RUTHFULLY YOURS

That was in the days of Herzl before everything, or rather at the start of everything.

I am no Mark Twain but in my stays and service in Israel I noticed something of an inferiority complex among my brothers and sisters, or call it a grasshopper mentality that remains a legacy from our days in the Wilderness when the Spies misinformed us about “giants” who lived on the other side.

Compared to them, compared to the rest of the world, what are we? Yes, grasshoppers.

That attitude is to be expected, I suppose, because after 2,000 years of being granted no favors, Jews became conditioned to expect nothing and to be grateful for anything. At the time of the Partition Plan, the Jews said thank you, and thank you again even after British White Papers made Israel smaller and smaller.

Gratitude in excess can be hazardous. It’s led modern Israel into making lethal concessions from lopsided prisoner swaps to land giveaways that produced nothing except more disrespect, more hatred, more terror, more war, with Gaza the ultimate proof of what goes wrong when the Jewish State extends a generous hand to Palestinian Arabs.

After all that, still at the moment there is talk of a “two-state-solution.” The signal is obvious. We, Israel, will do anything to make the world happy.

Israel trained itself to accept abasement and unlike the nations, only Israel is to desist from pride and glory.

But times have changed, dramatically. Who imagined that one day Israel would sell oil to the Arabs?

Who imaged that one day Arab eyes would turn to Israel for help?

That day is here, and as reported by the BCN network, Egyptian TV personality Tawfik Okasha called Netanyahu “our dear friend” and pleaded with Israel to take out the Bushehr Nuclear Reactor. “Put your trust in God and bomb it,” Okasha demanded. “We are with you and if you need fuel for the jets, we will give it to you.”

That is Egypt talking but it can just as well be Jordan, Saudi Arabia, the Gulf States or whatever regional sovereignty suffers from the terror of ISIS and Iran.

Whom to call when like Elvis, the United States has turned down the lights and left the building?

Worse, under Obama, the United States has shifted its weight toward Iran

Like it or not, Israel is the dominant military power in the region. Indeed, it is Israel that has America’s back.

The dominoes keep falling and to mention Libya and Yemen is only to begin. Kings quake at the coming of al-Qaeda, more ISIS, more Muslim Brotherhood. It is Arab against Arab, tribe against tribe, hundreds of thousands taken to slaughter, millions uprooted. There is chaos. There are no limits. There are no borders. Go here for the big picture.

Now the Christian world cries out from the boot of ISIS.

Only Israel is stable. Only Israel is the region’s world power. Only Israel is a light unto the nations.

Israel owes nothing to Haaretz or to The New York Times. No apologies. No explanations. No concessions.  No nonsense.

This is certain. Israel never asked for this. Given a choice, the Israelis would prefer to live tranquilly under the shade of Micah’s vine and fig tree.

But the duty of greatness has been thrust upon the Jewish State. Let no politician waste it away.

Jack Engelhard writes a regular column for Arutz Sheva. The new thriller from the New York-based novelist, The Bathsheba Deadline, a heroic editor’s singlehanded war on terror and against media bias. Engelhard wrote the int’l bestseller Indecent Proposal that was translated into more than 22 languages and turned into a Paramount motion picture starring Robert Redford and Demi Moore. Website: www.jackengelhard.com