David versus Goliath

Each morning following the Modeh Ani prayer I say to myself, "I feel safe in the unknown."  Followed by, "Thank you Ha'Shem for another day of life.  Give me the grace to live this day... Deeply, fully, and joyfully!"  Each time I open my computer I struggle in deciding if I want blissful ignorance in my day in regards to world events, or if I should start checking news outlets to see what's going on in the world.  Each day the news wins and each day I get more and more frustrated with the UN and the international community's double standards for Israel.

While countries all around us are killing their own people, expelling non-Islamic persons, and are building and buying nuclear weapons and arms; somehow Israel continues to get the bad press.  We're fired on, attacked by rioters, and condemned by the international community over and over again.  For what?  For being Jewish?  For wanting to protect our people and our own country?  For allowing religious freedom?  No other country in the world would allow such nonsense to continue.  No other country would be condemned for protecting it's own people the way we are.  No other country in the middle east protects democracy and freedom the way we do.

The Palestinian Authority (PA) broke agreements with Israel with their bid to the UN for upgraded status recognition.  After more restraint than any other country in the world, Israel announced plans to approve and build over 3,000 homes in the area now known as "E1".  This piece of land connects East Jerusalem to Maale Adumim.  It's the space between Judea and Samaria, connecting the southern and northern parts of the "West Bank".  The world is in an uproar screaming, "injustice!"  Israel has also announced that we will stop paying aide monies to the PA until at least March.  Billions of dollars is currently owed to the Israeli government by the PA for water and energy consumption.  Palestinians in Judea, Sameria, and Gaza are supplied with water and electricity from an Israeli power grid.  Billions of dollars worth of energy is paid by the Israeli tax payer for what?  So some "poor Palestinian" can have water and electricity?  The same Palestinian who will pick up a rock, or sometimes even a molotov cocktail, and hurl it at oncoming traffic.  The same ones who will attack soldiers and start riots.  Thank you Israel for the electricity, water, and aide money.... take a burning tire thrown on the road in front of your car as a token of our gratitude.  Can you sense my frustration?

This week has been nothing short of shocking and frustrating to me as I continue to read article after article about what is going on in the world.  History is about to repeat itself.  We are on the edge of World War 3... we have been for a very long time.  The Christian nations of the world are about to battle with the Arab nations of the world.  This will be a religious war.  If the Christian nations don't make the moves needed, the Jewish nation of Israel will.  Our tiny sliver of land and population will move forward and do what needs to be done.  We will take out nuclear weapons in Iran, we will crush weapons and arsenals in Syria, Lebanon, Gaza, etc.  Whatever and however the job needs to be done, we will do it.  We will do it holding the shield of King David as we fight for what is right.

Do I want war?  Of course not.  Who WANTS war?  I want to see an end to conflict.  I want to see an end to terror and murder.  The world is on the edge of the biggest change we've experienced in our lifetimes.  I truly believe that.  I would love to see us come to that change with openness, love, and tolerance, but that seems to be a reality that is moving further and further away.

As Hanukah is coming to an end I can't help but think about the parallel between the story of Hanukah and what's currently happening in the world around us.  In the story of Hanukah the tiny nation of Israel, a small rag tag group of Rabbis, stood up to the Greeks and fought a courageous and miraculous war.  Right now, the land of Israel is once again looking to stand up for herself against the Arab nations surrounding us.  Once again we are on the side of David as he prepares to fight Goliath.  As I've said before and I will continue to say again... history is bound to repeat itself.  Time is not linear.  Time is circular.  We have stood up to the Greeks, Romans, Egyptians.  We have survived Inquisitions, expulsions, the Holocaust.  We will continue to fight.  We will continue to be strong.  Never again.

As we finish Hanukah and look towards the end of 2012 I pray that we all have holidays filled with light, love, joy, and blessings.  

Laughter is the Best Medicine

This past week the Palestinian Authority took to the UN to apply for a non-voting, observer status recognition.  Their bid for this upgraded status within the eyes of the United Nations was overwhelmingly approved this past Thursday.  Our Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, responded with the approval to build 3,000 new homes throughout the areas of: Jerusalem, Judea, and Sameria.

Following this approval of upgraded status in the UN, I could see and hear the celebrations coming out of the Arab neighborhood across the road from my yishuv (village).  Gun fire, fire works, music.  By the way, how does gun fire support peace?

For the past several nights I've been able to see low flying Israeli fighter jets and helicopters circling the Judean desert.  They have been so low that it feels like I could look up and be able to see the pilot's faces... wave hello... share a cup of coffee.  The noise of 6 low flying fighter jets, if you've never been around them before, is loud enough to stop conversation and rattle my apartment windows.

Thank Gd, this doesn't scare me anymore.  In fact, it makes me proud of our country and our army.  The world continues to condemn every move Israel makes.  Over and over again.  The Palestinian Authority and the United Nations have continually been the road blocks for peace.  What right does the UN have to tell Israel to stop building on our own land?

I've been reading in the news about how Israel has road blocked the peace process.  Outrageous!  It's impossible for me to wrap my mind around the idea of this.  How are we the bad guys here?  We're victims of terror, rocks, fire bombs, rockets, gun fire.  We respond with caution, preciseness, and state of the art technology like the Iron Dome to protect our own citizens, our cities, our borders, our sovereignty.

Syria, which borders Israel to the northwest, is currently building GAS CHAMBERS to kill their own people and the UN is silent.

Iran is clearly building nuclear weapons.  You know it.  I know it.  Everyone knows it.  They openly talk about the destruction of Israel and America.  Yet the world tip toes around Ahmadinejad's tyrannical regime.

Israel wants to build 3,000 new homes in Jerusalem, her capital city, and the world is in an uproar.

Israel is the ONLY democracy in the middle east.  This is the ONLY place where Christians, Jews, and Arabs can practice their own religious beliefs in freedom.  This is the ONLY place that allows those same free citizens to protest and attack its own army and citizens.  Somehow we are in the wrong here.

OPEN YOUR EYES TO THE TRUTH!!

Maybe I've never noticed before, but it's noticeable now, the tension walking down the street and passing an Arab.  My natural southern Californian girl instincts are to smile as I pass another person on the street.  I'm still unnerved by the self imposed segregation and avoiding of eye contact.  Still seeing Arabs here working on my yishuv just enforces that feeling.  They may be here just to make a decent living (one that they can't make in their own towns) but I'll tell you what... for me, after hundreds of rockets have been raining down on Israel... I also find myself avoiding eye contact.  Like eye contact is what is going to save us from a war or something?

After so much intensity and frustration I was looking forward to going to a comedy show this past Sunday night.  The Mandell Foundation hosted a fund raiser show called, Comedy for Koby.  Laughter is the best medicine afterall.  To know that I could spend an evening laughing (for my own medicinal purposes) while supporting a foundation as great as this one was a double bonus for me.

In 2001 the Mandell family, of Tekoa, had the most horrific tragedy of the brutal terroristic murder of their oldest son, Koby.  The Mandell family now runs a foundation to support the victims of terror.  Bereaved children and orphans whose parents or siblings have been killed by terrorists can attend a summer camp, Camp Koby and Yosef, of fun and healing.  Bereaved mothers can attend workshops to help nurture themselves physically, psychologically and spiritually.

I laughed until my cheeks hurts.  I laughed until I cried and found release.  In the days following I've found some perspective.  

As I said the show was a hit.  The comedians were positively hilarious for a variety of reasons.  

Each comedian was at this event to support the Mandell Foundation and all the good that they do for bereaved victims of terror.  Each American - Christian comedian should be commended for their bravery of coming to Israel when others cancelled.  You see 2 out of the 3 original comedians cancelled their trip to Israel due to the recent rockets from Gaza.  They should also be commended for attempting to be funny in a place with a VERY DIFFERENT sense of humor.  Remember... this was the Jerusalem show I attended.  Every audience member was Jewish.  Most were religious Jews.


At the end of the show the comedians came back on stage for a brief question and answer period.  What's the first question a Jewish woman would ask these 3 guys?...  "Do you boys need a place for dinner?"  The answer, "I didn't know there were 'cougars' in Israel!"  This is HILARIOUS for a number of reasons.  Most pointedly was the fact that the comedians didn't understand that this Jewish mother was honestly trying to offer a meal to these guys.  Secondly was the fact that instead it was assumed she was a "cougar".  (I don't think half the audience knew what a "cougar" was.)

I feel that this first question and answer is a clear reflection of what is going on in the world around us.  We, as Israelis, are saying one thing and the world hears another.

I know you've been traveling so I'll be considerate and offer you a home cooked meal doesn't mean, "hey young man wanna come over later for sex?"

We want to build houses in our country, our land, our capital... Doesn't mean that we don't want peace.  We've always wanted peace, love, understanding.  To understand means that we must also be understood.  It means that we also have a culture, history, nationality, and language that is specific to us.  Not every place in the world is the same.  Our nation crawled out of the ghettos in Europe and claimed a tiny sliver of, what was then, swamp land and turned it into a thriving nation.  We have every right to exist.  We have every right to defend ourselves.

We want peace, meanwhile Arabs nations around us don't even want us to exist.