By Lloyd Levy
EILAT, Israel — There is a serious mismatch between the enormous strength of Israel, and the situation painted by the Israeli establishment and the media. The establishment and media are always fretting and anxious about real or imagined threats to the people of Israel. For many years it has been the threat from Iran, which hysteria is at fever pitch at the moment.
In recent years it has been the Turkish Flotilla, or Hamas, or Hezbollah, or hoards of terrorists wandering the Sinai threatening Eilat. I am not saying that these threats dont from time to time exist, but there comes a time when you “call wolf” so often that it becomes counter productive. It is demeaning, and very disappointing, for the following reason. The whole point of Zionism was to create a new “muscle” Jew, that would not be timid and frightened of the world. For many years the new Jews did succeed admirably, and the average Israeli continues to largely reflect this confidence.
Unfortunately this continual fear of every threat, harks back to the old Jewish timidity and fear of the goyim. We can’t seem to shake the old ways off completely, which I find very disappointing. I have often remarked in my articles that Israel is a miracle of growth and strength in a difficult world. The future is amazing for the country. It is potentially sitting on one of the largest natural gas fields in the whole world, namely 20 trillion tons off shore, which is as much as China has found in her whole country.
Infrastructure development of roads and rail are proceeding apace. For example, one day, Eilat will be a gateway from the Mediterranean to the Far East as an option to bypass the Suez Canal. The Chinese are itching to build the rail link, and the Russians to help develop the natural gas to pump from the Mediterranean to Eilat and onwards to the Far East. Israel has multiple levels of missile defence, the only country in the World to do so. The Arab world is in turmoil, mostly thanks to the disgraceful mess made by the West in recent years. The Western attempts to impose a non existent democracy in Iraq, Egypt, Libya, Syria, have all led to ruin and chaos in these countries, which now surely offer no threat to Israel in the short term.
Even Iran is embroiled in internal political wrangling, and its economy in an awful mess. Israel’s economy grew 5% in 2011, with record unemployment. Just compare that to Britain, or USA, or Europe, all of which are in a terrible financial mess. So stop listening to the Jeremiahs and pessimists. It demeans us as Jews in these days of awe.
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Levy is a freelance writer who divides his time between London and Eilat
what strange ideas this writer has. he is so disconnected from reality that it actually saddens that these ideas are probably taken seriously by your readers.
i sense that he has a personal psychological problem. let me remind you that when England was threatened by terrorists not so long ago the security forces went” beserk” you suffered a few attacks and the whole country was in a “turmoil”
your idea about the reason behind the state of israel ; quote”to create a new muscle jew” is so way out. We were brought into existence because we wanted to rule ourselves and not be “tolerated ” by different governments who would decide our fate.
how do you have the chutzpa to dismiss all our neighbourly threats .if a war was to break out we would have ROCKETS falling on civilian targets. Do you understand the consequences of such an action?
we have no fear from the goyim we just have great respect for life.
please come out of your cocoon
thank you
martin
“Martin”- I regret you feel that I have a personal psychological problem- it reminds me of Communist Russia, where people who had different opinions were judged to have psychological problems.
I dont expect people to necessarily agree with me, but I do have a Masters Degree in Zionist History, and a BA in Middle East History, and spend a lot of time in Israel, which I hope does give me some insights into the situation.