Lesser?

This is coolbert:

From a comment made by a reader:

"Israel is a victim of the lesser jihad, but she has never concluded that the Moslems never will let go of their stolen Eastern Roman & Persian spoils of 1400 years ago"

This is true. Israel is being subjected to the lesser jihad. The lesser jihad being open warfare on the part of the Muslim against non-Muslims. Greater jihad of course being the striving of the Muslim for moral perfection on the part of the individual worshiper.

I don't think that when Ben Gurion made his statement, "between the Arab and the Jew, a hundred year war" he took it literally. My guess.

I do think the Zionists did anticipate a state of war that would last for some decades after the creation of Israel. But NOT necessarily a turn of events as has transpired.

There has been a series of threats over the years to Israel. Manifesting themselves in different ways.

* The Pan-Arabism as espoused by Nasser and to a lesser extent by Ghaddaffi.

This concept has not been successful. Seems to be passe'. Never took hold. Leaders such as Nasser and others saw THEMSELVES as being THE leader in the pan-Arab movement. These military men [Nasser and Ghaddaffi both were Colonels] were uniformly unsuccessful in their military confrontations with Israel. Sometimes shockingly so! I am thinking primarily 1967 here. Rather than leading the Arab armies to victory over the "Zionist entity, they presided over very shameful and humiliating defeats.

* Socialist movements [Baathism].

As found in Syria and Iraq. Socialist movements aided and abetted by communist Soviet Union in a massive way with armaments. Again, to confront and defeat the "Zionist entity". Secular societies that desired to create a westernized-Arab nation state. Even with an huge over-abundance of Soviet weaponry, nations such as Syria and Iraq to a much lesser extent, were basically impotent in their pronounced desire to eradicate Israel.

To some degree, at least with Egypt, the Israeli have achieved rapprochement' and an uneasy co-existence. NOT so with other regional powers.

My guess, is again, that by now the Israeli would have thought that the Arabs would have ALL reached an accommodation with the Jewish state. But this has just not happened!

NOW, Israel faces a new threat.

That from:

* Islamic extremists/fundamentalists.

Those movements, such as Hamas and Hezbollah, that SEEM to have taken hold and are dominant, organized, successful, and self-sustaining in a way that pan-Arabism and Baathism was not.

[I would not include the PLO in this grouping. The PLO under Arafat was a bumbling and incompetent group if there ever was one. Did a lot more harm to their own movement than good. Arafat ran things poorly and was highly ineffectual. His own worse enemy and the enemy of his "people" too.]

Confronts Israel with militancy, and an outlook that is far different from those of the nation-states that Israel faced on the battlefield for decades.

As Islamic fundamentalists, these groups recognize the world as being divided into Dar-al-Islam [House of Islam] and Dar-al-Harb [House of War]. The former is all land areas either now under the rule of Islam or once WAS under the rule of Islam. The latter is all other lands of the earth.

According to fundamentalist scholars, lands that have been "taken" from under the rule of Islam, such as Spain, the Philippines, or current day Israel, are lands that MUST BE RETURNED TO THE ISLAMIC "FOLD". The current rulers or populations "occupying" Islamic land are illegal and no mercy can be or should be shown to them.

[Israel, of course, is included as a land that has been "taken" from the "fold" of Islam!!]

Islamic fundamentalists are showing now, and will show for any foreseeable time in the future, a TOTALLY IMPLACABLE hatred of Israel. Coupled with an EVERLASTING resolve and with the connivance of Iran, this makes for a specially troubling mix.

What we are seeing now in Lebanon, between the Hezbollah and the Israeli [and for that matter between Hamas and Israel too] is not so much a war as a battle in a war. A seeming never-ending war for which there is no reasonable solution.

Once GOD tells you something [in the minds of the fundamentalists], you cannot argue.

Lands "taken" by non-Muslims cannot be conceded under ANY circumstances.

coolbert.