Securing Israel’s Existence is Our Religious Obligation

This might also be titled “On the modern consequences of the 1979 peace treaty (the Camp David Accords) between Egypt and Israel.”

A documentary on President Jimmy Carter was shown on a Cable News Network (CNN) not too long ago. It illustrated that he still loves peace and continues to advocate for it at the advanced age of 100. In this documentary, the change of current reality and the past, one can see several cadres of a 40-year-old chronicle about the adventure of the peace process between Egypt and Israel.

This is the topic of my article: how peace has been transformed during the last 40 years into an atrocious and humanly unacceptable war between Israel and – I want to say Hamas, but this has going on between Israel and the people of Gaza since the UN partitioned Palestine in 1947.

Some Background

In 1978 Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin agreed to the Camp David Accords, negotiated by and at the urging of US President Jimmy Carter.

It looked to me like Carter forced Menachem Begin to accept this ‘peace’ because Begin struggled for PEACE with Arabs, being at the mortal war with ALL OF THEM, during all his isolated, violent life. And he accepted an absolutely, dramatically unequal accord with Sadat — give up completely Sinai, demilitarized by Egypt without any protective conditions, and preserve Gaza, also without any protective conditions from Egypt.

The destructive consequences of the so-called peace with Egypt started immediately in Israel.  The “peace” with Egypt did not bring even a hint of peace to Israel. Now its consequences are coalescing to destroy Israel.

The assassination death of Anwar Sadat in 1981 didn’t change the consequences of the peace treaty: the treaty favored Egypt, whatever the ideology of the ruling dynasty was. And this hasn’t changed during the last 40 years, with Egypt devoted to this peace, whatever ideology was dominant during this time in Egypt.

Israel

But the initial general problem of this “peace” was even more grave.  Israel was a small country with a Jewish population, geographically and in a very hostile way humanly placed in the big, mostly not civilized and very “patriotic” Arab world.  This means an ideologically and politically different, pan-Islamic and primitively xenophobic world, with autocratic rulers and lacking any form of democracy.

With the exception of Sudan, the Arab world and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) strongly opposed Sadat’s efforts to make a separate peace with Israel without prior consultations with the Arab states. The refusal to reconcile with them over the Palestinian issue resulted in Egypt being suspended from the Arab League from 1979 to 1989.

Yet the Israeli Arab population during my four years of life in Israel was optimistic and good toward the change of the country since the Six-Day War. I lived the first year in a Yeshiva (religious institution for young men; I was not so young) on the territories occupied by Israel.  The economic stability of the Yeshiva was due to a rich local Arab.  The housing and the food of Yeshiva were quite good.

The optimism of Israeli Arabs was based on the generous politics of the Israeli State toward them as workers on the newly developed lands and in many constructions.  But politically, Arabs were not motivated and waited for the future and how it would be arranged afterwards. The Arab world is not a unity and has no plan to become unified.

The Problem

The way I see it, the problem in Israel was and remains the Jewish faith of its population. This is the noble faith by which God made during the thousands of years the Jewish people from the descendants of Abraham, and which the Christian world accepted with some necessary changes from Jesus and his disciples.

However, the Jewish State, which accepted this old faith, behaves somehow as if the Jewish people are still living in the old time, surrounded by pagans, — the Christian nations de facto included. Remember that this Jewish State appeared after the Holocaust, in which a third of the Jewish population of the world was murdered by the Nazis. Prime Minister Menachem Begin, in his first meeting with President Carter, used the word tertiated to describe how, during the Holocaust, one in three Jews, of the worldwide Jewish population, were murdered.

President Carter opened a new page for a future Holocaust during the last 40 years with the current Israeli government following the script correctly, scrupulously destroying the very basis of life in poor Gaza.

Despite its flaws, however, it was an excellent idea of President Carter to try to help the countries of the Middle East caught in the eternal war. He decided to begin with the powerful Egypt and successful Israel.

Egypt was an unstable, yet big African country with a weak economy, that lost the Six-Day War. President Anwar Sadat (starting in 1971) was a capable man, who directed the Yom-Kipper War in October 1973 (not successfully), and his plans for the country were interesting. In November 1977 he visited Israel and talked in the Knesset about the possibility of peace — and it was accepted by Israel at Camp David.

Profound Differences

However, it was necessary for President Carter to guide Sadat in the extremely difficult circumstances in which he decided to make this peace.  But the hostility of the general Arab World and the animosity of the pan-Islamic population of his country culminated in his assassination. Yet, taking into account the profound differences between the Christian faith and the very different forms of Islamic faiths flourishing in Sadat’s country and the Arabic World, not much more could be seriously envisioned or done.

As Prime Minister from 2001-2005, Ariel Sharon initiated the construction of the Israeli West Bank barrier in 2002–03.  In 2005 he orchestrated Israel’s unilateral disengagement from the Gaza Strip, which led to Hamas manipulations and to the recent acts of extreme violence we are discussing.

Hamas

What objections, or accusations can one make against Israeli actions since then? The atrocious attack on 7th October of Hamas’ forces against peaceful Israelis and their guests was estimated by the Israeli government as 1,200 people killed and more than 240 kidnapped.

Hamas had many years to prepare itself and its hidden army (with the number of its members estimated today as 30,000 men) for this military feat: Gaza Strip’s earth is honeycombed with many tunnels, some of them discovered by the Israeli army, and the Hamas militants and kidnapped Israelis are hidden there. Colloquially referred to as the “Gaza metro,” a vast labyrinth of tunnels beneath Gaze is used to transport people and goods, store rockets and ammunition caches, and house Hamas command and control centers — all away from the prying eyes of the IDF aircraft and surveillance drones.

However, the satellite imagery from the early days of the war reveals more than 500 impact craters over 12 meters (40 feet) in diameter, consistent with those left behind by 2,000-pound bombs. More than 20,000 children, women and men died in the Gaza Strip since the beginning of the military action by Israel. Then came a new Israeli evacuation order for central Gaza on Saturday, December 23, 2023, which impacted more than 150,000 people.  Many Palestinians had already been displaced, moving to Deir al-Balah, as Israel planned to expand its military operation in central Gaza.

Remember, the immense space of the Sinai Peninsula, gained by Israel from Egypt in the year 1967 during the Six-Day War?  If you look at a map, you will see the diminutive Gaza Strip. What happened to it after Sanai was given back to Egypt? How has it become so important to world politics? How can you explain the current United Nations discussions without merit about this little place, overpopulated, extremely poor and successfully ruled by the terrorist organization Hamas.

Defending Israel

Israel is very friendly to the U.S.A.  It is a faithful and very devoted ally whose existence depends politically on the States. As a Christian I would say that Israel’s very existence is our RELIGIOUS OBLIGATION because the Jews are our Brothers by birth.  We have to care for them, as we care for all Christians, in the expectation that they too may come to accept our faith.

When I accepted baptism in Russia, in 1951, rejected my Jewish origins which broke me during my previous life and nothing was respectful in my eyes. When I was thrown out of Russia to Israel, in 1979, I accepted my Jewish origins when I saw how rich I became with them. When I assumed my Catholic Christianity in Canada, in 1995, I accepted fully the Christian Brotherhood and the rich Catholic literature with this expressed respect for Jews.

This is quite visible today: American (especially, President Joe Biden’s) reaction to Israel’s war with Hamas is unpleasant because the war seems contrary to the rules of international organisms.  Yet the U.S. defends Israel even if it is brutal.  And this is true for Republicans and Democrats alike.

I do not defend Israel for its faults. As I do not defend myself for my faults — I try to learn on my own and, known to me, others’ faults, and I try to progress.

Not Justifiable

I believe that the character of the war Israel is waging on Hamas and the Gaza Strip is not morally correct and inflicts many, many causalities, mutilations and deaths on people who are not involved in Hamas, including children, women, and the elderly.

But this war was consciously provoked by Hamas, the provocation of kidnapping of many persons (relatively to the past similar events) is intentionally directed against high elements of Israeli State power. And it has worked.

I believe that this war has sensitized those who sympathize with the Palestinians  — those, who live in Europe and American countries — and that Israel awaits difficult times.  Lest we forget, the radicals among the Muslim majority in the Mideast do want to eradicate the state of Israel.

There is a growing demand for a change in Israeli ideology, for more Christian attitudes toward its proper citizens and foreigners. Let us pray for this! But let us also pray for a change of heart among the radical Muslims.