Happy 70th, Israel!

"Israel is a Jewish state, the only Jewish state in the world, and the only Jewish state that has existed for thousands of years. And as such, it carries the very difficult burden of the Jewish people, which is mostly unpleasant." 
"I am a realist. I think Israel will never be left alone. It will continue to carry the burden. So it’s not like people say, ‘OK, you will have peace with the Palestinians tomorrow, if you give them every last inch of the West Bank’ — it’s not going to resolve the problem. They’re going to continue to ask for more. And then you can give them the Galilee, and then they’ll ask for more. So I don’t think the Israeli-Palestinian problem will be resolved."
"On the other hand, Israel is so energetic, so successful in so many ways. Look at all the achievements in science, in culture, in music, in so many respects. So the stronger it becomes, the more sought-after it will be. So there are a lot of these dualities to being on the receiving end and being singled out for disproportionate criticism, while on the other hand you have all these people who want Israel to help them in many ways, whether it’s political, or militarily, or scientifically, or culture, technology — all the high-tech, the start-up nation – and so on."
"I think if Israel is left to its own devices it will continue to be a great success story, but then you have your enemies. We are left to continue to struggle. But on the whole, I think I am realistic, but mildly optimistic."
Efraim Karsh, director, Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies, professor emeritus of Middle East and Mediterranean Studies, King’s College London

Culture Minister Miri Regev unveils the logo for Israel's 70th anniversary celebrations, during a press conference on January 15, 2018. (Hadas Parush/Flash90)

Tomorrow, Israel celebrates 70 years of its existence as a modern Jewish State established in the ancient heritage geography of Judea, marking three thousand years of continuous Jewish presence in the Middle East. Its presence as a Jewish state in the midst of Arab and Islamic neighbours has ensured its current history has been fraught with threats and violence. The nascent Jewish state had to defend itself from the onslaught of combined Arab armies before it could even assemble a national military in 1948.

One attempt after another by its neighbours plotting to destroy the state and either slaughter its Jewish inhabitants or create another diaspora which has served Jews ill, living as a minority group despised for its ethnicity, culture and religion among majority Christian nations where incessant threats, pogroms and expulsions roiled Jewish life in its accustomed role as the world's preeminent castoffs, until the final, devastating climax of the Holocaust led Jews to conclude that they would be safe nowhere in the world but in a land re-consecrated to Jewish life.

Israel began the struggle to establish itself as a democratically functioning state, respecting the rights of others to live in peace and security, while struggling all the while to defend itself from violent assaults from Palestinian Arabs who were outraged that land they considered their own was partitioned by the United Nations to be dispersed between Jews and Arabs, each with their own autonomous, sovereign state. Israel grasped the opportunity with gratitude, the Palestinians spurned it with rage that has never subsided.

Israel's 'friends' and 'supporters' among the Western nations of the democratic world appear uncertain whether they can or will commit themselves to celebrating Israel's 70 years of success. So Israel is prepared to celebrate alone. It does so with the knowledge that it can do nothing, particularly no steps to defend the security of its people, among whom are Druze, Christians, Kurds, Arabs living in political and lawful equality among the majority Jewish population, that will not elicit criticism from its friends, much less its enemies.

International Fellowship of Christians and Jews

Israel endures as Jews have endured over the millennia. The slights and slurs, the slanders and propaganda that the Organization for Islamic Cooperation and the Palestinian Authority cast on Israel, bringing one sanction after another against the Jewish state for 'crimes against humanity' and 'human rights abuses'; their efforts at persuading the various arms of the United Nations, from UNESCO to the UN's Human Rights body to condemn Israel and to deny its heritage and cultural rights only serve to further convince Israel that it can depend on no source other than its own determined right to exist, to survive a presence in a hostile world.

HAPPY 70th Birthday, Israel, all 8,842-million of you!