Eric Hoffer, an American longshoreman, philosopher and a gentile, was able to tell our Jewish story succinctly and to the point by writing only a couple lines which, when I read it the first time, gave me goosebumps and caused to sit completely still for quite a while: \u201cThe Jews are alone in the world. If Israel survives, it will be solely because of Jewish efforts. And Jewish resources. Yet at this moment, Israel is our only reliable and unconditional ally. We can rely more on Israel than Israel can rely on us. And one has only to imagine what would have happened last summer had the Arabs and their Russian backers won the war to realize how the survival of Israel is to America and the West in general. I have a premonition that will not leave me, as it goes with Israel so will it go with all of us. Should Israel perish the holocaust will be upon us\u201d. Eric Hoffer (L.A. Times 5\/26\/1968).\n<\/p>\n
It was written in 1968, after the 1967 six-days war between Israel and Arabs states, almost forty years ago. What is amazing that every sentence of his understanding of Jews and Israel is relevant now and germane to Jewish history going back millennia. I am sure there were many responses, in the last four decades, to Eric Hoffer\u2019s objective and sympathetic description of our Jewish essence. I will allow myself to make one more tribute to this great man. I will envelop each sentence of Hoffer\u2019s statement with the facts from Jewish history to show how right he is.\n<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Jews are alone in the world\u201d.\n<\/p>\n
Jews were alone while losing ten tribes to Assyrians and when our First temple was destroyed by Babylonians. Jews resisted in solitary the Hellenistic influence of Greek empire: The Maccabees hated the Seleucid Greek empire for its push of pagan Hellenic Polytheism on Jews and revolted against it. Nobody helped the Jews of Judea when they fought against the Roman Empire in three Jewish-Roman Wars. \u00a0The sense of loneliness among the European Jews was reenforced by the outcome of the Evian Conference in June of 1938, when most nations refused to increase immigration quotas. This decision by Western democracies, in couple of years, had assisted Nazi to realize their answer to the Jewish Question, the Holocaust, confirming Jews are alone in the world. Stating incomplete list of examples of Jews being alone in the world.\n<\/p>\n
\u201cIf Israel survives, it will be solely because of Jewish efforts. And Jewish resources\u201d.\n<\/p>\n
The creation and existence of the contemporary State of Israel is \u201csolely because of Jewish efforts. And Jewish resources\u201d.\n<\/p>\n
The resolution 181 of United Nations, issued on November 29, 1947, partitioned the territory of Mandatory Palestine into two states, one for Jews and another one for Arabs.\n<\/p>\n
In December of 1947, the assaults and raids by Aabs had intensified in the attempt to acquire control over Palestine and prevent the founding of the Jewish state. The Jewish community in Palestine, the Yishuv, was able to mobilize its members to counteract the attacks by Arabs and save the Jewish villages and towns from destruction. On the eve of the British withdrawal from Mandatory Palestine, on May 14, 1948, Israel declared independence.\u00a0 \u00a0On May 15, 1948, armies of Egypt, Transjordan (Jordan), Iraq, Syria and Lebanon invaded Israel. While Haganah and other Jewish paramilitary groups did not have enough light weaponry, the Arab\u2019s armies were equipped with heavy artillery and armored vehicles. The Prime Minister, David Ben-Gurion, the leader of the Jewish community (Yishuv), united the paramilitary groups into one force, Israel Defense Force (IDF) and the young country repealed victoriously the invasion of its Arab\u2019s neighbors. Thanks to unprecedented heroism of solders of IDF and endurance of the citizens of Israel the country survived the Yom Kippur War and the not-stop provocations of Hamas.\n<\/p>\n
\u201cYet at this moment Israel is our only reliable and unconditional ally. We can rely more on Israel than Israel can rely on us\u201d\n<\/p>\n
American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) identifies<\/a>: \u201cAmerica and Israel share the same core values: equality, freedom, democracy, pluralism and the rule of law. The United States and Israel share interests in deterring war, promoting stability and creating lasting peace. Israel is a reliable American ally, sustained by a robust judicial system, free and fair elections, and full voting rights for all its citizens\u201d. As AIPAC points in its memo<\/a>\u201d America\u2019s alliance with Israel helps keep our nation (USA) safe and secure by providing us access to the Jewish state\u2019s extensive intelligence network, cutting edge defense technology and unparalleled experience in combating terror threats\u201d and \u00a0\u201cIsrael is on the frontlines against our shared enemies in the Middle East, and a strong U.S.-Israel relationship helps counter shared threats around the world\u201d.\n<\/p>\n \u201cAnd one has only to imagine what would have happened last summer had the Arabs and their Russian backers won the war to realize how the survival of Israel is to America and the West in general\u201d.\n<\/p>\n The similarity allows me to apply the thought of Eric Hoffer that one can only imagine what would\u2019ve happen if the coalition of Egypt and Syria and its supporter and supplier of military equipment, Soviet Union, succeeded to defeat Israel in the Yom Kippur war of 1973. Coincidentally, in this period, United States was losing the war in Vietnam and Israeli defeat would\u2019ve added more humiliation and reduction of international standing to the country.\n<\/p>\n \u201cI have a premonition that will not leave me, as it goes with Israel so will it go with all of us. Should Israel perish the holocaust will be upon us\u201d.\n<\/p>\n The last sentence of Eric Hoffer\u2019s statement demonstrates his astute foresight of the troubling development in Western world we witness now. The Islamic extremism had put down deep roots in the many European countries. Not only in Europe-we saw the demonstrations of thousands upon thousands against Jewish state in U.S. after the October 7 Hamas\u2019s invasion. Israel is in the forefront in the fight against Islamic attacks on Western values and the Jewish state is losing the most precious commodity it has-the young people, the future. I share the premonition with Eric Hoffer- if Israel goes, \u201cthe holocaust will be upon us\u201d.\n\t\t<\/p>\n \n\t\t\t\t\tI am a Canadian who is acutely aware of the serious situation the State of Israel is experiences at the present and expresses his concern by writing articles on the current issues.\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Eric Hoffer, an American longshoreman, philosopher and a gentile, was able to tell our Jewish story succinctly and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":281363,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[85,46,43],"class_list":{"0":"post-281362","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-israel","8":"tag-il","9":"tag-israel","10":"tag-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/281362","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=281362"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/281362\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/281363"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=281362"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=281362"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=281362"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}