Daniel Greenfield article: A True
and Lasting Independence

Posted: 18 Apr 2010 07:36 PM PDT

Without the sacrifices made to preserve freedom, there could be
no independence. And without independence, those sacrifices have no
meaning. And so tonight Israel remembers its fallen in the Yom HaZikaron,
Memorial Day. And tomorrow, it remembers their achievement, a free and
independent nation in Yom HaAtzmaut, Independence Day.

A day after Israel's declaration of independence on May 14,
1948, it was fighting for its survival against local Islamist militias,
including the Mufti of Jerusalem's, Jaysh al-Jihad al-Muqaddas, along with
the armies of 7 Arab nations, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Lebanon, Jordan, Egypt,
Syria and Yemen. On the Muslim side was the Arab Legion, at the time
considered to be the best army in the region, under the British General
Glubb, whose son would later convert to Islam, and become involved with
terrorist groups.

On the Israeli side were frontier units that had
evolved not that long ago from orchard guards, ex-WW2 US and UK soldiers,
refugees just off the boat who had been given a rifle to hold, with or
without ammunition and small groups of farmers holding out as best they
could. One such small group of farmers in the Battle of Gesher, held out against
several battalions of the Iraqi army, under the Crown Prince of Iraq,
Abd Al Illah (Slave of Allah).

But today while the sirens sound in
the cities of Israel, the electronic wail for the voiceless dead-- the
corridors of power under Obama are filled with a relentless scurrying and
plotting on how to best convince or compel Israel to surrender its
independence. Pundits contribute their op-eds in the Times and the Post,
debating the finer points over whether Obama should try to bring down
Israel's government or visit to deliver a speech in the Knesset laying out
the plan he intends to impose on Israel. On how to make the sacrifices of
1948, as worthless as the sacrifices of 1967. How to carve up Israel into
pieces small enough for its old enemies to be able to swallow up
whole.

During a Memorial
Day address at Ammunition Hill, Netanyahu remembered the high price
Israel had paid, twice over, for Jerusalem.

"One of the critical battles in this campaign took place
here. True heroes fell here. They and their friends changed our
country's way of life.

Twice we have paid a heavy price to
relieve the siege on Jerusalem - the first time during the War of
Independence, and the second time when the city was bombarded during the
Six-Day War. Jerusalem, which was then a withered, divided city, has
returned to being a city full of life.

"The life that we create
here is a debt that we pay every day to our fallen soldiers,” the prime
minister said. “It is an ancient, inner duty – to establish a state here
that will be the pride of generations, that will justify their painful
sacrifice with its existence and its future.”

Today Jerusalem is under siege for a third time. Not by
armies with guns in hand, but by politicians bent on forcing appeasement.
The invaders no longer come in uniforms. They come wearing suits and ties,
bearing diplomatic papers in hand. The new siege of Jerusalem is a
diplomatic siege by men who have never fired guns, but who would rob the
sacrifice of those who stood watch against the night.

And the conclusion that must be drawn from this third siege is
that Israel is neither independent nor free. Not until it can dispatch
them home empty handed. Not until it can secure a true and lasting
independence by putting its people first and putting the diplomats who
slip money to left wing groups to agitate against Israel at home, the
retired generals, the successors to General Glubb, trying the terrorist
PLO militias in the West Bank, the Bidens and the Clintons and the Obamas,
glaring down at a green and verdant land like circling
vultures.

Israel has withstood sieges of arms. It has paid for it
dearly, but it has survived and thrived. But Israel is succumbing to the
siege of diplomats, because it is neither independent, nor free. And that
is because it has stood up to its enemies in battle, but it has never been
able to shake off that inferiority complex that manifests itself in
seeking their approval, in believing that the moral high ground comes in
making concessions to those who would kill you, rather than in protecting
your own citizens against them.

This insidious rot flows through
the veins of the civilized world. It is a rot that European Jewish
immigrants brought with them, a rot that Middle Eastern Jews markedly do
not suffer from. And so time and time again, Israel's diplomats have given
up at the negotiating table, what its soldiers won so dearly in war. Today
Israel has the region's best soldiers and the worst diplomats, who go from
door to door, apologizing for their country and trying to defend it
halfheartedly against the worst of charges. Meanwhile their enemies, who
murder their own children for honor, build cities with slave labor and
openly declare that they will destroy every non-Muslim country in the
world, laugh at their downfall.

And so despite another
conservative government in power, Israel is more Chaim Weizmann than Ze'ev
Jabotinsky, a state perpetually apologizing for itself, eagerly trying to
win the favor of foreign diplomats and politicians, and willing to fight
only at a last resort. That last resort came in 1948. It came again in
1967. It came once more in 1973. And it will come again very soon. Russia
has declared that Iran will have an operating nuclear reactor by August.
That is likely the same time frame within which Obama will attempt to
impose a new peace plan, one that will divide Jerusalem a second time.

And so Israel will be forced to fight again. The question is
whether it will be fighting for its survival or its independence. Israel
has spent the last several decades fighting for its survival, and the
country is weary of it. Because the difference between fighting for
survival and fighting for independence, is the same as a man swimming to
cross the channel, and another man trying to stay afloat in open water.
The difference is purpose.

The amateur men and even women, fighting
in 1948, understood what they were fighting for. They were fighting for
their freedom. The average Israeli soldier today sees himself as something
akin to a police officer, walking a fine line between not getting shot,
and not doing something to a potential terrorist that will result in an
international incident, and jail time for him, under the IDF's horribly
defeatist Rules of Engagement.

The IDF soldier swears an oath to
protect his homeland, but what land is that. It is not Gaza anymore. Is it
Judea and Samaria on the West Bank, and if so which parts of it? Is it
Jerusalem or only half of Jerusalem. Is his home in Givat Hayovel part of
that homeland he is defending, or will a new government decide that he is
actually a settler, and under international pressure, decide to
demolish his home and drive out his family, even after he has died a
hero's death?

He does not know what his land is, because his land is now
whatever the international community will decide it is. He does not even
know what it is he's fighting for. Is it to fight terrorism? He is rarely
if ever allowed to do this. Is it to protect his country? But who is he
protecting it from, when the terrorists who are trying to kill him, were
imported into the country as part of Arafat's police forces in the Peace
Process-- by his own government and the Clinton Administration.

And so the IDF soldier of today may be better armed, better
trained and better equipped, but he is actually inferior to the volunteers
who fought against better armed and trained Arab armies in 1948. He is
inferior because he does not know anymore what is he fighting for. He is
trying to stay afloat in open water. To avoid being involved in a shooting
incident will be result in an outcry against Israel. To stand guard,
without offending anyone. To fight for land that his government has
already sold out from under him.

And so he will fight again. Even
if he is no longer sure what he is fighting for. He stands in the shadow
of the legacy of those who fell in defence of Israel's independence. But
over him is the far greater shadow of Sinai and Oslo and Annapolis and the
Quartet, of Kikar Rabin and leftist protesters who scream at him that he
is an oppressor and a monster every time he stops an Arab Muslim at a
checkpoint. And it is this shadow of appeasement that must be lifted from
him if Israel is to survive.

When the Israeli soldier fights again,
he must know what he is fighting for. Not survival. Not a chance for the
diplomats to sit around the negotiating table again, and take apart the
map of Israel like spiteful children playing with a puzzle-- but for
independence. His country's and his own. Israel must have a true and
lasting independence if it is to survive. It must have it, or it will
perish and die.

The graves of the dead open on Memorial Day, and
those who died peer out, to know if their sacrifice was of any worth. In
Jerusalem and beyond, in unmarked graves, buried among the rubble, lost in
the land of the enemy. Once, the Prophet Ezekiel stood in the valley of
dry bones, and G-d asked him, "Son of man, can these bones live".

In 1948 the House of Israel was a house of dry bones. Starving
concentration camp survivors, children hiding in forests with haunted
eyes, a handful of militia playing soldier with used Czech rifles. Jews
living as degraded and oppressed servants in a dozen Muslim nations.
Turning the dung of camels into fuel. Knowing that they had no rights, but
the right to bow to their Muslim betters.

Then He said unto me, "Son of man, these bones are the
whole house of Israel; behold, they say: Our bones are dried up, and our
hope is lost; we are clean cut off. Therefore prophesy, and say unto
them: Thus saith the Lord G-d: Behold, I will open your graves, and
cause you to come up out of your graves, O My people; and I will bring
you into the land of Israel. (Ezekiel 37)

And so He did. They came on boats through the British blockade.
Men with stick thin arms marked with permanent numbers took up rifles. Dry
bones that somehow stood and fought. Men who had been compelled to walk
behind Muslims, to bow to Muslims, to defer to them-- took up arms and
fought back against them. And they lived. Even those who died, lived. And
will live forever.

What is the difference between dry bones and the
living. It is spirit. Without spirit, a man may walk and talk, but he is
already dead. The State of Israel today has tanks and submarines, jet
planes and nuclear reactors. But its spirit is being leeched away. Its
people are again oppressed. Once more their old masters rule over them.
For Israel to live again, it must secure a true and lasting independence.
It must fight for it. It must give up the idea that anyone but its own
people and its own G-d may sit in judgment over it or dictate its borders.
For only through independence, can Israel ever be free.