Guest Post — Israel at War: A Resource Guide

This guest post is by Naya Lekht, Ph.D., an educator, author, and speaker. Listen to her on this episode of NEVER AGAIN IS NOW podcast.

1. Why is this happening?

Israel is under attack by an Islamic terrorist organization called Hamas. They are funded by Iran and Qatar. Both of these countries have publicly stated that they wish to annihilate the Land of Israel. What is happening is an act of war and a crime against humanity.

2. Yes, but some people may see them as freedom fighters, resistance fighters, in a struggle against colonial Israel. I have already seen people posting “oppression leads to violence.”

In 2005, Israel completely withdrew from ALL of Gaza. That means they left the entire land for the Palestinian Arabs to self-govern. Israel wanted peace so much, they not only withdrew any political or military presence from Gaza but removed all Jewish people with Israeli citizenship from their homes. This alone should alarm any person for what does it signal that a Palestinian Arab state can only exist without a single Jew?

Within less than a year of Israel’s withdrawal from Gaza, the Palestinian Arabs elected Hamas, and Gaza became a terror outpost. They invested all of their resources NOT into building schools, highways, or hospitals, but into methods for killing Jews: from rockets to terror tunnels.

3. What is Hamas?

Hamas was formed in late 1987 at the beginning of the first Intifada, a violent wave of attacks against Jews in Israel. Its roots are in the Muslim Brotherhood movement. Hamas has their own charter in which they call for the annihilation of Israel.

4. I have often heard that while Israel may have left all of Gaza to the Arabs, the way that Israel did this and how they have economically suffocated this strip of land has contributed to Gaza being “an open-air prison.”

Let’s take the microscope off of Israel for a moment. Gaza shares borders not only with Israel, but with Egypt. After the First Arab-Israeli War in 1948, Gaza was taken over by Egypt. Between 1949-1967, Gaza belonged entirely to Egypt. The Egyptians never gave
the Arabs living on this strip of land any form of Egyptian citizenship; what’s more: the Arabs never once called to “free Palestine” from Egypt between 1949-1967. It was only after Israel won the land back in a defensive war in 1967 that calls to “free Palestine” were born.

In an effort to secure peace with Egypt, in 1982 Israel returned all of the Sinai to Egypt and offered Gaza as well. Egypt refused. To this day, Egypt wants nothing to do with Gaza and has completely closed their entire border with Gaza. What’s up with that? Why is Egypt suffocating the Gazans?

Like any other country, the security of Israel is its number one concern. When a genocidal terrorist organization such as Hamas is elected in Gaza, opening borders with Israel would mean putting the lives of all Israeli citizens at risk.

5. Because Israel is more powerful, they bear the responsibility for the Palestinian Arabs. They must restrain their might.

In World War II, America together with the Soviet Union and the United Kingdom were stronger than Nazi Germany. Should the Allies have exercised restraint simply because they are more powerful? Perhaps instead of looking at the world through the lens of who has power and who does not have power, we should apply a different moral lens: who is committing crimes against humanity and who is upholding the fibers of a democratic civilization?

6. All this would never have happened if the Zionists wouldn’t come, kick out the Palestinians and steal their land.

You should know that the term “Palestine” has no historic nor genetic connection to the Arabs who identify as Palestinians. It was a term used by the Romans after the Romans expelled the Jews from their ancestral homeland, Judea. They renamed this land to “Palestine” in order to stick it to the Jews because the Philistines, who were a people originating from Greece, were the archenemies of the Jews (think David and Goliath).

All this is to say that there never was a country, a kingdom nor a state called Palestine. It was a region that existed under several empires. The Arab Muslims who call themselves Palestinians never had sovereignty in this region. The British Mandate for Palestine, created after World War I and the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, was earmarked for the Jews. The British together with the French gave regions of what once was the Ottoman Empire to Arabs in order to offer them political sovereignty. These countries are Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria. The notion that Jews stole Palestine is one of the biggest lies and must be debunked with historical facts.

7. Why don’t the Israelis give Palestinians their own land?

This conflict is not a land conflict. If it was a land conflict, it would have been solved ages ago. We know this because the Arabs were offered land to govern on several separate occasions and each time they declined: in 1937, they declined the Peel Commission
Proposal; in 1948 they declined the Partition of Palestine by the United Nations; in 2001, Yasser Arafat, then the leader of the PLO (Palestinian Liberation Organization), was offered 97% of Judea Samaria, also known as the West Bank, half of Jerusalem and all of Gaza. This was the deal of the century. Arafat refused this deal.

But here’s the thing: Israel did give the Palestinian Arabs their own land in Gaza in 2005, and what did Gaza become? A genocidal terror-state that seeks to destroy Israel. Look at what is happening today. All the terror happening now is coming from Gaza. Imagine if Israel would withdraw from all of Judea Samaria, what do you think would happen then?

And finally, the Palestinian Arabs do govern themselves in area A of Judea Samaria. There, the PA (Palestinian Authority) fully administers civil and security measures. The corrupt PA leadership pocket money that is supposed to go to their own people to build mansions for themselves; there, they have created a system, “pay for slay,” in which families of terrorists or suicide bombers who kill Jews get paid by the PA.

And finally, and perhaps most telling in all this, is that from 1949-1967, years in which Gaza and Judea and Samaria were NOT under Israel’s military or political control, no Arabs called for a Palestinian state. As such, a record of rejection in addition to never wanting a state until Israel was in control of these areas begs the question: what do the Palestinian Arabs really want?

8. Israel should exercise restraint.

Why? Why should Israel exercise restraint? Would you? If your house was attacked and your family members were taken hostage, would you exercise restraint? If your house was constantly attacked by neighbors, would you also exercise restraint? Would any other country allow their own citizens to die for the sake of restraint? Restraint must be used with partners who truly want peace, not leadership that calls to annihilate Israel.