Happy Birthday Israel!

This month Israel celebrated its 60th. birthday. This remarkable little country has achieved much in that short piece of time. Its population has gone from just over a million Arabs and Jews to more than seven million in that time. Although officially a Jewish state its population includes about 20% Arab Israelis.

We know that many people, rich and poor, educated or not, from every class in every country, hate Israel with unreasoning passion. As a Jewish person, I have learned how to live with this. But I don’t have to like it. I don’t have to accept it either. I was at a dinner party overseas a couple of years back with a low level British diplomat and his family. Clearly the man didn’t know I was Jewish, and this was a private function, so he felt free to voice the often concealed opinion that all the problems in the Middle East would cease if only shitty little Israel simply ceased to exist. I told him of my heritage and why he was wrong, and, to give the devil his due, he listened carefully and then gave me a fulsome and well meant apology. His original contentions were clearly not true, and demonstrated a total lack of understanding and knowledge of the region. Notwithstanding a million such calumnies, Israel does exist, and grows, despite all its enemies.

One of the latest, fashionable canards thrown in Israel’s direction is that it is an apartheid state although its Arab citizens willingly tell anyone interested that this is not true. Is there any truth in the counter accusation that the Israel haters are closet anti-Semites? Obviously not everyone who hates Israel is anti-Semitic, but there is a depressing correlation. Enough of their number give such unreasoning and unreasonable views on Israel that such conclusions become inevitable. In their publicly aired opinions Israel has become the bully and the entire Arab word the oppressed. This is such a distortion it would be funny if it were not so ridiculous. Just look at a map, and check out the numbers. Israel is a tiny country, the size of Wales, and is surrounded by enemies on all sides, occupying many countries, and more like the size of Europe. Israel’s population faces enemies numbering about fifty times their number.

Israel is still the only democratic state in the Middle East and this means that anyone can vote, without threat or pressure, for anyone they like. This has resulted in some volatility, but despite the wishful thinking of Israel’s enemies, it has survived and prospered.

This prosperity is evidence of Israel’s ingenuity, hard work and innovation. The country has virtually no raw materials, gas, oil or resources given to them by the grace of fate. Everything the country prospers from is derived from brains and brawn employed with unflagging energy.

When the country’s independence was voted for by the United Nations in 1948 all its neighboring Arab countries refused to accept the decision. Instead of welcoming the new state they instantly declared war and attempted to invade it from every direction. Israel, after tremendous losses, despite huge odds, managed to be victorious. This pattern of Arab denial, Israeli victory and continued, sometimes escalating intransigence, became the norm.

There were major wars following the War of Independence known as The Suez War, The Six Day War, The Yom Kippur War and The War of Attrition. To which you could add two Intifada’s and two Lebanon Wars and unending terrorist incursions and attacks.

Israel can never seem to do right since they started winning these wars. When it appeared inevitable that the fledgling state was going to be extinguished there were many admirers to be found around the world. They applauded its then socialist moral compass. The image of its people was miraculously transformed from downtrodden victims of the world’s ghettos to straight backed, handsome warriors.

Like every country on the planet Israel has made mistakes, but not noticeably more than others, and somewhat less than its many enemy neighbors. The difference is that every mistake Israel makes is magnified and those of others, particularly its enemies, are always excused as the result of Israel’s actions. It is this twisted logic that turned Israel’s building of a defensive wall to keep terrorists out into an act of aggression. This constant attack on this construction is despite the fact that it did succeed in reducing the number of terrorist bombings in Israel by more than 97%. By the way we didn’t hear similar criticism of the building of a similar defensive wall in Belfast by the British to keep the warring Catholics and Protestants apart. That wall still exists and has apparently been maintained in good order.

The aspirations from the world of Israel are far greater than for any other new country. Israel is achieving continuing breakthroughs in technology, agriculture, design, medicine and all the other elements of a modern society and has done so despite constant attacks and embargoes.

People in other countries have such a distorted view of Israel that their perception is of an ugly country, with war on every corner, populated by lying, ugly bigots who arbitrarily attack their downtrodden neighbors. The country and its people are extremely attractive at its best, and like everywhere else at its worst. The average is average. What’s exceptional is that everyone, friends and enemies alike expect and demand more from her than any other country. Perhaps it’s this unrealistic expectation that cannot to be met, that means Israel is bound to disappoint. But in reaching for the stars Israel can, and I hope and believe, will achieve greatness. Happy birthday Israel.