Articles Index Not By Choice, Another Holiday, Another Threat
Written by Gadi Adelman Sunday, 09 October 2011 22:09
In 1973 during the festival of Yom Kippur, Israel was attacked by her neighbors. Now, 38 years later, Israel is once again on alert during Yom Kippur.
Yom Kippur is the holiest day in the Jewish calendar. It is the day on which Jews are closest to God as well as to the embodiment of their own souls. It is the Day of Atonement, "For on this day He will forgive you, to purify you, that you be cleansed from all your sins before God" (Leviticus 16:30).
On October 6, 1973 Egypt and Syria launched a coordinated surprise attack against Israel. Because the attack came during Yom Kippur, there was no television or radio and Israel had no way of calling up its reserve units.
The equivalent of the total forces of NATO in Europe was mobilized on Israel's borders. In the Golan Heights, 180 Israeli tanks faced 1,400 Syrian tanks. At the Suez Canal, 436 Israeli defenders were attacked by 80,000 Egyptian soldiers.
Nine Arab states, including four non-Middle Eastern nations, aided the Egyptian-Syrian war against Israel.
Despite Israel’s ultimate success on the battlefield, the war has been considered by many a diplomatic and military failure. A total of 2,688 soldiers were killed and 7,250 were wounded.
Move forward 38 years and look at what has happened. Israel is certainly not better off and is actually facing more enemies then before.
The Iranian revolution of 1979, also known as the Iranian Islamic Revolution brought in the Ayatollah Khomeini. The current President of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, consistently denies the Holocaust and threatens Israel with extinction.
Iran is not only developing nuclear weapons; it arms, trains and funds the terrorist organization Hezbollah in Lebanon. Israel fought a war with Hezbollah during the summer of 2006. 43 civilians were killed by rockets fired into Israeli cities during the war and 121 Israeli soldiers lost their lives.
Since its inception in 1982 Hezbollah has launched thousands of rockets and missiles into Israel and is believed to have an arsenal of 33,000 more.
The terrorist organization Hamas in the Gaza Strip was founded in 1987 after the first “Intifada” (uprising) and came to power in January 2006 when it defeated the Fatah organization in the Palestinian parliamentary elections.
The first war with Hamas began on December 27, 2008 after hundreds of rocket attacks on southern Israel. The war known as Operation Cast Lead was a three-week bombing and invasion of the Gaza Strip by Israel that was an attempt to stop Hamas rockets from raining down on its civilians. Needless to say, the rockets continue today.
Hosni Mubarak became Egypt’s Vice President in 1975, and assumed the presidency on October 14 1981, following the assassination of President Anwar El Sadat. Sadat was assassinated for making peace with Israel 2 years earlier. The peace treaty that has lasted for 32 years is now questionable to say the least.
Mubarak was ousted from the presidency in February during the start of the “Arab Spring”. The Muslim Brotherhood, an organization that had been outlawed under both Sadat and Mubarak, stepped in and is now both a legal and viable political movement. The movement, now known as the “Freedom and Justice Party,” claims that 39% of Egyptians will vote them into power according to the official Muslim Brotherhood’s website,
A recent poll indicated that 39% of voters have already decided they would choose the Freedom and Justice Party (FJP) in the upcoming parliamentary elections, while 20% voted in favour of the Wafd Party and 6.8% chose the Salafist Nour Party. According to the poll, 55% of those surveyed remain undecided.
Less than two months after Mubarak’s ouster I wrote about Egyptian officials referring to Israel as “the enemy”:
A senior Foreign Ministry official said a few senior Egyptian officials have uttered harsh statements in the past two weeks and even called Israel "the enemy." Egyptian Finance Minister Samir Radwan, for example, referring to the possibility of Israeli investments in Egypt, said Egypt did not need investments from "the enemy."
I reported that an investigation into the August terror attack in Eliat that killed 8 with dozens more injured (most of whom were civilians), found that the weapons used were being smuggled in from both Iran and Libya,
IDF sources said that since Egyptians toppled President Hosni Mubarak’s regime in February, the number of warnings about terror attacks from Sinai has doubled. Arms smuggling into Gaza from Sinai has also surged since Mubarak’s fall. Most of the weapons come from Iran via Sudan, but more recently, arms taken from Libyan army depots left unguarded due to that country’s civil war have also arrived.
Libya, just one of several Middle East nations going through the so called Democratic changes with the Arab Spring has the full backing of NATO and the U.S. Now the weapons that Libyan Rebels were screaming that they needed in order to topple Col. Muammar Gaddafi are finding their way through the Egyptian Sinai to be used in terrorism by Hamas against Israeli civilians.
This past Friday, the Jerusalem Post reported that Security forces are on high alert as Israelis mark Yom Kippur,
Security crossings into Israel from the West Bank were temporarily closed Thursday night and will open again at midnight on Saturday in accordance with security assessments adopted by the IDF.
The security presence in Jerusalem was also beefed up on Friday in preparation for Yom Kippur.
Maybe I am the only who realizes it, but it really does seem like every time the Arabs in and around Israel celebrate a holiday, Israel, her military and civilians suffer.
Yet whenever Israel celebrates a Holiday… Israel suffers.
What is it going to take before the UN and the World see that the “Religion of peace” is nothing more than the “Religion of pieces”? Yes, pieces of body parts after any suicide bombing or uprising.
Israel suffers day in and day out, holiday or not, but it would be nice for Israel and its people to be able to enjoy just one Holiday without her sons and daughters and reservists being called up and put on alert.
To quote Tevye from Fiddler on the roof,
“God, I know we are the chosen people, but could you do me a favor and choose someone else for a while?”
