June 8, 2004

Dear ones, below is a report from Ronny Simon, our tour guide in Israel. We will be keeping you posted with prayer requests from the individual ministries as we receive them. Please continue to pray for Yonit Klein, that she would be completely healed of the cancer that is trying to invade her body.

Shalom from Jerusalem.
In Israel, we are commemorating two local events - On June 5, 1967, the “Six day war” started and the “Lebanese war,” also known as the “Peace for Galilee operation” started on June 5, 1982. These are two of the most formative events in our short history. These are two events that are pointing at two opposites regarding the lessons that we were to learn.

The Six-day war started as a result of Egyptian, Syrian and Jordanian aggression towards Israel, instigated by the Soviet Union. Some studies will suggest that Egypt was drawn into the war against its interest and by the desire of its president, Nasser, to keep leading the Arab world. Ordering the U.N troops to evacuate the Sinai Peninsula and deploying the Egyptian army on Israel’s border, were only part of the reasons for the outbreak of the war. Closing the straits of “Tiran,” in the southern side of the Red Sea, and blocking Israel’s southern trade route with Asia and Africa were the other reasons.

Blocking the Suez Canal to Israeli ships was another violation of international law that Israel’s economy could not tolerate. In 1965, an agreement was signed among Egypt, Syria and Jordan. According to this agreement, each country was committed to help any of the three in case it was attacked by Israel.

The course of events led to a massive concentration of forces on Israel’s borders with the stated intension to invade Israel and destroy the country. Israel had mobilized its forces and a period of three weeks followed; waiting to see weather the political efforts would have any results to ease the tension. When all the possibilities were checked and led to a dead end, the Israeli army was given the order to attack. In a short and brilliant air strike nearly 400 hundred enemy airplanes were shot, most of them on the ground. The rest was obvious; a total defeat of the combined Egyptian, Syrian and Jordanian armies as well as an expeditionary force sent over from Iraq. Israel’s territory was now three times larger. The West bank, Judea and Samaria, the Biblical heartland, was liberated. All of the Sinai Peninsula, the Gaza strip included, was in Israeli hands. The Golan Heights, a place of daily hostilities when the Syrian army was firing at Israeli farmers, was conquered.

Above all was the liberation of Jerusalem; the heart of most important Biblical events, was once again in the hands of the people it was promised to. All of the above is a well-known fact. What is less known is the aftermath of the Six-day war. On June 19, 1967, Israeli Prime Minister, Levi Eshcol, offered a full Israeli withdrawal from all the land taken by Israel except Jerusalem, for peace with the Arab countries. What is totally unknown today is that there were no Palestinians mentioned in this offer. Nobody on the Arab side was even willing to consider the Palestinians as people with any kind of rights. Amazingly, that was only 37 years ago.

Even the U.N. resolution from November 22, 1967, (Security Council) known as resolution 242, totally ignores the Palestinians. They simply did not exist. And what was the Arab response to Israel’s offer? On September 1st, 1967, in Khartoum, Sudan, the Arab leaders announced their decision - “No peace, no negotiations, no recognition. What was taken in war will be returned in war.”

The war of 1982 was of a totally different nature; Israel was not under a threat for its survival. However, the northern parts of the country along the Lebanese border, then held by the P.L.O., were shelled almost daily. The P.L.O’s state within a state was growing and the accumulation of weapons presented a challenge to Israel. Operation “Peace for Galilee” had one main objective - to secure the Israeli civilians and their property along the Israeli -Lebanese border. Since the Lebanese government was totally incompetent to deliver, Israel moved in order to destroy the terrorist infrastructure in southern Lebanon. A limited operation, with goals that were achieved, transformed to be a long occupation of southern Lebanon that led to unexpected results - the founding of Hezbollah.

The main debates in Israel today and issues that are dictating our whole existence are the fruits of these two wars. In the first one we learned that a brilliant victory in the battlefield is not necessarily the beginning of a successful political follow up. The second war showed us that when fundamental principles collide, security and human rights, the answers can be very complicated and sometimes simply impossible.

Ronny