By Ryan Jones
May 10, 2004
For even the most avid Israel observer, the past week’s events can be confusing. So let’s break it down into a very simple analogy:Prime Minister Ariel Sharon carefully built a house of cards and now it has fallen down.
Sadly, Mr. Sharon fell prey to the same seduction that has brought down so many of Israel’s finest. He falsely believed that if he made himself out to be a man of compromise, the world would embrace him - a Jew and an Israeli – and finally give his nation and his people some much deserved rest.
And so he formulated his radical plan to cede all of the Gaza Strip and parts of Samaria to the "Palestinians," though they had been willing to reciprocate with nothing but death and destruction.
In return Sharon believed he had received groundbreaking promises from US President George W. Bush. He believed the American had finally thrown Washington’s weight behind Israel’s rejection of the "Palestinian" right of return, and the right of Israel to retain major settlement blocs in Judea and Samaria.
But it was not to be.
Last Thursday Bush publicly shattered Sharon’s carefully crafted illusion (or was it self-delusion?) when he told the world that he had offered nothing solid and binding to the Israeli leader.
(That this happened only after Sharon’s Likud Party rejected his "disengagement" plan is a moot point since Washington believes, and Sharon is declaring that he will proceed with the Gaza withdrawal anyway.)
What then has Israel gained? Nothing but to convince the world that its leaders are ready to capitulate to Arab demands so long as a world leader will give them a piece of paper with worthless promises on it.
Israel must learn that it cannot appease a hostile world when that hostility is born of spiritual hatred, rather than natural, logical circumstances.
Israel does not find itself beset by enemies and antagonists because it successfully defended itself and conquered territories originally promised to it. If that were the case, then Sharon standing on his head to jump-start a failed "peace" process would elicit applause, not grumbling.
Israel finds itself in its present situation because, like it or not, it is unique. And there is a force in this world beyond our physical grasp that wants to see Israel fail and its uniqueness destroyed.
But the uniqueness that puts Israel in so much danger also provides it with an avenue to immense security and strength.
"Do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you… All who rage against you will surely be ashamed and disgraced; those who oppose you wil be as nothing and perish."
(Isaiah 41:10-11)The sooner Israel’s leaders begin to embrace their nation’s uniqueness and stop playing footsy with the powers of this world, the sooner Israel will enjoy the fullness of what the one true Power is willing to offer.