Grandma's army

A WAR OR NOT A WAR? It was neither the intention of Israel or Lebanon to start a war between the two countries. However, a military conflict began in July 2006 when Hizbollah terrorists ambushed an Israeli army border patrol, kidnapping two Israeli soldiers and killing three others. Stuart Palmer, one of my fellow residents in “Protea” (senior residence home), coined the above title in a booklet of his personal reflections. Stuart and his wife were living in Haifa, which was in the line of fire (together with Tiberias, Nazareth, Safed ), when the “war” broke out. [Since retiring, Stuart has become the Northern Area Director of ICAN (Israeli Citizens Action Network) and a member of BIG (British Israel Group), whose organisations are actively involved in advocating Israel’s position in the conflict with the Palestinians and now Hizbollah.] According to Stuart’s well-researched booklet: In the space of a few days, two million Israelis became under the threat of the thousands of ro

  From the early hours, on the Sabbath of January 8 th , pilots were already strapped in their cockpits. They were waiting for the inevitable reprisal attack from the humiliated RAF. The hours crept by as the tension mounted. Contrary to the demands of the RAF squadron leaders who were begging for the go-ahead to launch a massive retaliatory strike against Israel, RAF headquarters withheld permission. Instead, the British Foreign Office fired off a furious protest to the Israeli government, demanding compensation for the loss of airmen and aircraft. Truman was condemning  the British for interfering in the Middle East conflict. The British House of Commons was in an uproar. While they were debating the issue, Winston Churchill demanded an explanation for the unreported downing of another British warplane shot down over the coast of Israel the month before ! Although the British Air Ministry tried to dodge the question, Churchill continued to probe. When finally admitting that the wa

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). Its original purpose w

Like the corona virus, the new anti-Semitism has mutated so that practitioners of it can deny that they are anti-Semites. “After all”, they’ll say, “I’m not a racist. I have no problem with Jews or Judaism. I only have a problem with the State of Israel”. But in a world of 56 Muslim nations and 103 Christian ones, there is only one Jewish state, which constitutes one-quarter of one per cent of the land mass of the Middle East! Israel is the only one of the 193 member nations of the United Nations that has its right to exist regularly challenged, with one state, Iran, and other groups, committed to its destruction. How come the Jews have been  “chosen” for thousands of years as the world’s scapegoats whenever a crisis emerges? At the time of Jesus, Jews were hated because of their religion. At the time of Hitler they were hated because of their race. Today, since the leading source of authority worldwide is “human rights” Israel is regularly accused of crimes against humanity: rac