מה תועלת לאדם אם ירוויח את כל העולם ויפסיד את נפשו
הבל הבלים הכל הבל
Vanity of Vanities all is Vanity
What is the benefit of gaining the world and losing your soul
Israel: The Jewish State (Click for PDF)
Dionysis Theodorou
May 3rd 2009
(List of wars and military operations has been updated for 2021)
On Wednesday April 29th 2009 The State of Israel celebrated 61 years since its establishment; nevertheless, amidst the festivities celebrating 61 years of independence were heard the questions of whether Israel should exist at all and—if yes—whether Israel had the right to be a Jewish state.
The Jewish State was established in 1948 in the wake of the Holocaust, which claimed six million Jewish lives.
The Jewish people started trickling into their ancient homeland the late nineteen century after almost two thousand years of fleeing death and persecution in a hostile and anti-Semitic world. The state was to be, as envisioned by Theodor Herzl and Zionist leaders that succeeded him, a place of refuge for a victimised and battered people: security could only be achieved in a national homeland—a state for the Jewish people.
(see article on Theodor Herzl; April 2009)
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Israel’s Declaration of Independence
In 1917 the Balfour Declaration drew up the British Mandate of Palestine
which was intended to be the Jewish National Home.
In 1922, in response to Arab pressure, Britain violated the Mandate and cut off 77% of Palestine, and created the Hashemite kingdom of Transjordan forbidding Jewish settlement there. Over 70% of Jordanians are Palestinian Arabs.
The 1947 UN Resolution 181 recommended partitioning the remaining Palestine Mandate between Jew and Arabs. Jewish leaders accepted it even though their portion comprised only 13% of the original Mandate and 60% of it was the arid Negev desert. Arab leaders rejected the offer and instead went to war to seize the whole area and eliminate Israel.
David Ben-Gurion declared the establishment of the state of Israel on May 14 1948 a day before the British Mandate over Palestine was to expire. Israel was immediately recognised by the United States, three days later, by the Soviet Union and later by Iran, the United Nations and many other countries.
On the day that followed the declaration of the state of Israel, Israel was attacked by Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Egypt and Jordan. These hostile armies were aided by volunteers from Saudi Arabia, Lybia and Yemen.
If the Arabs had accepted the 1947 UN partition plan they would now be celebrating independence together with Israel. Instead, since Israel’s rebirth, their Arab neighbours they have relentlessly attacked Israel and Israel has been forced to defend itself against their openly declared goal of Israel’s total annihilation.
"The war was declared by the Arabs, after their rejection of the 1947 United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine (UN General Assembly Resolution 181) that would have created an Arab state and a Jewish state."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1948_Arab-Israeli_War
Look up the War of Independence, 1948-1949; Arab Fedayeen attacks, 1950s-1960s; The Sinai War, 1956-1957; The Six Day War, 1967; The War of Attrition, 1967-1970; The Yom Kippur War, 1973; Arab attacks from South Lebanon, 1971-1982; The First Lebanon War, 1982; South Lebanon conflict, 1985-2000; The First Intifada, 1987-1993; The Second Intifada, 2000-2005; The Second Lebanon War, 2006; Gaza War, December 2008-January 2009; Operation Pillar of Defence in Gaza, 2012; Gaza War: Protective Edge, 2014; Operation Guardian of the Walls in Gaza, 2021
“Peace will come when the Arabs will love their children more than they hate us.”
Golda Meir-Israel’s 4th prime minister.
"if the Arabs lay down their arms there will be no more war, but if Israel lays down its weapons there would be no more Israel.” Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s 9th prime minister - 1996-1999 and 2009-2021
The State of Israel has existed since 1948, although there has been a continuous Hebrew/Israelite/Jewish presence in the land for 4000 years: Abraham was led to the land and settled there 4000 years ago; Joshua and the Israelites entered and settled the land 3,500 years ago and Jerusalem has been the centre of Judaism for the last 3000 years.
Genesis 15:18 (NASB)
18 On that day the LORD made a covenant with Abram, saying,“To your descendants I have given this land, From the river of Egypt as far as the great river, the river Euphrates.
Today’s borders in light yellow. You can see on the above map in dark grey.
There are Israeli Settlements in the dark yellow areas of Judaea and Samaria.
These are called the disputed territories.
Joel 3:1-2
1 For, behold, in those days, and in that time,
when I shall bring again the captivity of Judah and Jerusalem,
2 I will also gather all nations,
and will bring them down into the valley of Jehoshaphat,
and will plead with them there for my people and for my heritage Israel,
whom they have scattered among the nations, and parted my land.
The Muslim Countries are in Green.
Can you see Israel? It looks like two little red specks. It is under Turkey.
World Muslim Population: 1.6 Billion (2009)
The Jewish Population of Israel/World: 5.8 Million/15 Million (2009)
The Jewish people are entitled to a state and the state has every right to be a Jewish state.
Let us examine for a moment the implications of this much discussed topic. What does it actually mean to have a Jewish State? Does is mean that it is a state only for Jews? Certainly not! There are 7,411,000 Israelis on the eve of Israel's 61st Independence Day, according to data released by the Central Bureau of Statistics on Monday afternoon. (2009)
About 75.5 percent, or 5,593,000, of Israelis are Jews, 1,498,000 are Arabs (20.2%), while "Others" - immigrants and their offspring who are not registered as Jews by the Interior Ministry - number 320,000 (4.3%).
Jewish state simply means a democratic state with a Jewish majority that secures the Jewish character of the state by electing a government that guarantees the security of the Jewish people and protects the rights of its citizens to celebrate of the Jewish holidays, the observance of the Sabbath and the observance of Judaism.
The argument that Zionism—the aspirations of the Jewish people for a national home—is racist should be perceived by each person in relation to his own national aspirations and loyalty to his own ethnic group and country.
Israel has a population of seven and a half million. 5.8 are Jewish and 1.5 are Arab and there are about 300,000 who are neither Arabic nor Jewish. This means that approximately 25% of Israel's population is not Jewish.
Nations and states have a religious, cultural identity and character by default.
Consider that many countries have flags with a cross or a crescent moon, symbols which are clearly religious.
The European Union, with its long Roman Catholic history, expresses its religious affiliation in its design of the European Union flag. The European Union has often been called a Christian club and has shown reluctance to accepting Turkey—a Muslim country of over 70 million—with fears that such a large influx of Muslims would jeopardise Europe's Christian character.
The circle of stars bears a striking similarity to the twelve star halo of the virgin Mary seen in Roman Catholic art. The flag's designer, Arsène Heitz, has acknowledged that the Book of Revelation (which is where the twelve-star halo of the Virgin Mary was first mentioned) helped to inspire him. Revelation 12:1 is cited to explain the symbolism: " A great sign appeared in the heaven, a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet and on her head a crown of twelve stars". ( A crown of stars can be interpreted as a "Crown of Immortality"). It has been noted that the date the flag was adopted, 8 December 1955, coincided with the Catholic Feast of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary, a feast decreed in 1854 by Pope Pius ix.
Contrary to what Islam and Roman Catholicism would have you believe, the Jewish people have never been out neither to proselytise nor to conquer.
In fact, the Rabbis make it considerably difficult for an individual to convert as a process of filtering out those who are in in for ulterior motives. You would think that considering itheir relatively small population that the Jewish rabbis would make conversion an easy process as a means of increasing the Jewish population; nevertheless, this is not the case: it is not easy to become Jewish.
Concerning land: the Jewish people have not had a state since the Roman expulsion in the second century A.D. and they haven't sought any other land to claim their own besides the land of Israel, their homeland and the land of their forefathers.
The State of Israel has made concessions and land for peace agreements which have jeopardised its security for the sake of achieving a peaceful existence.
History and a map of the world will show you that conquest and proselytising belongs to Roman Catholicism and to Islam.
The land mass under their possession and the sheer number of their adherents make it quite obvious that Islam and Catholicism have an agenda: convert and conquer or conquer and convert.
With anti-Semitism and negative publicity which causes distortion and misunderstanding of the facts surrounding the State of Israel, I consider it important to present the issues from a different perspective.
The Jewish people are entitled to a state: the state has every right to be a Jewish state.