A few nights ago about two dozen of Nahariya English speakers attended an excellent presentation by Yisrael Ne’eman. He spoke about Hamas and Jihad. Ne’eman is pretty much an expert on the topic and has published an authoritative book on the subject*. The event was sponsored by Nahariya’s local ESRA chapter
For me it came down to the realization that we Jews in Israel and abroad are facing an intractable enemy whose hatred for us is both top down and bottom up. It was this way from the get-go:In 7th century, when Islam was first beginning, Mohammed beheaded 800 Jewish men and enslaved 1000’s of Jewish women and children who were living in the city of Medina. Sound familiar?
Here in Israel over recent times we have lost more than 23,000 souls to this monster. But there is a positive spin to the Arab all or nothing position relative to Jews and the land of Israel:
Looking at the 1947 map of the U.N.’s partition plan, if it had been accepted by the Arabs, Nahariya would be part of a Muslim country today.
Again, looking at a map of the 1937 British partition plan (the Peel Commission), if it had been accepted by the Muslims, we would have lost about 75% of lands that are ours today.
If the Arabs had not been gearing up for an all out war in 1967, prompting our preemptive strike, we would have not recovered our lands lost to Jordan in 1948.
If Arafat had accepted the Israeli offer of 86% or more of Samaria and Judea at the 2000 Camp David Summit, there would be a Palestinian state today.
Today there is a realistic possibility of annexing much of that portion of Samaria and Judea known as Area C. There are 80,000 Arabs and 400,000 Jews living in Area C
*Ne’eman’s book “Hamas Jihad” is available from Amazon.