Newsletter 29th July, 2006
Since there seems to be almost total consensus that Iran is responsible, to a larger or lesser degree, for the current violence on Israel’s northern border with Lebanon, my readers may be interested in a few words about the history of Iran, or as it was known prior to 1935, Persia. No less interesting is to see how that history entwines with Jewish history and, in its earlier stages, with the Hebrew Scriptures.
The Assyrian Empire, which originated in the city of Ashur on the northern Tigris river about the time same as King Solomon ruled the Kingdom of Israel (10th century BCE), reached its peak in the 7th century BCE when it had expanded to include even Egypt. In 723 BCE the Northern Kingdom of Israel was overrun by the Assyrians and the ten tribes of Israel were sent into exile, to be more commonly known as ‘The Ten Lost Tribes‘. (II Kings 16:6) (There seems to be no doubt that the Jews of Ethiopia are the descendants of one of the tribes and many believe that the Jews of the northern states of India are too).
In 612 BCE Nineveh, the Assyrian capital fell to Babylonia, the ascending power in the Fertile Crescent, (today’s ME), and the Assyrian Empire ceased to exist. Babylonia originally had been established by Hammurabi, known as promulgator of one of the earliest codes of law, a thousand years earlier. In 586 BCE, on the 9th day of Av, (which this year falls on 3rd August), Nebuchadnezzar destroyed the Temple in Jerusalem and exiled most of the Jewish population to Babylon (II Kings 15), where they and some of their descendants remain until today. (“By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, yea, we wept when we remembered Zion“. Psalm 137).
By 538 BCE the Babylonian empire too faded from the stage of history, overrun by Cyrus, king of Media, who established the Persian empire. It was Cyrus who allowed the Jews to return to their land and rebuild their Temple, later to be known as The Second Temple. The cuneiform inscription found in an excavation confirms almost verbatim the opening verses of the book of Ezra.
By the fifth century BCE Persia stretched north as far as the Danube in Europe. (The Danube flows through Austria and Germany). But not for long. The Greeks revolted against Persian rule and under Alexander the Great they were routed. Persia fell to the Seleucids, the very same Seleucids against whom the Jews, led by the Hasmonean dynasty, revolted in 165 BCE. (The story of Hanukah, the Festival of Lights).
Parthia, which broke away from, and became the heir to, the extinct Persian empire was involved in many wars with Rome. The need to have a loyal buffer zone on the eastern front may have been one of the reasons that Rome had to quell the Jewish revolts in 67 and 132 CE and perhaps why Judea expected aid, which was not forthcoming, from Parthia in the struggle against Rome.
In the vacuum created by the weakening of Rome the Sassanids rulers of Parthia established a new dynasty and a new Persia with Zoroastrianism as its religion. Until the Moslem conquest in 637 CE when Zoroastrianism was forcibly replaced with Sunni Islam. But with the rise of the Abbasid dynasty Persia became, and remains till this day, Shiite.
A more detailed description of Islam, its inception, conquests and the basics of the religion, can be found on my site www.ratzer.com, under “articles”.
And as a follow up I also recommend that you check out the remarkable interview on Al Jazeera at http://switch3.castup.net/cunet/gm.asp?ai=214&ar=1050wmv&ak=null.
After centuries during which a weakened Persia was periodically invaded and conquered by its neighbours the discovery of oil at the beginning of the twentieth century resulted in British and Russian interest in developing the oil fields. An impoverished and backward Persia swiftly moved into the twentieth century.
The modernization program introduced by the Shah improved social and economic conditions but caused political unrest and became tyrannical. The reforms were rejected by the Shiite religious leadership. In 1979 a popular uprising brought Khomeini to power.
The dispute between Iran and Iraq over control of the Shat al Arab waterway in the northern Persian Gulf led to a full-scale war in 1980. Despite losses estimated as high as 100,000, twice as high as the Iraqi losses, Iran only agreed to a cease fire in 1988. During the eight year conflict Iran used children, some younger than thirteen, to march in front of the army in order to clear mine fields and save the lives of the more valuable trained soldiers. The Iranians considered these children to be martyrs.
Iran has proved that it has no regard for the safety of its own children. How can we think it cares more for the children of Lebanon? Shiite and Sunni Moslems massacre each other with no compunction. How can we think they attach any value at all to non-Moslem lives?
The loudly and proudly proclaimed intention of the Iranian leadership, with El Kaida serving as an echo, is to restore the rule of Islam all the way to Spain, before adding the rest of the free (‘decadent and corrupt’ in their words) world to ‘Dar el Islam‘, the ‘home of Islam’. (See the above mentioned article).
Gaining nuclear expertise is vital for fulfilling this aim. No less important is the infrastructure of terrorist organizations throughout the world, but especially in Lebanon. Why Lebanon? First and foremost because Iran itself need fear no retaliation from Israel.
Because, since the State of Israel came into being in 1948 the world has constantly shown its willingness to blame Israel for all the violence in the ME. Because, in Moslem eyes, a series of Israeli withdrawals from Sinai, from Lebanon, from the Gaza strip, have shown weakness of Israeli resolve. Because they believe that public pressure brought about these withdrawals. Because, as Israel is a democracy and allows demonstrations even in wartime , the government would not be able to withstand the pressure not to retaliate against any attacks from Lebanon. Because Israeli concern for the individual soldier has shown the Achilles’ heel of the IDF.
On some of these premises Iran, and its local proxy, Hizballah, seem to have miscalculated. Our unabated, and often unrealistic, longing for peace and our hope that the world would appreciate the Israeli sacrifice led to the Israeli withdrawals. But even the most naïve Israelis were not prepared to silently acquiesce to shelling of our civilian population, especially since the UN itself, no friend of Israel, had confirmed that Israel had withdrawn from every last inch of Lebanese territory. That civilian population, from the bunkers and bomb shelters where they have been for the last fortnight, have repeated loud and clear: “DON‘T STOP!”
Is Israeli concern for the kidnapped soldiers a sign of weakness, and according to at least one media commentator, a lack of realism in a world where kidnapping is common place? Throughout the centuries Jews all over the world have always held the belief “Kol Israel arev zeh le-zeh” – “All Israel is responsible for one another”.
That is why almost one million Jewish refugees expelled from the Arab world in 1948 were absorbed by their brethren and ceased being refugees the moment they arrived in Israel. That is why the hundreds of thousands of Israelis who have left their homes in the northern cities of Israel have been made welcome by family, friends and even complete strangers. That is why you don’t see them on TV weeping and gnashing their teeth, seething with hatred. That is why those who decided not to leave their homes but to remain in shelters are provided with food and other necessities by countless individual volunteers and a myriad of volunteer organizations.
“Kol Israel arev zeh le-zeh” and we are proud of it.
Those who believe the seriousness of this desire “to restore the rule of Islam all the way to Spain” as a starting point understand that Islamic terrorism has to be stopped and that a crucial battle in the war against Islamic terrorism is now taking place in Lebanon. They also realize that, despite to all claims to the contrary, this battle has really nothing to do with Israeli occupation of the Shaba farms and everything to do with the battle between freedom and democracy on one hand and terrorism and religious oppression on the other.
If those who persist in blaming Israel, who refuse to believe what their ears hear and their eyes see, who continually overlook or distort the facts, who will not examine the evidence showing them the error of the misplaced confidence in the peaceful aims of Hizballah, Hamas, Iran and Syria, succeed in bringing about the cessation of this battle without a clear catastrophe to Hizballah terrorism, we will see worldwide terrorism go from strength to strength.
The question is, when they finally wake up and realize that this a new brand of fascism, will the Europeans have a Winston Churchill capable of leading them? And will the USA, and to a lesser degree Australia and Canada, be prepared once again to pull European chestnuts out of the fire?
What are some of the distortions?
Israel is causing suffering to blameless Lebanese government and an innocent Lebanese population.
Hizballah serves in the democratically elected Lebanese government. (Just as the Nazis came to power after democratically held elections). As the Lebanese not only made no effort to voice their reservations about this terrorist organization / political party, but included it in their government, the Lebanese government collectively is responsible for the actions of its coalition members.
The population, which, over the last six years, made no attempt to prevent Hizballah from building its infrastructure, digging bunkers and placing thousands of rockets in residential areas, homes, schools and even mosques, cannot now claim to be innocent.
Israel, by its actions, is responsible for the hatred in Lebanon, and by extension, in the Moslem world.
The Moslem hatred for Israel and for Jews is the result of more than fifty years of teaching in Moslem schools and preaching in mosques all over the world. To a certain degree the western world shares is partial responsibility. Apart from uttering occasional platitudes, UNRWA and the EU have actually funded Palestinian school books rife with anti-Semitism and anti Israel lies. TV movies calling on children to sacrifice themselves in the war against Israel have hardly cause a ripple.
But even more than that. The Moslem world sees the ever increasing anti-Semitism of the west, the growth of ‘respectable’ holocaust denial groups. At this point, no action of Israel, short of national suicide can put a stop to the hatred.
The Moslem world wants nothing more than to see the complete demise of the Jewish state, and is quite open about it. We, who sixty five years ago suffered the loss of one out of every three Jews in the world, cannot ignore this threat.
Israel deliberately attacked UNIFIL troops (Kofi Anan).
By their own admission, the UNIFIL base was in the midst of a Hizballah held area from which rockets were being fired on Israel. Not only that but the Ghanaian soldiers manning the base claimed that they had been virtually deserted by their own superior officers and the only information they had on the battles waging in the area were coming from watching news on TV.
The UNIFIL troops are not only impotent to take any action against Hizballah actions, their silence during the build up of the Hizballah infrastructure and the arrival of thousands of missiles and rockets in total contravention of UN resolution 1559 borders on collusion.
To date, virtually every time UN forces have been hit by Israeli fire it has later been shown that they were being used as a shield by Fatah, Hamas or Hizballah.
The Ottawa Citizen published:
Joel Kom, with files from Steven Edwards, CanWest News Service, The Ottawa Citizen
Published: Thursday, July 27, 2006
The words of a Canadian United Nations observer written just days before he was killed in an Israeli bombing of a UN post in Lebanon are evidence Hezbollah was using the post as a “shield” to fire rockets into Israel, says a former UN commander in Bosnia.
Those words, written in an e-mail dated just nine days ago, offer a possible explanation as to why the post — which according to UN officials was clearly marked and known to Israeli forces — was hit by Israel on Tuesday night, said retired Maj.-Gen. Lewis MacKenzie yesterday.
The strike hit the UN observation post in the southern Lebanese village of El Khiam, killing Canadian Maj. Paeta Hess-von Kruedener and three others serving as unarmed UN military observers in the area.
Just last week, Maj. Hess-von Kruedener wrote an e-mail about his experiences after nine months in the area, words Maj.-Gen. MacKenzie said are an obvious allusion to Hezbollah tactics.
Israel started the violence by over-reacting to the capture of two Israeli soldiers. (BBC)
Those with slighter longer memories than many of the media reporters and commentators remember that the violence on the northern border started when Hizballah began firing on a number of cities in northern Israel. Some cities, such as Nazareth, are forty kilometres from the Lebanese border. Initially there was a general consensus that no country in the world would stand by in silence if their own citizens were attacked from a neighbouring country and Israel is no exception. (Some countries even sail the seven seas to attack distant islands!!)
Then “proportionate” reared its ugly head. Just who defines what is proportionate? The media? In the world there are about twenty five Moslem states with over two hundred million Moslems and one Jewish State with six million Jews and another nine or so million Jews world wide. How about that proportion?
According to Yehezkiel Dror, professor of political science at the Hebrew University, strategic interactions either “resemble a game with tacitly agreed evolving rules or constitute a life-or-death kill or be killed conflict”. The Cold War between the USA and Russia was the former. The war against Hitler was the latter, as is Israel’s fight against Moslem terrorism. The only rule is not a game rule of proportionate moves. It is a survival rule. Israel has no option but to rebuild a credible deterrence by reacting unpredictably and, if necessary, with extreme violence.
Believe what you see on the TV as it is a true reflection of what is happening on the ground.
Thanks to HonestReporting for showing the fallacy of the above statement.
According to Rich Noyes, on Monday’s “Anderson Cooper 360,” CNN’s Anderson Cooper related his visit to a Hezbollah-controlled section of Beirut where he was supposed to photograph certain damaged buildings, part of the terrorist group’s strategy of generating news stories about Lebanese civilian casualties caused by Israeli bombs.
But instead of merely transmitting Hezbollah’s unverified and unverifiable claims to the outside world, Cooper – to his credit – exposed the efforts by Hezbollah to manipulate CNN and other Western reporters.
Civilian casualties are clearly what Hezbollah wants foreign reporters to focus on. It keeps the attention off them – and questions about why Hezbollah should still be allowed to have weapons when all the other militias in Lebanon have already disarmed.
After letting us take pictures of a few damaged buildings, they take us to another location, where there are ambulances waiting.
This is a heavily orchestrated Hezbollah media event. When we got here, all the ambulances were lined up. We were allowed a few minutes to talk to the ambulance drivers. Then one by one, they’ve been told to turn on their sirens and zoom off so that all the photographers here can get shots of ambulances rushing off to treat civilians. That’s the story that Hezbollah wants people to know about.
These ambulances aren’t responding to any new bombings. The sirens are strictly for effect.
Israel deliberately targets the civilian population.
It is an undisputed fact that Israel drops leaflets or makes announcements by loud speaker advising the population when an attack is about to occur, thereby also losing the element of surprise. It is also an indisputable fact that in many instances Hizballah and Hamas refuse to allow people to flee, preferring the publicity of civilian casualties to the safety of their own brethren.
I hope that this week will see a decisive end to the fighting and an end to the sufferings of both sides to the conflict.
Beryl
