Home Israel's Heroism of Survival
Home Israel's Heroism of Survival

Israel's Heroism of Survival

Israel's military victories were never the results of an inspired military or political leadership. While the anniversary of the Six-Day War has led to an outpouring of adoration for the usual suspects; the khaki-garbed generals striding victoriously through a carefully cropped photo, even if one of them had come down with a nervous breakdown not long before, Israeli generals have never been geniuses, the best-known ones have carried their own press releases into battle, and have walked a fine line between daring and criminal incompetence. Their victories were won for them by the men in the field, who survived to carry out their operations.

Israeli children play on destroyed Syrian tank
If Israeli generals are overrated, then Israeli governments are far worse, and, considering the number of generals who have played a role in politics, the confluence of the two conditions is not surprising. Israeli governments have, for the most part, been timid, cowardly and incompetent. (Which is to say that they were, for the most part, a lot like the governments of the rest of the West.)

The victories of the Six-Day War have for the most part been traded away by a succession of Prime Ministers in exchange for the promise of a peace that has yet to materialize. It is a miracle, nearly as great a miracle as the victory itself, that they were not actually traded away a week afterward.

The only political obstacle to the destruction of Israel by its politicians, has been the unwillingness of its enemies to accept its surrender. Western powers have repeatedly badgered Israeli leaders into giving up the store, only for Muslim leaders to turn up their noses and demand everything.

Israel's greatest strategic defeat did not happen in the Yom Kippur War in 1973, a war in which Israeli leaders, in conjunction with pressure from Washington D.C., crippled the military so badly that Israel was nearly destroyed. It happened in 1991, when Washington D.C. and Israeli Labor politicians finally talked Yasser Arafat into accepting Israel's surrender, while lying to the Israeli people about the terms of that surrender.

The Israeli fighting man was able to brave the largest tank battles in history, but his leaders could not manage to hang on to the country's national rights after the dead were buried and the wounded went home. No sooner do Israeli soldiers win a victory than their leaders rush to snatch it away from them and give it back, out of fear of what the world will think.

If Israel has a vital and active settlement movement, it is because Israelis know that their own leaders cannot be counted on to secure their rights. A Muslim in Israel has the same special privileges that a Muslim in Europe or a Muslim in America has. Any claim he makes is automatically treated as fact by the media, academia and the judiciary.

That is the situation locally in every country, and it is the situation globally. It is the situation in Israel, a place that the media lambastes as a monster grinding up and chewing Muslim babies, but where a Muslim can walk into court, with a handful of papers that would not stand up to serious scrutiny in any other jurisdiction, and lay claim to the land of a small village, which holds legal title and full papers to it. And the court will refuse to accept any alternative, but to speedily evict every man, woman and child from that land, while the conservative government will threaten to fire any minister that takes legislative action against that court's decision.

It would be nice to think that this is some horrid exception, but it's the usual course of affairs in a country where a conservative government is one that occasionally talks about taking action on Iran and prides itself on boldly laying claim to its own capital. Past Israeli governments have not been better. Many have been even worse. Their victories were not won by them; they were won for them. They were achieved through bold actions taken out of desperation, by farmers and workers with guns facing impossible tasks and more impossible odds.

All this makes the Six-Day War that much more impressive and awe-inspiring. An act of G-d done through the hands of fighting men in a country facing annihilation. And it is also a reminder that Israel's survival does not depend on its governments. If past governments had been able to fully enact their peace agendas, there likely would be no Israel. Can such governments celebrate the Six-Day War? Do they have any right to take credit for what they have given away and what they intend to give away?

Much as the Jewish People have been preserved by G-d and Anti-Semitism, Israel has been preserved by G-d and the irrational hatred of its Muslim neighbors. And between these poles is where the ordinary heroism of its people emerges. This is not the heroism of brazen trumpets and endless victory parades-- but the heroism of survival.

Men glorify war in order to deny the mortality of the killing fields. But day-to-day survival is a much less glorious thing. It is not inspiring in the same overtly transcendent way. It is merely life. It is the routine of surviving from one battle to the next, one generation to the next, moving slowly toward the future, reciting Kaddish for the dead, and then going into the earth, while your children go on.

The Jewish people are survivors, not only of one Holocaust, but of many great and small. We have walked the road from a burning Jerusalem to Europe and back out of a burning Europe to Jerusalem in a mere few thousand years. That journey is the heroism of survival. It is the only heroism that matters in the long run, because it is the only kind that sustains itself.

Israelis have struggled with accepting that their heroism will not be fundamentally different than that of the Galut, the heroism of the exile, the heroism of survival. That the difference between their past and present is not fundamental, but is their ability to fight and a land to fight for. It is a transcendent difference, but not one that transforms the fundamental conditions of life for the Jewish People.

The Six-Day War was a glorious victory that came out of the ordinary necessity of survival, and it was followed by the ordinary necessity of survival. Israel after the Six Day War was bigger and more defensible, but it was not a fundamentally different place. Israel after the Oslo Accords is not a different place either; it is just weaker, more endangered and less defensible. Neither war nor peace can provide transcendence, they only change the parameters of survival.

No matter how many songs are sung about sticking flowers in a barrel and no matter how many doves of peace are released over Kikar Rabin, there is no fundamental transcendence to be found in a peace treaty. Especially a treaty that has been proven to be worthless by Israeli governments from every side of the spectrum. There is no hope to be found in change, only in survival.

Israel did not win the Six Day War because its generals were brilliant. It won it because it had no choice. The alternative was death. The mass death of millions. If Israel breaks the Iranian nuclear program, it will be for the same reason, because it has no choice.

Ein Breira is in some ways the only Israeli doctrine that matters. It says that we must survive because the only alternative, the "Breira" of the left, is death. Ein Breira means that there is a clear choice between survival and destruction. Life and death. The left has repeatedly chosen death, for itself and for others. It would be nice to say that the right has chosen life, but most often it was the left and the right which found survival thrust on it through a single stark choice, such as the one that they faced in the Six Day War. Ein Breira. Fight or die.

"Against your will you were born," the Sayings of the Fathers teaches, "against your will you live, against your will you die and against your will you are destined to give a judgement and accounting before the king, king of all kings, the Holy One, blessed be He."

The sentiments are fatalistic, and yet the modern State of Israel was born against the will of its leaders, who would have signed an accord that would have left a rump state easily consumed by the Arab armies, it lived against the will of its leaders, who would have signed it away in a hundred accords, and if it dies, it will paradoxically also be against their will.

When all the schemes and conferences come to naught, when Washington D.C. is the crutch that fails, as it always fails, then Israel discovers its survival instinct. The moment of Ein Breira that crystallizes the will of a nation that has survived for thousands of years, whose cultural integrity led it back to the land of its forefathers, and whose abilities are the result of a Divine blessing and curse; the gifts of Jacob and the curse of the greatest and most prolonged test to destruction experienced by any people on earth.

Expecting Israeli governments to do the right thing by choice is as useless as expecting most governments to do the right thing by choice. The choice is rarely theirs. It is forced on them by a recognition that all their compromises are futile, that their way has utterly failed, and that a black wall stands before them. Either life or death. Either war or suicide.

That was the choice that Israel faced in 1967. Its war was the War of No Choice, Milhemet Ein Breira. Prime Ministers and Generals crack in the face of such a wall. Their voice breaks, as the voice of Prime Minister Levi Eshkol, probably the most decent man to ever hold the office, did. Or their mind does, as the mind of one of the nation's most celebrated generals did. But where the leaders falter, the nation fights because ordinary men do not live with the illusion of control over external events. That is the fatal delusion of leaders. The ordinary man only knows that he must fight to save his people.

The truly great heroic acts of Israel's wars were often individual acts of astounding courage. They are almost incomprehensible to people who have not seen war come to their cities, who have not lived with the understanding that there are a few miles between them and armies whose sole purpose is to wipe them and their families off the face of the earth. And that those miles must be guarded by them and men like them, ordinary people who are nothing special, who are not heroes, who are waiting to go back home to their families and their jobs, who like all men, have easily apparent faults.

This reality, like the reality of ordinary pervasive bigotry, has almost passed out of the memory of men in the modern world. It has passed out of the reality of some of the posher parts of Israel, where the electorate of left-wing parties believes that this was a myth perpetuated by warmongers for the benefit of the defense industry. But it is still the reality in Israel. It is a reality that will never go away. That  can never go away because humanity does not change, it abides in its follies and evils, and then dresses them up in the sophisticated rhetoric of its chattering classes. It can be defeated in battles, but the only war that can be won against it, is the war of survival.

Survival is more than life. The genes of every people that have ever lived pollinate the human race. It is surviving with the knowledge of who you are and what you represent. It is not merely the survival of some disparate strands of DNA, but the survival of a people, a nation, and of their spirit. 

The world was created in six days and on the seventh day we rest. But there is no rest for Israel. Not before the war and not after. Not after the treaties that were supposed to end the grievances of war. No victory or peace treaty can begin or end history, they can only change the difficulty of survival, the conditions under which the ordinary heroism of the everyday life is expressed by going on despite the will of those who want to kill us that we should not. Survival is the final victory.





Comments

  1. G-d made a promise to keep Israel going and he keeps his word.

    ReplyDelete
  2. There is growing confidence in 'conservative' ranks as people more freely communicate ideas outside the MSM purview. We realise we are not isolated (contrary to what the MSM would like us to believe) and that we have access to some very clear thinkers who help sharpen the movement.

    I presume this process is going on within Israel as well, although I get the impression they are journeying from further under the leftist tent. So it may take longer. But the trend must be there. And that trend is the key to the survival of all of the West.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Ein breira indeed, yet many of those Israeli leaders who through the decades so seem to budge under foreign or domestic political pressure started out as very courageous ordinary men wanting nothing more than returning to their jobs and family. Apparently seeing the dependence of maintaining a stability in local society and foreign relationship requires maneuvers anybody not close to the top of the political echelon or at the helm of a state and thus less informed about the full reality would consider ridiculous and inconceivable.

    ReplyDelete

  4. We realise we are not isolated (contrary to what the MSM would like us to believe) and that we have access to some very clear thinkers who help sharpen the movement.


    This is no coincidence; people who think are conservative.

    ReplyDelete
  5. I've been living in Israel for almost 35 years, and I'd like to know your reasons for saying that Eshkol was the most decent person to serve as PM. He isn't so well-known as some others.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Superb piece, Daniel.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Brilliant, Daniel.

    Thank you.

    Israel Thrives

    http://israel-thrives.blogspot.com/

    ReplyDelete
  8. Anonymous12/6/12

    Here here, Lemon - the very fact there is an Israel after 2000 years is enough to know the truth of the TNK. The fact all the surrounding nations which today are confederate in their anhiilation of Israel is proof of the trustworthiness of the prophets, they want the name of Israel to be no more and want the territory due to Judah by bloodshed, it's all working up to that: the present bloodshed is 'small fish' for the final war. But we know its end. It's all laid out in them........all nations come against Israel, that's happening, you can't by Israeli ie Jewish stuff in the supermarkets for love nor money, but for e.g you can buy avocados from South Aftica where Muslim terrorists are raping and killing other Muslims and Christians are being cleared out. Meanwhile the South Africans are glutting Israel with nothing to offer.

    If Israel BDS d all nations, they would all collapse, wouldn't they? kate b

    ReplyDelete
  9. Anonymous12/6/12

    1948, 1967, 1973, 1991, all unrecognized miracles. Even with all the incompetent army and government leaders(in spite of their blunders): In each generation they come to destroy us and He saves us mi yadam, yihi Shem Adonai mevorach. Until we recognize that, more trials to come.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Linda Rivera12/6/12

    Israel is amazing! The Jews are the most amazing people on earth. It is through Jews that we know God exists and that God is utterly, utterly Awesome.

    ReplyDelete
  11. Anonymous12/6/12

    @ Linda :
    I feel the same way about America

    ReplyDelete
  12. Anonymous12/6/12

    The Muslims are not beating Israel in a military conflict. They are beating Israel in turning people in many countries against Israel, in the US and Europe. They are beating Israel in the narrative that people are paying attention to. In that battle arena Israel is losing badly.

    ReplyDelete
  13. Anonymous13/6/12

    Moshe Dayan sucked!

    ReplyDelete
  14. Very dangerously wrong.

    Any scumbag can survive and any nation of scumbags can survive. Evil people, evil nations and evil institutions are all capable of confronting their own mortality and enduring. It is wrong to believe that somehow suvivors are good and their persecutors are evil. It is bad judgement.

    And being right or wrong makes all the difference. The cause of the Jewish people is just. The cause of Israel is just. The Jewish people are innocent in history and those who persecute them are unjust. But they are not just unjust. They are liars and murderers and undeserving in history of survival, even though they are as equally capable of survival as the Jewish people are. Anyone simply concerned with survival can find a way to survive, but being right has no substitute and as an aid in survival their is no better posture or position to have. Being right is the high ground in history.

    The persecution of the Jews and all the lies spread about them are themselves the strategy of survival for peoples, nations and beliefs that have no foundation in reality, or even worse, are founded on lies, deliberate lies about history. Being right is the most important thing for the human mind to achieve. It is right to defend the innocent Jewish people against a sea of lies and injustice. Those who stand for what is right must defend them or the future of humanity itself and its survival remains in doubt.

    The history of the persecution of the Jewish people is histories greatest atrocity, there is none greater. There may have been greater atrocities, but history did not record them. At this point in history we have no excuses for being wrong. There are other things we cannot afford to be wrong about, but these remain subtle issues for the time being. The beliefs that are the most passionately held and promoted in the world are those same beliefs that have too long threatened the survival of the Jewish people and they are false beliefs and need to be confronted as such, now before it is too late.

    ReplyDelete
  15. Anonymous13/6/12

    I second Paul's opinion here. Dangerously wrong indeed!

    ReplyDelete
  16. Anonymous14/6/12

    I wonder if the author has ever felt the brunt of the US president and administration pressing on his specific skull. Most likely not, which is why he cannot conceive under what pressures the PM of Israel always labors. That is why only the gravest of dangers, the knife already thrusting through the rib-cage will make the leaders of Israel disconnest from the constant brunt, and do the right thing.
    But there is one thing the People can do, Israelis and Jews, to lead the world away from subjugation. Stop using Oil. Thats is not a fantasy, that is a solution at hand, and I am driving that solution right now in Israel
    Stop using oil. Get an electric vehicle, make your senators and congressmen drive electric vehicles. make Oil valueless, then the Brunt will decrease.
    just check out Bush walking hand in hand with the Saudi king, and Obama obeissance to the same - and make it un-necessary
    Y Brandstetter MD, Israel

    ReplyDelete
  17. Will4817/6/12

    Not many know the truth about 1973 war. It was agreed upon ahead of time between Golda Meir, Saadat and Kissinger, that Egypt should attack Israel; some 500 Israeli troops shall be killed; Israel would push back . Thus the Egyptians would save face by attacking Israel after their disastrous defeat of 1967; peace would ensue. The plan slightly backfired when 2700 soldiers died and generals panicked, nevertheless peace treaty between Egypt and Israel ensued. More importantly, the moral backbone of half a population in Israel was broken and defeatist leftist movement was born. I think the clever Kissinger understood this from the start.

    An Israeli air-force representative was murdered in the US by South African hit squad, on joined orders from Golda and the CIA, when he came to know the truth several months prior to the "surprise" Egyptian attack. His family has pushed for the truth since.

    This is not a conspiracy theory. A well respected historian (Millman or some other name, I forget, a specialist on Rabin) supports it. There was a broadcast about it on the Channel 1 government TV in Israel believe it or not.

    And more importantly - the mine fields on the Israeli side of the Suez were cleared few months before the war, to ease the Egyptians in.

    ReplyDelete
  18. Will4817/6/12

    ...And it wasn't just one person - Golda or Dayan - but several on the very top. There are transcripts buried deep inside the archives about it, apparently. It's all a bit of a mystery of course. One thing is certain - the lives of few hundred Israeli soldiers were deemed an acceptable price by the "peace-starved" strategists of the Labor government, for having their precious "peace deal" with Egypt. And Israeli people needed to receive a bit of a beating so they'd agree for the retreat from the Sinai.

    If ever there was a greater example of treason from the top, maybe it was the Baltic states governments full of Soviet spies in 1940; or it might be the today's Israel elites undoubtedly half bought, half threatened into the submission by the USA/CIA (re: shooting down the candidacy of Galant - too firm on Iran issue for the US tastes - for the Army chief, which required coordinated efforts of countless journalists, state prosecutors and the judicial adviser to the government himself).

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

You May Also Like