Grandma's army

  REWRITING HISTORY Rewriting the history of the Land of Israel in order to deny Israel's right to exist is central to Palestinian Authority (PA) policy. Long before it started the PA terror campaign (such as the Intifada’s), the PA was fighting a history war - erasing Jewish history and replacing it with a fabricated Palestinian history. This rewriting has two central goals: 1-   Erase the Jewish nation's 4,000 year history in the Land of Israel. 2-    Invent ancient Palestinian, Muslim and Arab histories in the land. This international campaign of delegitimization began a long time before   the establishment of the modern Jewish state. The ancient Romans tried to strip the area of its Jewish identity, to make it more Roman, by renaming Judea  "Syria Palaestina." Later, the fifth caliph of the dynasty of Syria - who ruled during the late 7th century - employed the tactic of delegitimising both Judaism and Christianity,  by constructi...

Although my grandchildren served in different sectors of the army, there was one significant feature of their training which was common to them all. It has been designated with the title “tohar haneshek” Literally translated, it means “Purity of Arms” and is a unique Israeli term. The term was coined by Berl Katznelson, who was one of the intellectual founders of Labor Zionism. It was unanimously   adopted by all leaders of the yishuv (Mandatory Palestine),   irrespective of their political and social orientation. They proclaimed: “we have to learn about weapons, and to carry them, but we do not want those weapons to be stained   with innocent blood.” This has become a guiding motto ever since. The application of “Purity of Arms " appeared for the first time in 1939 upon the growing Arab terror attacks on the Jewish “yishuv” (mandated Palestine).   The main Zionist paramilitary organization at the time was simply called   the “Haganah” (the Defence)...

When the Jews began returning to the Holy land - years before nationhood - they were imbued with a pioneering spirit. David ben-Gurion defined pioneering as the refusal to submit to reality. There is no other People in the world where, throughout their history,   the refusal to submit to reality is a fundamental, ongoing phenomenon.  Things did not begin with the Zionist movement, and the Zionist enterprise did not begin with the first Zionist Congress. These   early pioneers wanted to change their destiny with their own hands and to build a new life for themselves and their people.   In those days, with no financial or other resources, one of the most efficient way for economic sustainability meant living in farming communities. Kibbutz (communal agricultural settlement) ideology was established and developed during the pre-state and early years of Israel’s statehood.  During the initial years and for many years after, the Kibbutzim assumed prominen...

Israel has been continually provoked and battered by its enemies since  long   before becoming a State in 1948.   In just one of many examples: In the 1920’s, the grand mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin al-Husseini, incited pogroms against the returning Jews by claiming falsely that the Jews intended to destroy al-Aksa. Virtually the same words are being used today by the mufti’s contemporary leader, Mahmoud Abbas, leader of the PLO. In the 60’s and 70’s, the Palestine Liberation Organisation (before the Six-day War in 1967), specialised in attacking airports, airplanes, schools, and public events. By the 1990’s, Hamas focused on suicide bombs in buses and cafes.                   We are battling on all fronts.  While both my grandson (a commander in an   elite air-force unit)      and granddaughter (an arms instructor), are serving in the IDF , their father an...

When they had no country of their own, and at the  mercy of their host countries - the Jews were, by far, the most dispossessed people on earth. It is no wonder they are known as “the wandering Jews”. The Jews are a peculiar people: things permitted to other nations are forbidden to the Jews. Other nations drive out thousands, even millions of people and there is no refugee problem. Russia did it, Poland and Czechoslovakia did it. Turkey threw out a million Greeks and Algeria a million Frenchman. 13 million people were uprooted from India in the 1947 partition – to name a few examples. When, as a tiny country Israel gained independence in 1948, it had to absorb 850,000 Jews who were forced to flee from Arab lands due to Arab brutality, persecution and progroms.  These refugees had to leave all their property and belongings behind. Entire Jewish communities were wiped out; almost an ethnic cleansing. Centuries of religious customs, traditions, and culture vanished from...

The destruction of the First Temple in 586 B.C.E., was the most traumatic and transformative event for the Jewish people to have ever taken place.   According to rabbinic tradition, the Second Temple in 70 C.E. was destroyed by the Romans on the very same day, and this time the Jewish people were exiled from their homeland of Israel. From then on, the Romans promised, it would be known as Palestine . The name was derived from the Philistines, a people conquered by the Jews centuries earlier. It was a way for the Romans to add insult to injury. Another long list of traumatic events suffered by the Jews are believed to have occurred around the same day, quite a few of which have been   historically proved. Since then, from that day to the present time, Jews all over the world have fasted in order to commemorate specific events related to the Destruction. Today, we are almost at the end of the three weeks of mourning preceding the fast known as Tisha b’Av (ninth of the mo...

Over the border in Gaza, a Hamas supported invasion attempt has been raging for over a month, with rioters throwing firebombs, blazing kites,   and shooting at IDF soldiers. Almost every day at least 20 fields are burned, up to a distance of 40 kilometres from the Gaza border. Death and destruction has become the way of life for young Gazans who have been taught to hate and destroy – as they did when Gush Katif was given to them with all the greenhouses intact. In the last few months the green landscapes in the fields worked by the Israeli settlements and villages on the   Gaza borders have been turned to black and scorched earth. A few girls from the  Kfar Maimon  moshav decided to change this grim scenario and to introduce some colour into the burnt territories. They felt that, by organizing a fashion show they would increase public awareness to the terrible damage being caused by the many fires which were burning up the crops, nature reserves...

How can anyone in the world, politically astute, who looks at the map and the demographics and says it’s within the power of the Jewish people to bring peace? There is a chorus around the world which accompanies our peace process which states: “Go on with this peace process. It is good for you. It is the only way. You are morally obliged to continue”. We hear it from everywhere in the whole of enlightened Europe. “The number of Jews killed in terrorist attacks is small, and you are accustomed to death. You have been hounded for generations, and lost six million only three generations ago. With one and a half million children among   those millions, what matters it in the grand scheme of things if another teenager is murdered.” A nation worn and grief-stricken from the devastation of the Holocaust believed that its victory in war, the final arbiter of international politics, would ensure its ultimate acceptance in the region. Yet the Arabs refus...

Golda Meir once stated: “The only time we will have peace with the Arabs is when they start to love their own children more than they hate ours.”  There are plenty of Arabs, including the mothers, who would willingly sacrifice their children’s lives in the cause of Islam. One blatant example is the case of the baby from Gaza whose life was saved in a hospital in Israel which treats   Arab children with heart problems. When he was released from hospital and his mother was asked what she would like her baby to become she replied “a Jihad warrior”! Quite a few of the suicide terrorists are mere teenagers. This is not surprising since they are brainwashed from infancy to consider it a good deed to kill Jews. Talking of teenagers, Nachshon Wachsman was brutally murdered by Hamas terrorists in 1994, after being kidnapped and held hostage for six terrible days. His mother, Esther Wachsman, who was the mother of seven sons, wrote a moving article in the Jerusalem Post in th...