Eventually Israel would take in millions of Jewish refugees from Arab lands, Europe, and all over the world, homeless, stateless people fleeing persecution and death merely because they were Jewish. Unfortunately, Israel was created too late to save the 6 million Jews murdered by Europeans in their own homes. Today, Jews may be the only people on earth with a significantly smaller population than they had in 1939.

The year 1948 began another strange era as well: Arabs refusing to take in Arab refugees from Judea/Palestine/Israel, instead placing their brethren in crowded refugee camps and refusing to allow them to become citizens of the Arab countries in which they lived. The "Nakhba" or catastrophe to Palestinian Arabs was not, for most of them, their moving a few miles from their old homes. It was that these particular Arabs were made an outcast by Arab leaders who could not stand the thought of what they considered to be "Islamic lands" controlled by the second-class Jews who had lived subserviently to Arabs since the rise of Islam in the 7th Century. Arab leaders were determined to make their fellow Arabs suffer as much as possible as a way to create festering resentment to the rebirth of a Jewish State in Judea.

So even though Pakistan accepted tens of millions of Muslim refugees from India at its creation...
and India accepted tens of millions of Hindu refugees from Pakistan at its creation...
and Israel accepted hundreds of thousands of Jewish refugees from Arab lands and Europe at its creation....
The newly-created Arab countries -- freed from colonial rule at the same time as Israel, Pakistan, and India -- refused to accept these hundreds of thousands of Arab refugees from Israel.

Some Palestinian Arabs and their descendants continue to live in these Arab-built refugee camps to the present day, as the leaders of Arabic dictatorships continue to brutally use the (mostly innocent) Palestinian Arab refugees as a pawn in a scheme to destroy Israel. The Palestinian Arabs are not allowed to become citizens of any country except the one Arab State already in Palestine (Jordan).

The strategy has not worked. Israel has prospered and continues to prosper as the one vibrant democracy in the Middle East, despite the massive suffering that dictators of the Middle East continue to attempt to inflict on both Israel and the descendants of the Arab refugees of 1948. Indeed the only other democracy in the Middle East (Lebanon) is in grave danger today from these same dictators who are trying to topple it as I write this.

Happy Birthday, Israel. You may never have peace. But let there be no doubt: the alternative to your existence is Holocaust. And for a tiny country smaller than Vermont (even with the West Bank and Gaza) and less than 10 miles wide without the territories, it is a miracle that you exist at all. That you have transformed deserts to farms with revolutionary advances in agriculture, created centers of technology and industry, and given a tiny home to what was once the most despised and victimized population on earth -- all in the face of fierce enemies who have never once stopped calling for your annihilation -- is even more miraculous.

No, Israel is not perfect. But given the neighborhood in which she lives, she has done amazingly well at age 60.

The Bible says the Jews are the chosen people--what they are chosen for--we still don't really know--but it must be important

Recently I've heard alot ado about how Israel is America's best ally.

Was Israel at our side in Vietnam? Kosovo?
How many troops did they pony up?

Do they were the American flag lapel pin?

Sure they are friends but what does America get in return of this friendship? I know Israel gets funding from America. Is it that that funding we give is returned in lobbying Wash DC? Sort of a money laundering friendship of American tax dollars?

You don't get men--you get good karma for being an ally of Israel--and, by the way, you can stick the nazi-nationalistic-idolic-flag-pin ploy up your butt--we are citizens of the Universe--owing allegiance to life and light--first

But--pragmatically--you're right--with U.S. forces in Afghanistan, Kuwait, and Iraq-- imperial America doesn't need Israel as much anymore to be a U.S. foothold of influence in the middle east

Israel is a heckuva lot more reliable as an ally than Afghanistan, Kuwait, or Iraq. In fact, it's our only reliable ally in the Middle East.

Make no mistake--Afghanistan, Kuwait, and/or Iraq are not our allies--they are just areas we militarily occupy (Watch out about Israeli bombing sorties--they just might get us all in trouble some day)

The U.S. must realize its imperial influence in the middle east is a chaotic and fluxing situation at best--beyond military solution (That's where the can't-shoot-straight Bush boys sign-off--not being able to realize diplomacy isn't always appeasement)