Israel Survives Because of an Iron Will and an Iron Wall
In the run-up to this week’s 70th anniversary of Israel’s independence, Israeli Defense Forces chief of Staff General Gabi Eisenkot pronounced the country “invincible.”PMW: Fatah names camp for kids after arch-terrorist responsible for murder of 125 Israelis
This was a bold statement. The country faces a growing threat from Iran and its puppets in Lebanon and Gaza, and the possibility of a clash with Russia over Syria. And yet, few Israelis have disagreed with this assessment.
There is mood of confidence here, and its origin lies in a doctrine of strategic defense that has proven itself over nearly a century of intermittent warfare.
That doctrine was first enunciated in an article in 1923 entitled “The Iron Wall.” Its author was Ze’ev Jabotinsky, a visionary Zionist leader and the ideological father of the Likud.
At the time of its publication, the Jews of Palestine were a small, embattled minority. Only three years had passed since the first Arab riots in Jerusalem against them. The Jewish community’s socialist leaders hoped they could appease Arab enmity by offering economic cooperation, progress and prosperity.
Jabotinsky derided this as childish, and insulting to the Arabs, who would not barter away their homeland for more bread or modern railroads. They would, he said, resist while they had a spark of hope of preventing a Jewish state.
“There is only one thing the Zionists want, and that is the one thing the Arabs do not want,” he wrote. Nothing short of abandoning the Zionist project would placate Arab hostility and violence. If the Jews wanted to remain, they would have to come to terms with a harsh reality: This was a zero-sum game. There could be no peace until the Arabs accepted Israel’s right to exist.
Jabotinsky saw that the Arabs (in Palestine and beyond) were far too numerous to be defeated in a single decisive war. The Jews needed to erect an iron wall of self-defense and deterrence -- a metaphorical wall built of Jewish determination, immigration, material progress, strong democratic institutions and a willingness to fight. Gradually, the enemy would be forced to conclude that this wall could not be breached.
The Palestinian Authority and Abbas' Fatah continue their terror role modeling, presenting terrorist murderers as heroes to Palestinian youth. This month, 600 high school students belonging to Fatah's Shabiba youth movement in Jenin are participating in the "Martyr Abu Jihad Camp." The camp is held at a facility of the PA National Security Forces:Im Tirtzu: New Israel Fund: “Subversive Political Organization Operating as Opposition in Israel”
"The Fatah Movement's Jenin branch, in cooperation with [Fatah's] Jenin region leadership, held the third coexistence camp under the title Martyr Abu Jihad Camp, and this was at the [PA] National Security [Forces] camp Horsh Al-Saada. The camp will last for an entire month, three days a week, and 600 students from the [Fatah] High School Shabiba will participate in it." [Official PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, April 7, 2018]
The PA Ministry of Education emphasized the importance of the terrorist's heritage to students in all PA schools via school radio:
"Director-General of Student Activities and Spokesman of the [PA] Ministry [of Education] Sadeq Al-Khadour said that as part of the activities in the schools, broadcasts of the radio stations in the schools were dedicated to talking about the prisoners in the occupation's prisons and the life of Martyr Khalil Al-Wazir." [Official PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, April 18, 2018]
Abu Jihad (Khalil Al-Wazir) was a founder of Fatah and deputy to Yasser Arafat. He headed the PLO terror organization's military wing and also planned many deadly Fatah terror attacks in the 1960's - 1980's. These attacks, in which a total of 125 Israelis were murdered, included the most lethal in Israeli history - the hijacking of a bus and murder of 37 civilians, 12 of them children.
On the occasion of the anniversary of Abu Jihad's so-called "Martyrdom," the PA, Fatah, and Fatah's Bethlehem branch in particular made a point of glorifying the arch-terrorist as a great heroic Palestinian leader, vowing to remain "loyal" to his "path."
A new campaign launched by the Zionist organization Im Tirtzu is calling on the Israeli government to end all cooperation with the New Israel Fund.
The campaign will see billboards titled “Ridding Israel of the NIF” displayed throughout the country, the first of which, a 100-foot sign, was displayed this morning on Tel-Aviv’s Ayalon Highway.
The billboard depicts NIF President Talia Sasson as harming IDF soldiers, and states that the NIF has transferred over 310 million NIS ($87 million) to “activities against IDF soldiers and the State of Israel.”
According to Im Tirtzu, the campaign’s goal is to expose the NIF as a foreign political organization operating as a political opposition within Israel against the government and IDF, while engaging in anti-Israel lawfare by means of its grantees in the Supreme Court.
At the same time, Im Tirtzu published a new position paper detailing what it dubs the NIF’s M.O. in wiping Israel of the map. The position paper, titled “The Roadmap to Israel’s Destruction,” comes in the form of an Israeli map and accuses the NIF and its grantees of exploiting various issues in the country in order to accuse Israel of perpetrating war crimes, ethnic cleansing, apartheid and other crimes against humanity.
The report also notes how many NIF grantees receive extensive funding from European governments, the European Union and United Nations.