Most tragic problem facing Israel

Israel is in the news once again, and depending on one's point of view, she is suffering or causing suffering.

I have said this a number of times before, but please allow me to reiterate: You cannot know what the English dessert "trifle" tastes like until you have had some. So what does that have to do with anything?

People who have never been to Israel or experienced a taste of what Israelis live through, almost every day, cannot imagine what it is like to live under the threat of total annihilation.

I had read about Israel in the Bible, ever since I became a born-again Christian (radically different from just a church member) in the late 1960s. Yes, I had heard about Israel, but her problems were filtered through my concepts and understanding based on personal experiences with life's challenges.

I understood, somewhat, the Jews' issue with anti-Semitism, having been subjected to racism most of my young life. I could comprehend, to a degree, what it was like to be hated for just being who you are. However, while there had been lynchings (I had read about them), there had been no determined effort to annihilate blacks ala Hitler and the Jews.

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I was old enough to remember when Israel became a nation in 1948 and was immediately attacked by the armies of Egypt, Lebanon, Syria and Iraq on the same day she gained independence (May 14).

Nevertheless, I did not know exactly what Israel faced until, during a visit, I stepped off an airplane onto the tarmac in Tel Aviv and took a bus into the heart of Israel – Jerusalem. I can still recall the sudden surge of fear when the sirens sounded and the driver of our van immediately began speeding up in an attempt to find a place to hide us from an incoming missile.

This question has nagged at me ever since: Why Israel? Why does Israel generate such a visceral response? To my knowledge, there is no structured hatred against any Arabic nations; and no African, European or Asian nation is so marked for destruction.

Israel's very right to exist is being openly questioned, and any military actions she may take to defend herself are universally criticized. Any effort to defend against terrorists attacks and rockets launched against civilians has the U.N. member states accusing Israel of "war crimes."

This, despite the fact that Israel treats Palestinian wounded and sick while allowing all manner of humanitarian aid to pass through security checkpoints which, by the way, routinely stops suicide bombers attempting to sneak through.

For example, it has been reported by the national news media that, despite the lie put forth by the Palestinian leader that Israel had "executed him," one of the Palestinian youths wounded in the very attempt to kill Israelis is now being treated by Israeli doctors in an Israeli hospital.

If you have never tasted English trifle, you cannot know what it tastes like; likewise, if you have never been to Israel, you cannot know what living there is like.

The Jewish problem was probably best articulated by Rabbi Joachim Prinz at the March on Washington in August 1963, just prior to the "I Have a Dream" speech by Martin Luther King Jr.

The then-president of the American Jewish Congress, who was expelled from Germany at the onset of Jewish persecution, made this powerful statement:

"When I was the rabbi of the Jewish community in Berlin under the Hitler regime, I learned many things. The most important thing that I learned under those tragic circumstances was that bigotry and hatred are not the most urgent problem. The most urgent, the most disgraceful, the most shameful, and the most tragic problem – is silence. A great people which had created a great civilization had become a nation of silent onlookers. They remained silent in the face of hate, in the face of brutality, and in the face of mass murder."

Silence, we are reminded, is golden; but silence is also consent.

Could his words be accurately applied to the West, especially America, regarding Israel today?

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