"Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few." Winston Churchill
Under Egyptian control Gaza had been used to shell Israel. After its conquest a few thousand settlers, men, women and children held the buffer zone against over a million hostile arabs with only their bodies and their courage.
Their own government threw them out screeching through its media organs that they were obstacles to security and peace and that with them gone, there would be security and peace. They lied.
Today from those same settlements, from Ninsanit, from Dugit and Alei Sinai, rockets are being fired on the Negev and the very same places that Gaza was supposed to be sacrificed to develop.
"One ought never to turn one's back on a threatened danger and try to run away from it. If you do that, you will double the danger. But if you meet it promptly and without flinching, you will reduce the danger by half. Never run away from anything. Never!" Winston Churchill
We ran and yet that was far from the worst of our cowardice. We let a government led by a corrupt family and its lackeys demonize, beat and expell those courageous few who had stood in the breach. Now they are gone, homeless, impoverished and unemployed and the terrorists gleefully bombard our towns from the rubble of their demolished homes. We were so desperate to buy peace without paying the price of war that we continue to turn on one another, rather than fight the real enemy.
"You have enemies? Good. That means you've stood up for something, sometime in your life."
Winston Churchill
We have spent too much time immersed in liberal dogma. We have spent too much time believing we were wrong because we had enemies. Believing we were wrong because we were at war. Never mind that Muslims equally hated America, England and France and Russia. We were told by these same countries that they were only hated because of us and as a people who were used to be scapegoats and victims we believed them. We believed them and we began to feel guilty though we had nothing to feel guilty for.
We forgot the truth of why we were hated and why it is a privilege to be hated. We forgot that we were the people of G-d, determined instead to be like all the nations. We forgot that it is an honor to be hated by evil, to be the object of rabid hatred from Nazis, Muslims, Communists and Socialists. We forgot that it is when evil tolerates you that you have become a party to evil and it is when you stand against it, that you fulfill man's purpose in this world.
"If you will not fight for right when you can easily win without blood shed; if you will not fight when your victory is sure and not too costly; you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a precarious chance of survival. There may even be a worse case. You may have to fight when there is no hope of victory, because it is better to perish than to live as slaves." Winston Churchill
We have tried not to fight. We have bargained and pleaded. We have accepted the presence of our enemies on our soil and turned our land over to them. We have piled honors on the murderers of our children, we have bowed to them and treated the murderer of the Munich Atheletes as a world leader to negotiate with. And every concession we have made to them has only cost us more blood.
The guns we have given to them were fired at our soldiers. The territory we have given over to them turned into terrorist bases and rocket positions. The honor we have heaped on them has legitimized the murderers and stayed the hands of our defenders. As we grow afraid, our enemies grow confident. As we speak of peace, our enemies speak more loudly of war if their demands are not met. The longer it goes on, the nearer draws the day when we have given up everything else, given up our honor, our dignity and the very last of our defenses and our land and we will have nowhere else to retreat to but the sea.
"I am a Zionist, let me make that clear. I was one of the original ones after the Balfour Declaration and I have worked faithfully for it. I think it is a most wonderful thing that this community should have established itself so effectively, turning the desert into fertile gardens and thriving townships, and should have afforded refuge to millions of their co-religionists who suffered so fearfully under Hitler, and not only under Hitler, persecution. I think it is a wonderful thing." Winston Churchill
Will we be like England or like Poland. Will we keep a nation or will we once again flee a land filled with our own dead. The choice is ours. The choice was always ours.
Another outstanding commentary. And on a personal note, ty for including that particular quote from Winston Churchill:
ReplyDelete"You have enemies? Good. That means you've stood up for something, sometime in your life."
Just the words I need to hear today. Thank you
After seeing Munich (I finally plunked down $10 to see it) and reading this post one thing smacked in my face--the world wants (and even expects) Israel and Jews to be perpetual victims.
ReplyDeletePatriotism and self-defense in any other country is understandable and laudable but when it comes to Israel...the world gets out a "huge hatred and intolerance stamp" to brand the nation and its people with.
I don't understand the hypocrisy at all.
You write so beautifully, but you did make one mistaken comment. It was your second to last sentence. The choice this time is not ours. The cowards amongst us may self-destruct, handing out the homes of settlers to the hungry wolves. But this time, G-d will save us in spite of their self-hatred. Some amongst us may wander from city to city and find no Rachmanut, but this will only bring about their and our salvation from the hands of Gog Bush's sycophants. Sharon, Peres, and the reincarnates of the Erev Rav will be destroyed. This time the Kapos will be destroyed. The good might lose their homes while the sycophants will lose their eternal souls. This time, unlike all of those other times in the past, things will be different. You see, Mashiach's coming b'itah is not our choice. The choice is G-d's.
ReplyDeleteChurchhill might of said some true things and he was a supporter of Israel; yet what he did to people should not be forgotten.
ReplyDelete-In 1910, as the Home Secretary, Churchill put forth a proposal to sterilize roughly 100,000 "mental degenerates" and dispatch several thousand others to state-run labor camps.
-Churchill was secretary of state at the war office when the Royal Air Force asked him for permission to use chemical weapons against "recalcitrant Arabs" as an experiment that would not kill. Churchill agreed saying, "I am strongly in favor of using poisoned gas against uncivilized tribes." (This "experiment" of course ended with hundereds of dead children, old, and disabled people.)
This next one really bothers me, I agree the Arabs have no right to Israel, but to say what he said puts just how he feels into perspective:
Winston Churchill had this to say about the Palestinians in 1937: "I do not agree that the dog in a manger has the final right to the manger even though he may have lain there for a very long time. I do not admit that right. I do not admit for instance, that a great wrong has been done to the Red Indians of America or the black people of Australia. I do not admit that a wrong has been done to these people by the fact that a stronger race, a higher-grade race, a more worldly wise race to put it that way, has come in and taken their place."
Can you get anymore heartless?
-In a letter to Mussolini in January 1927, Sir Winston said, "if I had been an Italian, I am sure I would have been entirely with you from the beginning to the end of your victorious struggle against the bestial appetites and passions of Leninism."
Even after the start of WWII, Churchill found room in his heart for the Italian dictator, explaining to Parliament in 1940: "I do not deny that he is a very great man but he became a criminal when he attacked England."
While Churchill had wise things to say, he was a man with many moral flaws in his character. He did a lot of good, but at the same time did a lot of bad.
Churchill was a product of a particular time and place and his views on colonialism were a part of that
ReplyDeletethe United States was sterilizing americans as well and had brutally put down the philipines so this was hardly unusual for the time
as for mussolini, mussolini was a dictator but one more in line with modern latin american dictators than hitler, he despised hitler and only took limited action against italian jews under pressure, under mussolini italian troops at various points even aided and rescued jews
mussolini was not one of the good guys but he was arguably better than the french who enthusiastically collaborated with hitler and fired on american troops and rounded up jews and yet are considered 'allies'
There is a huge difference between being morally disgusted at the times you live in and actively seeking to make a difference than joining in with the crowd and excusing your behaviour as cause and effect of the times you live in. There has always been a right and wrong, the problem with most people is they excuse the wrongs of certain people because they happen to fit into their agenda. If they had nothing to gain by it, they would make sure the wrongs were known to all.
ReplyDeleteMussolini on the other hand is hardly a man whom the world should remember as not as bad as others. He was what he was: a murdering dictator. He left thousands dead in his wake. The people of Ethiopia would agree greatly. Poison gas is probably one of the worst ways to go and his use of it leaves him in line with the rest of the dictators.
Mussolini was "not as bad" you could say because he had a totally sorry excuse for an Army and Navy and the British proved that one quickly. They were no match for even the French and worst of all, they couldn't even defeat the Greeks. If they had had a decent military, history would be telling a different story.
The French on the other hand have been the biggest cowards the world has ever seen and they continue in that line. The French have absolutely nothing to be proud of.
expecting figures from the first half of the 20th century to hold the positions of the second half of the 20th century is likely to end in disappointment
ReplyDeleteneither Churchill nor FDR match up to the politically correct expectations of modern liberalism, but they did their duty and fought a terrible evil at a critical time and we could use them today
as for mussolini, he was a dictator, he pursued a brutal war in ethiopia, but it was not all that out of line with what england and france had been doing on their own colonial adventures.
he was far from a good man but he was also far from a hitler, all the more so in 1927 when churchill made the comment you quoted