THE ANCIENT CASE FOR MODERN ISRAEL

I apologize to that cluster of beloved Jewish anti-Zionists, those whom I know personally, for my reticence in not pouncing upon their lofty ideals with strong rebuttals of my own when occasion permits. My own lofty tendency is to allow people their own thoughts and idealogies. After all, most everybody, including these highly educated and emotionally bold prophets of [that dead horse called] Marxism hold themselves in high regard for arriving at their own conclusions. Fair enough. But here in ineffable print, I am the first to shout from the rooftops:

LET'S NOT BE COY!

1. Israel became a state in 1312 B.C., two millennia before Islam;
2. Arab refugees from Israel began calling themselves “Palestinians” in 1967, two decades after (modern) Israeli statehood;
3. After conquering the land in 1272 B.C.., Jews ruled it for a thousand years and maintained a continuous presence there for 3,300 years;
4. The only Arab rule following conquest in 633 B.C. Lasted just 22 years;
5. For over 3,300 years, Jerusalem was the Jewish capital. It was never the capital of any Arab or Muslim entity. Even under Jordanian rule, (east) Jerusalem was not made the capital, and no Arab leader came to visit it;
6. Jerusalem is mentioned over 700 times in the Bible, but not once is it mentioned in the Qur’an;
7. King David founded Jerusalem; Mohammed never set foot in it;
8. Jews pray facing Jerusalem; Muslims face Mecca. If between the two cities, Muslims pray facing Mecca, with their backs to Jerusalem;
9. In 1948, Arab leaders urged their people to leave, promising to cleanse the land of Jewish presence. 68% of them fled without ever setting eyes on an Israeli soldier;
10. Virtually the entire Jewish population of Muslim countries had to flee as the result of violence and pogroms;
11. Some 630,000 Arabs left Israel in 1948, while close to a million Jews were forced to leave the Muslim countries;
12. In spite of the vast territories at their disposal, Arab refugess were deliberately prevented from assimilating into their host countries. Of 100 million refugees following World War II, they are the only group to have never integrated with their coreligionists. Most of the Jewish refugees from Europe and Arab lands were settled in Israel, a country no larger than New Jersey;
13. There are 22 Muslim countries, not counting palestine. There is only one Jewish state. Arabs started all five wars against Israel, and lost every one of them;
14. Fatah and Hamas constitutions still call for the destruction of Israel. Israel ceded most of the West Bank and all of Gaza to the Palestinian Authority, and even provided it with arms;
15. During the Jordanian occupation, Jewish holy sites were vandalized and were off limits to Jews. Under Israeli rule, all Muslim and christian holy sites are accessible to all faiths;
16. Out of 175 United Nations Security Council resolutions up to 1990, 97 were against Israel; out of 690 general assembly resolutions, 429 were against Israel;
17. The U.N. was silent when the Jordanians destroyed 58 synagogues in the old city of Jerusalem. It remained silent while Jordan systematically desecrated the ancient Jewish cemetery on the mount of olives, and it remained silent when Jordan enforced apartheid laws preventing Jews from accessing the Temple Mount and Western Wall.

I was told once by a friend that he believed that anyone on the planet should be free to live anywhere. Not the first time I'd heard that one. In fact, I used to dream of that same world back in my own teens and twenties. But now we are both in our fifties. And I for one have always sensed that the world does not contour to the fantasies of flower children, no matter how soft and beautiful the messenger. But my friend is a serious political activist to this day. And the fact that he, as a Jewish "unbeliever" in the state of Israel, is currently allowed and even encouraged to immigrate and set up residence in Israel, while I, a non-Jewish "believer" in the state of Israel, cannot, makes no sense to him. Fair logic. But logic, we have found, feeds on the corpses of foolish philosophers, and legion are their number. I think Wittgenstein said that.

On the other hand, to hold to his own "free to live anywhere" principle, there should then be nothing to prevent Jews from around the world and current Israelis from setting up house in Israel much the same as they currently do. And this is something the Arabs (and by default, their left-leaning comrades) simply cannot stomach. For these Arab supremists, disturbed by a non-dhimmi Jewish settlement in any form, wish to push the state of Israel, off the map and into the sea. How many times must they state their monstrous case for it to be heard by the ideologues lurking along the Western Left fringes, proclaiming peace at any cost when there is no peace to be had?

After all, the whole story of Baalam and the talking ass begins when the prophets of old, busy taking bribes and acquiescing to the fears of the pagan rulers of that time, proclaimed, "Peace! Peace! Peace in our lifetime! Victory over Israel" But according to the storyline, this was not to be. War and destruction for the Moabites and others was on the menu, and no amount of peacebrokering was going to dissuade the future. Several thousand years later, we have the Neville Chamberlain edition of this old tale.

Today, we seem to be living under similar conditions yet again.

So to this end, I leave you, dear anti-Zionist reader, a poem written in 1980 by a poet you have perhaps known in other roles, walking alone along the line of bleeping patriots:

DIED IN MY MOUTH

A silent tongue unravels the strangling noose,
Its path, unheralded by truce.
Odd scratched and scribbled graffitti,
Peacemaking my splintered head,
Ballets in dizzy nymph

Arousing the needy.
A parlor hunger, birds unfed.

My mind, a blank page.
My head leaps as a small frog,
There is no comfort.

The nothingness crowd is quoted no more,
Altared but undevoted they pay by nod.
My mind, a cluttered page.
My head sleeps as a burnt ephemeral log,
There is no comfort.
(Yet told around gracious Sin Avenue
camp fires spotting downtown Machinery Row
to the lilies laughing over a fine glass
of the best Napolean brandy
noonday dollars never doubt
where sheer distance is divided by
voteless cog, the mist of democracy
is seen reflecting upon our names
an appointed fog grazing upon
the tracks of method....)

And the saint thus
Spoke scantily to the prophet:
"He who demoralizes another
"Can claim no morality for himself."
To this the prophet said nothing, but
He knew in part the saint
For a shanty fool.

(And the unfed,
Left to perish among
The unwelcome, left to ravish
The beauty of beast, and the beast
Of beauty, established
Many fine logics.)

I fell blank at such a formula—
Asses built on caged numbers observed,
Deserved and dirty word reserved
For quaint molecules and family,
Where my occupation is a gift to anyone
Stroking along fishy fables,
Mentality tables, cradled
Images, daisies, nightsies,
Keepsies.

I am the yellow sheep
I can’t earn my keep
Proving the fallibility of this text
World without maps
World without worldliness
Matterhorn

My mind, an accurate page.
My head keeps to its own symbol,
There is no comfort.

I wonder what proof died in my mouth.