war, the same scud missiles killed hundreds when they struck targets outside of Israel.
The thirty-nine scuds that rained down on Israel's metropolitan areas caused no casualties.
Once again the experts were puzzled.
How?
Dr. Mordechai Kedar, a Middle East expert from Bar Ian University wrote a very sobering article last week. He explained that Iran has been coordinating a war plan that will include the launching of tens of thousands of missiles and cyber attacks from proxies in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Gaza, Yemen, and perhaps beyond. Israel's air defense system will not be able to meet this threat. The country's civilian and military infrastructure will be crippled, thus the reserves will not be able to join their units to defend the borders and internal attacks.
The Arabs of the Palestinian Authority and Israeli Arabs will attack from within as thousands cross our borders from Lebanon and Gaza capturing Jewish villages and towns and holding them hostage in return for surrender.
Those not openly supportive of the Arab /Iranian coalition will do the same as they did in the past when the sword was at Israel's throat. Nothing.
This initiative is encouraged by the current rebellion by anti-religious "Israelis" that has weakened the army and the Jewish state. This internal fissure is the signal they were waiting for. a go-sign for They have reason to believe that this time there will be no miracles to save the divided Jews.
No more miracles, the experts say.
However, by this time, people of faith understand that the God of the Jews has not and will not abandon His people.
Our prophets assured us. Our history proves it.
The experts will continue to ask, how?
And the "Israelis"?
Will they finally return to their Jewish selves?
tour guide and author
"Jews, Israelis and Arabs"
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