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March 1, 2009 Tall Ships, Netanyahu, And America by Gerald A. Honigman
And there I was, alongside the bay in Brooklyn, watching those spectacular tall sailing ships from numerous countries passing under the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge in salute to America's two hundredth birthday. Tears of pride were in many of our eyes that day--including my own. My own father and grandfather, of blessed memories, were American naval veterans of the two world wars themselves. I was there with my best friend, Arie, whom I met four years earlier while fishing under that same bridge. Arie is from Israel, and something else was occurring back then--at almost the very same moment that those tall ships were gloriously sailing by in full regalia--which would psychologically link Israel and America together in many a mind afterwards. In the night before and during the early morning hours of July 4, 1976, Israel launched Operation Thunderball aka Operation Thunderbolt aka... Operation Entebbe. On June 27th, Air France Flight 139 was hijacked by Palestinian Arabs and some European soul mates. The plane was taken to Idi Amin's Uganda, where the hijackers were met with open arms. As had happened a generation earlier, the passengers were soon asked to form two lines--one for Jews, the other for Gentiles. Most of the latter were freed, the Jews became Idi Amin's "guests." Amin's buddies next announced that the Jews would be killed if their demands were not met. I won't prolong this now...it's an amazingly true story which sired several movies and so forth. Look it up on the Internet, rent one of the movies, or whatever. But, what you need to know, is that on July 4, 1976, Israel raided Entebbe, freed the hostages, and showed the world that it was possible to defeat terror if the will to do so was there...a lesson some still need to learn today. It was a wonderful present commemorating America's own liberty as well. There was one Israeli combat fatality. Lieutenant Colonel Yonatan Netanyahu, of Israel's elite Sayeret Matkal, commanded the strike force. He was killed by a Ugandan soldier and was buried on Jerusalem's Mt. Herzl soon afterwards. Yoni was an intellectual, a Dean's List Harvard scholar who returned to Israel to resume his earlier combat officer role during the stressful years leading up to the 1973 Yom Kippur War. He was a truly remarkable human being--both a man of the world as well as a true son of Zion reborn. When my own son was born (G_d bless), we named his first name Jonathan, in honor of King Saul's son, Prince Yonatan--King David's closest friend--and Yoni Netanyahu. Today, the mainstream media would, no doubt, portray Yoni as a right wing extremist. Take a look at how it has dealt with Israelis going after the non-stop terror machine and its willing supporters in Gaza. Any Jew who refuses to stick his head in the sand regarding what the Arabs' true intentions are regarding the acceptance of a Jewish Israel is branded this way. So, that brings me to another Netanyahu...Binyamin (Benjamin--there's no "J" in the original Hebrew name)--Bibi. Like his older brother, Yoni, and his younger brother, Iddo, Bibi also served in the Sayeret Matkal. And, unlike too many other Israeli leaders who feel that they have to prostrate themselves and resume a ghetto Jew stance while begging the Gentile world just to be able to survive, this Netanyahu also refuses to fit into that pathetic mold. While I am not naive regarding Bibi's own real and/or potential flaws, I nevertheless support him. His main opponent, Tzipi Livni, was too comfortable with ex-Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. The latter's non-stop, one-sided, suicidal demands (which her boss also had to approve) placed upon Israel right up until the very moment President Bush's team left office were an abomination and travesty in light of what Israel really faces regarding either Fatah's Abbas or Islamic Jihad and Hamas. The latter are merely more honest in their intent. Bibi knows this... And, G_d willing, he'll have the strength to resist the even more turns of the screw which will undoubtedly be coming in American President Obama's new administration. That action has already started. Resuming his earlier role as Prime Minister, Netanyahu has now unabashedly promised a renewal of both the Jewish and Zionist spirit--something all too lacking in recent Israeli leadership. Of course, such "attitude" scares folks like the New York Times, National Public Radio, CNN, NBC, and so forth. He's a right wing, nationalist hardliner because he refuses to bare the necks of Jewish kids to either the American State Department's alleged Fatah good cop or Hamas bad cop terrorists--neither of which show Israel on a map or in their own Arab kids' textbooks. Or because he refuses to have Israel return to its '49 armistice line--not border--nine-mile wide rump state status. I travel three times that distance, just one way, to go to work. Arabs can claim twenty-one states to date in their Arab League, on over six million square miles of territory, conquered and forcibly Arabized from mostly non-Arab peoples (with Abbas's PLO having observer status as the 22nd in waiting), but how dare Jews claim a sole, miniscule, resurrected one of their own--about the size of New Jersey. On July 4, 1976, Yonatan Netanyahu, of blessed memory, re-sent both America and the entire world a message that Jews have been delivering for thousands of years. Rabbi Hillel, who lived during the Roman occupation of Judaea, restated by then already ancient Jewish teachings when he proclaimed... If I am not for myself, who will be for me? But, If I am not for others, what am I? Israel has tried very hard to come to an honest accommodation with current others who see the entire region as merely purely Arab patrimony. Justice, through Arab eyes only. That's what Darfur and the south of the Sudan is about, as is gassed, massacred, and/or subjugated Kurds, Copts, Berbers, native Jews, Assyrians, and so forth. Israel has tried to reach more than fair compromises with Arab others--certainly light years beyond what Arabs have offered to the scores of millions of non-Arabs whom they have clashed and competed with themselves. But nothing will really change until that above Arab mindset changes. Until then, Israel must concentrate on that other half of Hillel's famous quote. It's long overdue for Israel to once again have a leader who will place Israel's own crucial national interests first before consenting to any new deals (likely not worth the paper they may or may not be written on) with Arabs which will only endanger it further down the road. The Arabs have openly bragged about their well-known destruction in phases scenario. The West's alleged "moderate" sweet-talking Arafatians in suits, Mahmoud Abbas & Co., still refuse to recognize a Jewish Israel and still expect that Israel must consent to be swamped by millions of so-called "returning" jihadi refugees. Given this reality check, Bibi must send the same message Yoni did over three decades ago--a message I've often written about and have espoused my whole life as well... He must demand--not beg--empathy for live Jews, not crocodile tears of sympathy for dead ones. What would over three hundred million Americans in a three thousand mile wide America do given the true--not State Department pipedream--nature of the beast Israel faces? If I am not for myself, who will be for me... Gerald A. Honigman is a Florida educator who has done extensive doctoral studies in Middle Eastern Affairs. He has created and conducted counter-Arab propaganda programs for college youth, has lectured on numerous campuses and other platforms, and has publicly debated many Arab spokesmen. His articles and op-eds have been published in dozens of newspapers, magazines, academic journals and websites all around the world. Visit his website at http://geraldahonigman.com/.
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It
was a moment in time never to be forgotten...July
4, 1976.
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