ELIANA BENADOR: FEAR NOT ISRAEL, GOD IS WITH US

In a 180 degree change of attitude, and before the arrival of Israel’s Prime Minister of Israel Benjamin Netanyahu, the American Secretary of State John Kerry smoothed his position saying that, “the prime minister of Israel is welcome to speak in the United States, obviously, and we have a closer relationship with Israel right now in terms of security than at any time in history. I was reviewing the record the other day: we have intervened on Israel’s behalf in the last two years more than a couple of hundred times in over 75 different fora in order to protect Israel. I talked to the prime minister regularly, including yesterday. We don’t want to see this turned into some great political football…  Obviously, it was odd if not unique that we learned of it from the Speaker of the House and that the administration was not included in the process. But the administration is not seeking to politicise this.“

In the meantime, however, discreet news by Israel’s Channel Two announced that Saudi Arabia had let Israel know that, if necessary, they were willing and ready to allow Israeli warplanes to fly over Saudi territory to bomb nuclear installations in Iran.  Channel Two cited a “knowledgeable” European official in Brussels as saying “The Saudi authorities are completely coordinated with Israel on all matters related to Iran.”

This must have been a shock for the Americans who are trying to obstruct any real measure to stop the Iranians intentions to move forward in the chapter of nuclear weapons, much to the disarray of most of their neighbours.

The Gulf countries, lead by the Saudi kingdom, site of the holiest shrines in Islam, share with the Jewish state a strategic concern over Iran’s pursuit of influence in the region and the possibility that it will produce nuclear weapons.

As a friend and former ambassador to Bahrain in Paris once confided in me, “We even worry if there may be fumes leaking, because we would be breathing those.”  Indeed, their proximity is too close for comfort to the tiny kingdom and the others in the Gulf region.

Israel’s concern is based on a string of threats by Iranian leaders who have not been shy in their intentions to wipe her off the map. Saudi Arabia counts with a Sunni majority that sees Iran as an aggressive Shiite opponent. Both, Israel and Saudi Arabia, are unwilling to accept that Iran would develop a nuclear bomb.

On another note, when Netanyahu spoke at AIPAC 2015 in Washington, D.C., one of the highlights of his speech was that he mentioned “… Jerusalem, our eternal undivided capital.”

A rebuke to this and all other administrations, who obstinately do not want to acknowledge that fact and continue having the American embassy in Tel Aviv.

The prime minister reassured his audience that it was not his intention to place Israel into the American partisan debate, as during decades it has been a cause embraced by both Democratic and Republican presidents who have shown their friendship and willingness to ally with tiny Israel.  So far so good.

STATELESS?

Netanyahu further went to say that,  “For 2000 years, my people, the Jewish people, were stateless, defenceless, voiceless.  We were utterly powerless against our enemies who swore to destroy us.  We suffered relentless persecution and horrific attacks.  We could never speak on our own behalf, and we could not defend ourselves.”

Any student of Jewish History would rectify this assertion.

As Rabbi Yirmiyahu Ullman explains:  “G-d gave the Torah to Moses and the Jewish people at Mount Sinai 3,327 years ago. This was seven weeks after the Exodus from Egypt, on the 6th day of the month Sivan, in the year 2448 of the Jewish calendar. On that day, G-d revealed Himself to the entire Jewish people (which included some 600,000 adult men, in addition to women, children and the aged) and declared to them the Ten Commandments. Afterwards, Moses ascended Mount Sinai where, for forty days, G-d taught him the entire Written and Oral Torah. Later, on Yom Kippur, Moses descended with the second tablets of the Ten Commandments and began to teach the people what he heard from G-d on Mount Sinai.

This was the only event in history where G-d revealed Himself to an entire people, who simultaneously witnessed and experienced His will. “And G-d said to Moses, I come to you in a thick cloud, so that the people may hear when I speak with you” (Ex. 19:9). “And Moses brought forth the people out of the camp to meet G-d, and they stood at the bottom of the mount” (19:17). “And G-d spoke all these words saying, I am the Lord your G-d” (20:1). “And all the people perceived the thundering, and the lightning, and the voice of the horn, and the mountain smoking” (20:15). Moses himself emphasised to the people the uniqueness of this event: “Did ever a people hear the voice of G-d speaking out of the midst of the fire, as you have heard? To you it was shown that you might know that the Lord is G-d” (Deut. 4:32-35)

God also specified in the Torah Israel’s borders.  “’Command the children of Israel, and say unto them: When ye come into the land of Canaan, this shall be the land that shall fall unto you for an inheritance, even the land of Canaan according to the borders thereof…”  Bamidbar/Numbers 34:1-12

Taken into this perspective, the miserable stripe that is contemporary Israel and the noise and trouble around it, is more like much ado about almost nothing…

A side note about the Torah

Something readers should know about the Torah. It is our holy book and it is exact to the dot.  Rabbis and scribes are learned in identifying each of the letters and dots and spaces in the Torah.  Torah must be Kosher or otherwise it is discarded as impure.  There is no room for mistakes or for alteration.  From generation to generation Torah has been kept Kosher and so it will be for eternity.  Man cannot modify it in any way because the words in the Torah are the words of God.  

POWERLESS?

The Jewish people actually were assigned by God Himself their piece of land (Bamidbar/Numbers 34:3) and from the beginning He had promised it to Abraham, to his son Isaac and to his grandson Jacob. God changed Jacob’s name  to Israel...  “‘Thy name shall be called no more Jacob, but Israel; for thou hast striven with God and with men, and hast prevailed.’  Bereshit/Genesis 32:29

Thus, the first time the word “Israel” was pronounced, it was by God.  Irrefutable.

So, Prime Minister Netanyahu was right to go and pray to God at the Kotel.

Furthermore, God says it clearly for eternity:

“And I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and be thou a blessing.  And I will bless them that bless thee, and him that curseth thee will I curse; and in thee shall all the families of the earth be blessed.”  Bereshit/Genesis 12:2-3

Remember, peoples of the world, God offered His Torah to all of you and you did not accept it.  Only the Jews did.

Despite millennia of persecution after persecution we Jews have not only survived but have continued to thrive and endlessly contribute to the well-being of mankind through discoveries, inventions, innovation, creativity and ingenuity, in science, technology, the arts, music, archaeology, medicine and in every possible positive way.

Who are the obscene Iranian leaders?  Who is Mr. Obama?  Who are Mr. Kerry or Ms. Rice?

Mr. Netanyahu’s efforts are praiseworthy.  However, the outcome does not depend on him.

The Land of Israel exists because God, the Creator of the Universe, created her.

God is always with Israel and his Chosen People, the Jews.

FEAR NOT ISRAEL, GOD IS WITH US.

May God be blessed.

©ElianaBenador