Hello dear Kim,
First of all I want to bless your great activity for my country, Israel.
Secondly I decided to pick up the glove and to write a letter about my personal feelings about the Middle East.
My name is Shai and I was born in 1967, five months after The Six-Day War, which we are going to talk about later.
In May 1948 the UN voted to give us, the Jews, a state – after 6 million people were murdered in the holocaust in Europe (I lost my family in Poland).
A single small state and a warm house to the people that survived the German war machine.
Of course my neighbors, the Arabs, didn’t want it and the War of Independence broke out. Let’s mention that the Arabs have several countries (Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Saudi, Egypt etc), finally the state of Israel was born – a small baby.
A few more wars broke out, The Six-Day War (1967), The Yom Kippur War (1973) and the main idea was to erase Israel from the map.
Why? Just like that, no reason, they just wanted the new baby.
And then Syria and Egypt paid the ”rent” when they lost the Golan heights, the Gaza strip and Sinai.
Mr. President Anwar Sadat (R.I.P.) who made peace with us in 1977 got back Sinai, but he was clever, he said NO to the Gaza Strip.
The Gaza Strip is a disaster, over 1 million people live there, very poor, not like in the West Bank where they are rich and they’ve got everything.
So, Gaza is a good land for terror and another two babies were born: Hamas and Hezbollah. Both of them got food (weapons, money) from Iran.
Israel received thousands of missiles and rockets and there was no choice but to occupy those places.
Wow, that made a lot of noise in the world. Bad Israel! I ask: if it would have been the USA – what would the world have said then?
In 2000 the IDF withdrew from Lebanon and the Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said that we had to withdraw from Gaza as well.
OK, we did it, bad Israel gave the chance to Lebanon and Gaza to build something by their own. And what did we get instead?
Yes, missiles, bombs, killing of children and innocent people etc.
And now it is Iran that says that we should disappear. And I ask again, WHY?
The Iranians are not Arabs, they are Persian muslims, what did we do to them?
What is our crime?
I have a 10-year-old child and I ask myself what future does he have?
I am working for an American company, with a lot of branches worldwide, I have friends in Iran, Saudi, Lebanon, Egypt and we are very good friends. We are talking, drinking, eating at international meetings, and I am asking a last time… why isn’t it like that in reality?
Why is the Middle East full of envy, full of fundamentalistic religions?
For God? For Allah? Who knows if they exist?
Maybe I am naive, maybe I put here the Israeli point of view, but….
We are tired, we just want to give our kids a chance to a better life, otherwise where will we go? To Sweden (Ha Ha… Muslims everywhere), Germany? Thanks, we have already been there!!
Kim, again I appreciate your activities and wish you all the best.
You are a holy man.
Shai