Nadene Goldfoot
Living in the Middle East,
about the least aggressive country we find is Israel. Whatever steps Israel takes is only in the act of defensiveness, not aggressiveness. There is a big difference. Aggression is an
offensive action; the practice of making attacks or encroachments;
unprovoked violation by one country of the territorial integrity of another; an aggressive outlook or its manifestation, as in overt forceful action or in mental attitudes.
Defense, on the other hand, is the act of defending; the capability of resisting attack; means or method of defending; and to be defensive is taking a defensive position. Above you see a missile headed for Sderot, Israel shot from Gaza. When Israel is on the defensive, they will use an airstrike and pinpoint the place where missiles are coming from. They're not trying to kill innocents, whereas that missile will strike in a populated civilian area. Of course, the the Muslim Brotherhood has taken the stand that the existence of Israel is a violation, thus the terrorist acts against this fledgling country. They refuse to accept all the legalities that Israel went through to exist including recognition in the UN.
The fact is that Israel is a teeny country of 8 thousand sq miles with a teeny sized population of 7.5 million people, of which 6 million are Jews. Israel was established as a haven for Jews who have suffered persecution since the Roman days, and especially after losing their one and only country, Judaea in 70 CE. They've had to fight since its rebirth in 1948 to keep what they had prayed for in the past 2,000 years because of all the aggressiveness from their neighbors. Why would they ever try to take on the their Muslim neighbors who wouldn't sign a peace treaty except Egypt and Jordan, their close neighbors? Crazy, Israel is not. They had to wait for 2,000 years for this country, and Israelis are not about to blow it.
Having been reminded of Elizabeth Barrett Browning's sonnet, I will take on the voice of Israel's neighbors in speaking to Israel: "How do I hate thee? Let me count the ways" .....Remember, the Palestinians refuse to even recognize Israel as the Jewish state. Why? Religion? Politics? Racial? Their aggression? The planned for Palestine is to have not one Jew living in the land. They want it "Judenrein!" Compare that to Israel with 1.7 million Arab citizens. Jews didn't even get the chance to offer an olive branch. They were shot before and the very moment after the announcement of being conferred with state status.
Right now, we have the condition that every county of Muslim majority in or near the Middle East has it in for Israel. There are Muslim religious leaders, such as Qaradawi of Qatar broadcasting to followers to kill all Jews. We have the Muslim Brotherhood which has taken hold on the Middle East with a charter saying to not accept Israel's presence and to wipe her out and take it for themselves. Then we have terrorist organizations up to the gazoo working under this same flag with the same goal. It's not paranoia on Israel's part. There
are many people who are out to take and destroy Israel.
Syria, whose border with Israel is only about 100 miles away, has been in a civil war for the past 2 years. Next door to Syria is Lebanon who also shares the border with Israel. Hezbollah, the terrorists who want to wipe out Israel, who openly say they are the resistance movement against Israel, are embedded in Lebanon. What has been happening is that Iran, who wants to wipe out Israel, has been supplying weapons to Hezbollah through Syria. Behind all this backing them is Russia. It's become the evil empire against the West, and Israel, besides being a Jewish state, is the token West in their midst. Israel has a good system of finding out what is going on. They've already discovered a weapons armory in Syria which could contain chemical as well as many state of the art weapons that could cause huge damage and could fall into the arms of Hezbollah in Lebanon. So they have attacked this site and the trucks parked outside ready to deliver them. This is a defensive act, not an aggressive one. Everyone knows that Hezbollah can get these weapons and use them against Israel.
President Obama of USA has stated that Israel has the right to do this. He now realizes how close the antagonists are to Israel. Coming from the states, it's hard for anyone to understand the closeness if they haven't seen it with their own eyes. It's similar to the neighborhood nearest you to start a missile attack on your house.
Israel told Assad that no war is intended and that they are not taking sides in their civil war, but they don't want to be a casualty in it, either. Already Syrian missiles have struck the Golan Heights, which is part of Israel which were thought to be strays from the civil war. That's how close everyone is; hit by a stray missile, yet. The Syrian Coalition, those against the regime of Assad, remains suspicious feeling that this is taking away attention from the crimes and massacres on the Syrian coast, so they are blaming both Israel and Assad.
When Israel has been forced to act in defense, it is due to the obvious threat for their lives and done to protect their citizens, which has happened with all the terrorism coming out of Gaza. Not once has Israel acted out of desire to take land. If one is looking at Judea and Samaria (West Bank), the same applies. It was an all out war against Israel to drive her into the sea in 1967 that caused the Arab nations to attack her. Maybe there are miracles happening after all, because by all logic, Israel should have lost, but instead, proved the gamblers wrong and won against a horrid attack. As it turned out, this battle to the death gave Israel back land she was told was hers way back in 1917 from the League of Nations that was to be the Jewish Homeland. Judea and ancient Israel's capital, Samaria, later referred to as SAMARIA, was the ancient homeland of Israel from the days of Moses. England withdrew their word and promise to Israel by giving away 80% of Israel's promised land. Not everyone has been honest in their dealings with Israel.
Aggressors abound in the Middle East today.
Iraq is an ongoing battleground. In 1982 they fought the bloodiest of battles with
Iran. The USA even entered taking out Saddam Hussein, one of the worst dictators, but found no stockpiles of weapons. The accusation was that they were the country spurring on the 9/11 attacks in the USA causing over 2,000 deaths, even though the assailants were all from "friendly "Saudi Arabia.. It's not a safe haven in Iraq yet.
The Sunni and Shiite religious factions are attacking each other. The Sunnis living in a camp in the north are protesting that they are being treated like dhimmis (2nd class citizens) with a security crack-down by the Shiite-led government. Shiites blasted away at Sunnis near a cafe in the Sunni neighborhood near Baghdad and killed 9 and wounding dozens on Sunday in and around the capital.
Syria's aggressiveness is sectarian with a Sunni rebel movement against a regime dominated by Alawites and backed by Shiites including Hezbollah and Iran. Here we see Muslims against Muslims, like Ireland's Catholic and Protestant battles. Assad has recently used chemical weapons against his foes. They have just executed dozens, possibly hundreds of Sunni men, women and children. Most Assad people live along the coastal region. The rebels, called the Syrian Coalition, just showed videos of the carnage on their people. The pictures were of bloodied corpses of babies and adults, some of whom had been shot in the head or burned.
Pakistan's military forces suffered losses of their security forces from insurgent attacks in lawless districts that left 8 dead. 30 militant and criminal suspects were also killed on Sunday. Clashes went on in the Tirah Valley in the NW where 2 soldiers and 16 militants were killed. The army's offensive last month were targeting the Taliban and another offshoot of them, Lashkar-e-Islam. In the Waziristan region near Afghanistan, a roadside bomb attack on a convoy killed 2 soldiers and wounded 3. In Baluchistan, 13 suspects were killed in clashes. This all happened and was reported on Sunday.
Afghanistan insurgents killed a German special forces soldier and wounded a 2nd on Sunday. It was a slow week.
Nigeria had an attack that targeted a church and a local market. How can those aggressors say that they caused harm to them? This African country isn't all that far away from the Middle East and contains 155,215,573 , the 4th largest Muslim majority country of which 50.4% or more today are Sunni Muslims.
Somalia, a country that is 100% Sunni Muslim, the 25th largest Sunni Muslim country with 9,558,666 suffered from a suicide bomber, killing 7 people on Sunday. They tried to ram a car filled with explosives into a military convoy. Is this an Arab Spring reprisal? Armies are being attacked by rebels in many of these Muslim countries.
Tanzania is turning aggressor with someone placing a bomb in a Roman Catholic church just before Sunday's Mass. This killed one woman and wounded 44 seriously. What reason is there for this act?
Curacao, a small Dutch Caribbean island off the Venezuelan coast had an aggressive man shoot and kill the leader of the Pueblo Soberano political party, member in the coalition government. People there are in shock.
Boston, Massachusetts, USA, our recent terrorist attack from one of the worst aggressive acts from mentally brainwashed Muslim young brothers with the possibility of others' involvement.. Those watching the marathon did nothing to these two fellows except to be the taxpayers that paid for much of their government- funded amenities such as food, lodging and education, taking them in when their father called out that he was in fear of his life in his home country.
Resource:Oregonian newspaper 5/6/13 page A5, Syria issues warning after airstrikes, News Update, page A4, Nigeria vilence, Somalia bomb, Tanzania blast, Curacacao politician
http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/sonnet-43-how-do-i-love-thee-let-me-count-the-wa/
Webster's 7th New Collegiate Dictionary
