My son Harold sent an e-mail in which he outlined the history of the Israeli struggle for existence. These are his thoughts.

Just before the end of World War II in 1945, many of the allies began supporting the idea of the creation of a homeland for Jewish people.  There were about 10 million people who identified as Jews in 1939, and almost 80% of them lived in Europe.  At the end of the war, there were less than 4 million — after the Nazis had exterminated most of them in the holocaust.  Great Britain, the United States, and a few others supported the Zionist movement to repopulate Palestine — very lightly populated at that time — with Jewish refugees and citizens to form a new nation.  The nearby Arab nations opposed this effort and encouraged hundreds of thousands of Arabs to occupy portions of Palestine.

In 1947, the U.N. passed a resolution to partition Palestine into Jewish and Arab states.  The Jewish settlers reluctantly went along with the plan; the Arabs vigorously opposed it.  When Great Britain ended their occupation following WWII in 1948, the Arabs immediately attacked the newly formed Jewish state and promised to annihilate it.  To the Arabs’ surprise — given their vastly superior numbers — the Jews won the war and held onto their lands, eventually returning some conquered territory back to Jordan, Egypt, and other Arabs.  

The Arabs went to war with Israel 3 additional times — in 1956, 1967, and 1973 — and after the 1973 conflict Israel decided to never return certain territory to Arab control or at least not allow it to be armed, particularly the Golan heights in Syria and the West Bank of the Jordan River.  Because Israel is so small, it considered the military disadvantage too great to give up these lands (which almost allowed the Arabs to win the 1973 war).

Israel has shown willingness in numerous negotiations to trade territory for a guarantee of security and recognition of its right to exist, but radical Arab groups such as Hamas and Hezbollah refuse to recognize that Israel has any rights whatsoever and continue to pledge its destruction. In spite of that fact and probably to their own chagrin, Israel granted Gaza autonomy as an Arab controlled district in 2007.  Since that time, Hamas has used Gaza as a base for nearly constant missile attacks on Israeli towns, mostly rendered ineffective by Israel’s Iron Dome missile defense system.

When Hamas attacked Southern Israel on October 7th, they butchered a small number of soldiers and nearly 1400 civilian men, women, children, and infants and took about 250 hostages including 30 children into Gaza.  

By contrast Israel has shown much restraint, providing 3 weeks for civilians to flee northern Gaza before launching their land assault.  Nevertheless, Hamas will deploy civilians as “human shields” to protect their terrorist activity.

In my opinion, Israel has no choice but to dismantle and destroy Hamas — or otherwise risk eventual annihilation which Hamas and other radicals have promised.  As always, war is hell and this one is worse than most.

Addendum: Thanks, Harold. The following are my own thoughts.

Hamas has sworn to eradicate Jews and the Jewish state. Israel has no choice except to utterly defeat Hamas, and in the process many Palestinian civilians will be killed. Indeed, the Hamas wants Palestinian women and children killed in order to fuel anti-Semitic sentiments in Europe and America.

Calling for a cease fire now is like calling for America to stop the fight immediately after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.

Be wise, be brave. Stand with Israel in the world-wide struggle against the forces of darkness.