We (Israel) Are Still Here  

By Shlomo Maital

   Hello, world.  We (Israel)  are still here.

   We fought a bitter war for our independence (Nov. 1947-July 1949.   We then battled a fedayeen insurgency on our borders in the 1950s, while absorbing millions of Holocaust survivors.   We fought the Sinai War in October 1956.  (A lot of wars seem to occur in October).   We fought the Six Day War in June 1967.  We were attacked, in a sneak attack, and fought the Yom Kippur War in October 1973.  We fought the First Lebanon War in 1982, and the First Intifada 1987-93, when suicide bombers blew up our buses, and the Second Intifada in 2000-2005.  We fought the Second Lebanon War in the Summer of 2006.   

     Re Gaza:  We withdrew from Gaza on August 15, 2005.  Then came Operation Cast Lead, Dec. 2008, and withdrawal of ground forces on Jan. 21 2009.  Operation Pillar of Defense, Nov. 2012.  Operation Protective Edge July-August 2014.  Then, Operation Guardian of the Walls, May 2021.  And now, Operation Iron Swords, October 2022. 

      Over 25,000 people, men and women, in the Israel Defense Forces have been killed in these wars.

      We are still here.  And we will still be here in 50 years, 100 years….  Why?  As Golda Meir said, we have nowhere else to go.  And because it is our country, we love it, we defend it, we are tough, resilient and creative. 

      And because, unlike our enemies, we have Jewish values starkly different from those of our enemies.

       Jewish people celebrate life.  Choose life, our Bible says.  And we do.  Hamas celebrates death, promising its soldiers Heaven in return for murderous brutality.

        Guess which value will endure and prevail.