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July 2, 2009

Rabbi Abraham J. Twerski: The hallmark of a person

Abe Novick: Up, up, and aliya

July 1, 2009

Rabbi Avi Shafran: The Road Taken

The Kosher Gourmet by Marialisa Calta: Get into the holiday spirit with these Star-Spangled desserts

June 30, 2009

Rabbi Binyomin Ginsberg: What makes a great parent?

Caroline B. Glick: Ideologue-in-Chief

June 29, 2009

The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Beware of 'Caveat Emptor'

Steven Emerson: ACLU pushing for more money for Hamas

June 26, 2009

Rabbi Yoni Posnick: Learn the secret to a healthy marriage from a scriptural villain

Caroline B. Glick: Barack Obama vs. International Law

June 25, 2009

Rabbi Shimon Apisdorf: The Absurd Power of Truth

Jordan "Gorf" Gorfinkle's strip: Everything's Relative

June 24, 2009

Rabbi Yonason Goldson: Advancement of technology is a wake-up call for humanity

The Kosher Gourmet by Andrea Weigl: Summer on a stick: Making frozen treats can be easy, creative and fun

June 23, 2009

Martin M. Bodek: 'On Surnames': And so, We Begin

Caroline B. Glick: The Obama Effect

June 22, 2009

The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Working for a corrupt firm

N. Richard Greenfield : Where are American Jews?

June 19, 2009

Rabbi Abraham J. Twerski: Emotion v. intellect

Caroline B. Glick: Israel's rare opportunity

June 18, 2009

Jonathan Rosenblum: Sometimes it is more essential to define the nature of evil than good

Jordan "Gorf" Gorfinkle's strip: Everything's Relative

June 17, 2009

Rabbi Yonason Goldson: The Language of Confusion

The Kosher Gourmet by Linda Gassenheimer: Nothing pleases Dad more than a thick, juicy onion-smothered steak. Add home-Baked Potato Chips and …

June 16, 2009

The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Career v. Careersism

Caroline B. Glick: Obama's losing streak and Israel

Richard Z. Chesnoff: ‘Palestinians’: Never Missing an Opportunity …

June 15, 2009

Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu: How Judea and Samaria can become 'Palestine'

Daniel Pipes: Where Netanyahu's speech failed

June 12, 2009

Rabbi Abraham J. Twerski: Some big thoughts about not acting so big

Caroline B. Glick: Obama's High Commissioner

June 11, 2009

Victor Davis Hanson: Our historically challenged President

Mitch Albom: Beware the True Believers

Lewis Grossberger: What we learn from the new Hitler photos

June 10, 2009

Mort Zuckerman: What Obama and his advisors won't -- or refuse to -- grasp about Israel and the Muslim world

The Kosher Gourmet by Steve Petusevsky Lotsa pasta: Tips, techniques and (amazing) taste

June 9, 2009

Anne Bayefsky: Obama's stunning offense to Israel and the Jewish people

Frank J. Gaffney, Jr.: America's first Muslim president?

June 8, 2009

The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Merchant must take responsibility for careless shopper?

Mark Steyn: A superpower that feeds on mediocrity cannot survive for long on leftovers from the past

Richard Z. Chesnoff: How do you say 'kumbaya' in Arabic?

June 5, 2009

Rabbi Abraham J. Twerski: In quest of spirituality

Caroline B. Glick: Obama's Arabian dreams

Charles Krauthammer: The Settlements Myth

June 4, 2009

Paul Greenberg: The War Comes to Little Rock

The Kosher Gourmet by Judy Hevrdejs: Splash it on! Tap your inner jazz musician and improvise when stirring up a vinaigrette

June 3, 2009

The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Q. Should terrible teacher be exposed?

Jonathan Rosenblum: The Israel Lobby: Missing in Action

June 2, 2009

Dennis Prager: The Speech President Obama Won't Dare Give in Egypt

Frank J. Gaffney, Jr.: Pressure on Israel raises war risk

Oct. 29, 2003
Mortimer B. Zuckerman: Graffiti On History's Walls (MUST-READ!)

Jewish World Review July 3, 2006 / 7 Tamuz, 5766

Has Israel lost the Spirit of '76?

By Jeff Jacoby

Jeff Jacoby
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http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | Thirty years ago this week, on July 4, 1976, Israel carried out one of the most spectacular rescue missions in history — the raid on Entebbe airport in Uganda that freed more than 100 Jewish hostages being held by Arab and German terrorists. A team of commandos led by Yonatan Netanyahu secretly flew more than 2,000 miles, landing at Entebbe in the dead of night and taking the terrorists and the Ugandan soldiers guarding the airfield by surprise. In a whirlwind attack, the Israelis killed the terrorists, rescued the hostages, and destroyed 11 of Uganda's Soviet-supplied MiG fighters to prevent pursuit. Then, just 58 minutes after they had touched down, they lifted off for the eight-hour flight home. The only rescuer to die in the operation was Netanyahu, whose heroism would become the stuff of Israeli legend.


It was an electrifying feat. "Once again, Israel's lightning-swift sword had cut down an enemy," reported Newsweek a few days later, "and its display of military precision, courage, and sheer chutzpa won the applause and admiration of most of the world." Israel's foes were once more reminded that while the Jewish state might be tiny, it was indomitable. Those who called for its destruction were wasting their breath, and any attack on its people would bring painful retaliation.


Does that Israel still exist?


Looking at the headlines from the Middle East, a Rip Van Winkle just waking from a slumber of nearly 30 years might suppose that Israel's mettle and resolve are undiminished. Last Sunday, Hamas gunmen from Gaza attacked a military outpost inside Israel, killing two Israeli troops, wounding several others, and capturing 19-year-old Gilad Shalit, the first Israeli soldier to be taken alive by Palestinians since 1994.


In response, Israel moved into the Gaza Strip, pounding government buildings, taking out bridges, and vowing not to leave without retrieving Shalit. Simultaneously, 64 members of Hamas were arrested, among them 23 Palestinian Authority legislators and a third of the Palestinian cabinet. Israel even sent warplanes to buzz the residence of Syrian dictator Bashar Assad, who harbors Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal in Damascus. "If you are in the terrorist business," said Mark Regev, a spokesman for the Israeli foreign ministry, "you can't be surprised if Israel acts against you."


But far from demonstrating that "Entebbe rules" still guide Israeli policy, the latest crisis merely proves what folly it was to abandon them.


Israel's operation in Gaza comes less than a year after its unilateral retreat last summer, when more than 8,000 Jews were expelled from the homes and communities some of them had lived in for decades. This, Israelis were told, would mean "disengagement" from their enemies — the Palestinians would have all of Gaza to themselves and violence would be thwarted by the security fence separating them from Israel. "If this will be done, then everything will be changed," Ehud Olmert, a key architect of the plan, promised in a speech last June. Israel would be better off without Gaza than it ever was with it.


But Israel wasn't better off. The surrender of Gaza didn't appease Hamas and Fatah. Instead, it convinced them that Israelis were weak, that terrorism worked — and that more terrorism would work even better.


So more terrorism followed. "In just the past two weeks," I wrote last September, "a Palestinian knifed a Jewish student to death in Jerusalem's Old City, an Israeli policemen was stabbed in the throat by an Arab in Hebron, Kassam rockets were fired from Gaza into the southern Israeli town of Sderot, a suicide bomber blew himself up in Beersheba's crowded bus station, a Katyusha missile launched from Lebanon exploded in the Israeli village of Margaliot, a firebomb was thrown at an Israeli vehicle on a highway outside Jerusalem, and a 14-year-old boy from Nablus was caught with three bombs."


In the months since then, the Palestinian war against Israel has continued without letup. All that changed was the frontline — with the Jewish settlements and soldiers gone, it moved right up to the border, making it easier than ever for attacks to penetrate Israeli territory. The Gaza security fence has been no panacea. Sderot and other towns in southern Israel have been bombarded by hundreds of rockets fired over the fence. The gunmen who abducted Shalit and killed two of his comrades entered Israel by tunneling under the fence.


"We are tired of fighting," said Olmert last year, making the case for retreating from Gaza. "We are tired of being courageous, we are tired of winning, we are tired of defeating our enemies."


But Israel will either defeat its enemies or be defeated by them; "disengaging" from them is not an option. In 1976, Israelis understood that in their bones. Thirty years later, do they still?

Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in in the media and Washington consider "must-reading". Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here.

Jeff Jacoby is a Boston Globe columnist. Comment by clicking here.

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