There’s more to life than rebutting the constant flow of uninformed, misinformed, and/or deliberately deceptive attacks on Israel, particularly in the otherwise liberal and progressive media. Talk about failing to learn from history – much of the left doesn’t even seem to know history when it comes to the Arab – Israeli conflict. The anti-Israel crowd seem to mythologize that Israel sprang deus-ex-machina from the loins of those media-controlling capitalist Jews who just took heavily populated, highly developed, fruitful Middle-Eastern land away from the victim indigenous primitives. It would be interesting to speculate on how much of the unstated source of this “liberal” anti-Israel narrative derives from subconscious, cultural assimilation of 2,000 years of official, Western, Church-driven anti-Semitism.

Israel was founded on perhaps 15% of the land originally demarcated to become a Jewish homeland. Britain removed 70% of the promised Palestine Mandate and enthroned a desert sheik, creating Jordan. At the time of Israel’s establishment in 1948 by the UN, the Jews had hoped to be granted more of their historic homeland, but they reluctantly opted to settle for this tiny patch. The Arabs, however, not only didn’t accept Israel - they also destroyed the Palestinian state which had been simultaneously created by the UN. Five neighboring countries invaded both Palestine and Israel, occupying every area they could. Dastardly things were done all around. This was, after all, war, one of man’s crowning achievements. However, it was a war fomented by the aggressor Muslim states, pursued by them, and seemed likely to be successful since they vastly outnumbered the Jews, had air forces and tank forces, which the Jews didn’t, and were further supported by dozens of other Arab states. The Arabs killed one in every one hundred citizens of newly-founded Israel, a huge toll by any standard except the standard just previously established by Hitler.

Some argue that Israel had no right to exist because Jews have no right to live on land they purchased, in homes they bought. Why not? Others hold that Jews have no right to form a democratic government in this UN sanctioned country. Really puzzling. Still others argue that Israel is an imperfect state and therefore has no right to exist. Yet they fail to fairly compare Israeli flaws to the massive failings of her aggressor, totalitarian neighbors. This is a case where moral relativity is illuminating. Why so much focus on victim Israel’s peccadilloes and no concern whatsoever about the massive social injustices of her attackers? And why do some insist that each time the Arabs attacked Israel that it was Israel who was the aggressor?

There are also many people who distort the statistics of Israel’s founding, for example comparing the demographics of Palestine to the Jewish population of Israel, essentially comparing apples to typewriters. But population should be irrelevant in any case. Even the UN holds that freedom of movement is a civil and political right, yet pro-terror advocates rail against the Jews who fled pogroms and Hitler, lawfully bought property and settled in Palestine amongst their co-religionists whose families had remained there since antiquity. Then there are those who hold that supporting Israel is un-American, that our national interest lies in abandoning our sole democratic ally in the Middle East so we can assure ourselves of ample oil supplies. We shouldn’t take a moral stand? Are we not a country which occasionally aspires to noble actions just because they are the right thing to do, or must we merely bend our values whenever we are extorted?

I’m grateful that somehow we manage to get our relationship with Israel right as much as we do in the face of constant carping on the part of the well-meaning misinformed who are fed a constant stream of deception, the most effective weapon yet that the confrontation states have deployed against tiny Israel.

Perfect is the enemy of good. Israel accepted far less than she wanted in 1948 in hopes of a satisfactory life for the remnant of Jews who had no other sanctuary. Middle-Eastern leaders then and now rejected the UN offer, demanding total satisfaction. Perfection. Had they been capable of settling for good, there could have miraculous growth for the Arab citizens of the Middle East over the past sixty years instead of on-going despotism, poverty, violence, famine, disease, and religious manipulation everywhere. But the Arab leaders still demand perfect. They want no dhimmis anywhere in their domain -and certainly no thriving democracy in their midst. Until those Arab neighbors are willing to settle for mere good, people will continue suffering there, and Israel will be forced to continue protecting her people as best she can in the tragic environment such violent Arab intransigence creates.