State Of Israel Quotes
The “radicals” refer to the extremely conservative, religiously-oriented Israelis. To them the only real and important element is the land that God gave to the Jewish people. They see the State as artificial and whose only legitimate role is to protect and defend the land of Israel. God has ordained the laws in the Talmud—the first 5 Books of the Old Testament. They do not believe in democracy but seek a Hebrew Theocracy of the Ancient Jews before they made the error of having kings. Some of them opposed the civil government of Israel when the country was founded via a UN resolution and a few would not even defend the new country under a civil government. The relative moderates see Israel as a nation state where the land of Israel can be changed, negotiated, traded as other nations do with their borders. One irony is no one knows exactly the borders of the land which God gave to the Jews and this is why archeology is so politically important in Israel compared to other countries.
Prior to 1948 and the establishment of the state of Israel, there were large number of Jewish refugees who were stateless and, regardless of whatever moral rights they may have had, there was no politi.cal mechanism to enforce or claim these rights. For example, in 1956 Nassar expelled most of the Egyptian Jewish population. It was only the existence of Israel that gave these people the right to come to Israel and not depend on the good will of the world to help them as refugees. The difficulty for most refugees is that there is no state to demand, support, and enforce their rights.
The very day of Israel’s birth, 14 Arab Armies attacked a badly outnumbered group of citizens with no formal army and few weapons. The reason the Mufti called on Arabs to leave was to allow the Arab heavy armor and artillery to be used without endangering Arab civilians. The Jews however had no place to go and were fighting for their very lives. Surprising the entire world, they not only beat back all the Arab Armies but won additional strategic positions. The Arabs who stayed became Israeli citizens and there are almost ½ million of them today. Those that left, were rejected by the Arab nations who started the war (except Jordan) and asked them to leave could not be distinguished from those Arabs who, even after the Israeli victory vowed to attack again. That is the origin of the Arab refugees. Since the other Arab states except Jordan would not assist their fellow Arabs, the only solution seems to be a Palestinian State on the West Bank and Gaza, but for that to happen war and terrorism would have to end and Israel would have to be accepted.
A major issue amongst Israeli’s is to how they should relate to those hostile Islamic nations in their area who claim they are at war with Israel or the Jewish People. This position in effect says that the oratory of those Islamic groups that claim that they are in a war—a holy war even—should be taken at their word and treated as a wartime enemy and Israel should actively attempt to kill and destroy them.
