Israel marks its 60th

Israel marks its 60th

Israelis trace their national roots thousands of years, to biblical origins, and yet, the modern state of Israel is just 60 years old tomorrow.

It has been 60 years filled with growth, with the greening of the desert, with the building of a modern economy and with uncertainty, threats, antagonism and war. Too many wars. Six wars in 60 years. Too many deaths, on both sides of the battle lines.

And yet, consider this: Sixty years after the United States of America declared its independence, our federal government was fighting the Seminoles for control of a territory called Florida. Texas was seceding from Mexico. The Cherokee were being removed from Georgia to Oklahoma. The U.S.-Canadian border stopped at the Great Lakes; everything West was territorial, some claimed, some not. Arkansas had just become the 25th state. The Mexican-American War was 10 years in the future. It would be another 60 years before the continental United States, then with 45 states, would look much as it does today.

But today, we live in a faster paced world, and we can only hope that the evolution of Israel and a viable Palestinian neighbor-state will not take another 60 years. We can pray that it doesn’t take six more wars to reach peace in the Middle East.

Israel was created in the wake of World War II, a war that shamed the West because of the failure of civilized nations to prevent the Holocaust. But the development of a modern Jewish state had begun decades earlier in a part of the world that Europe and Turkey had been carving up to suit their own needs for centuries.

The early days

It began as a tiny state and was immediately attacked by six neighboring Arab nations in a battle of David and Goliath proportions, which David won. Twenty years later, most of those same nations were poised to strike again, with the intention of wiping Israel of the map, but Israel won the Six-Day War. It added occupied territory to the West and strategic mountains to the north and a desert buffer to the south that has on the one hand allowed it to survive, but has caused immense political challenges. Over the decades, some western nations shifted to favor Palestinians over Israelis. They seem too eager to forget that Israel is the only truly western style democracy in the region.

On the eve of the 60th anniversary of Israel’s creation, the nation has come a long way, just as the United States did in its early days. But unlike the United States, Israel does not have a vast wilderness to its West, waiting to be settled. Indeed, Israel must realize that some of the territory over which it has gained control through blood and sacrifice in wars it didn’t ask for, must be negotiated away if there is even a chance of peace.

Doing so will not be without pain, and it will not be without risk.

It would have been better for everyone if Israel had been allowed to exist in peace when it was created in May 1948. Jews and Palestinians alike could have prospered, if hate had not gotten in the way.

Mile marks, such as a 60th anniversary, provide a time to think about such things. Otherwise, we’ll be memorializing what could have been, rather than what is, when the 75th and 100th anniversaries come around.