June 6, 2007

This Brings Me Memories…

…of a long time back, before I became mired in barrages of work and other inescapable responsibilities and my posting here was punctuated by long gaps, a few days or even a week at times, and just one post a day when I could work in the time.

Now it seems that when folks visit, they often expect that whatever new post they see is the only new one, read it and move on. (sigh)

Back in my earlier blogging days, it wasn’t unusual for me to do multiple posts in one day. Now that I’m doing my semiretirement thing and getting more time to myself, I hope to have more days (well, maybe I shouldn’t say “days”, since I prefer to blog in the stillness of the hours between midnight and dawn) like that.

It felt good to be able to do that this morning.

That said, here it is, four decades after a tiny country called Israel beat the everlovin’ tar out of the overwhelmingly massive bulk of the Arab world in a mere six days. I imagine that a lot of red faces peered out from within the confines of their dish towels after that humiliating attempt at an invasion was over, and that a lot of Islam’s wives and daughters, in the absence of dogs for fathers and brothers to kick, were thoroughly beaten by male family members.

Yeah, that was one solid ass whuppin’, and Israel even came away from dishing it out with some nice parcels of real estate. The Arabs could’ve had it back had they been smart enough to negotiate peace, but they preferred to play the roll of Menacing Moozlims, and so after a few years, Israel made use of the land, settlements sprawling out as Jewish immigrants arrived from America and Europe.

After losing a rematch in 1973 (Syria and Egypt were the unlucky attackers there, with a new, and as it happened, short lived monicker: The United Arab Republic, or UAR), the Arabs decided that the smart thing to do was to let the so-called “Palestinians” carry on the campaign of ridding the Mideast of Israel and the Jews by proxy. Israel is still there, along with lots and lots of Jews.

Muslims and other Israel haters, most of these styling themselves “intellectuals”, including many shamefully misguided liberal Jews here in the west tend to have revised history to support their descriptions of Israel as a usurper of Palestinian lands, the perpetrators of an “occupation”, “oppressors”, etc. Forty years means those of us old enough to remember are at the youngest middle aged and provides the opportunity for the creators of anti-Israel propaganda to use it to disinform two generations’ worth of subsequently born young people via schools and the media.

This OpEd from yesterday’s Opinion Journal by WSJ Editorial Board member and columnist Bret Stephens unrevises some embroidered or otherwise innacurate accounts of situations and events circling around, or as results of, the Six Day War.

On the morning of June 5, 1967, a fleet of low-flying Israeli jets surprised the Egyptian air force on the ground and destroyed it. This act of military pre-emption helped save Israel from what Iraq’s then-President Abdul Rahman Aref had called, only several days earlier, “our opportunity . . . to wipe Israel off the map.” Yet 40 years later Israel’s victory is widely seen as a Pyrrhic one–”a calamity for the Jewish state no less than for its neighbors,” according to a recent editorial in The Economist.

And the alternative was?

The linked article, while not long, is a good and worthwhile read. Here it is again.

by @ 5:59 am. Filed under The Six Day War
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5 Responses to “This Brings Me Memories…”

  1. GM Roper Says:

    Jeez Seth, I stay away for a few weeks and come back and here you are reminding me of how old we are. I distinctly remember the 6 day war, I was 20 at the time (yes that makes me 60+) and remember with Joy the licking that Israel gave to all the others. Jordan could have stayed out, but Nassar told him, not that the Egyptian Air Force was destroyed, but that Egypt “owned the skys” and victory was at hand. Jordan chose wrong.

    Good post and it brings back some solid (and good) memories. Thanks buddy!

    GM

  2. Angel Says:

    Brilliant post Seth..I love it!..
    so comforting to see some bold voices
    out here in the wasteland..woohoo!
    ya made my mornin!
    now wheres my coffee eh?.. :)

  3. Shoprat Says:

    I was only 10 and did not understand the full significance of what was happening. I now see the hand of Divine Providence there protecting Israel.

  4. Seth Says:

    GM –

    Thanks! :-)

    Me too on the memories, and though I was a bit younger at the time, I was embroiled in synagogue activities, followed shortly thereafter by an Orthodox Jewish-run sleepaway camp where there were numerous Israeli counselors, so I got the details of the war, military jokes included, blow by blow, got to meet a few people who had fought in it and listen to their accounts.

    Angel –

    Thank you. That was a war very much worth commemmorating, as it did have a strong and positive impact on Israel. I wish Olmert & Co weren’t doing their best to give it all away in the name of a false Utopia. :-(

    Cawfee, mmmmm!

    Shoprat –

    I now see the hand of Divine Providence there protecting Israel.

    I like to think so. :-)

    For Zion’s Sake has an interesting take on that from modern perspective, based on proclivities being espoused today by members of the Israeli left.

  5. Peter Goldsmith Says:

    Deluded fools, where was Israel between 1948 and 1000 years before that? Err…. wait there was Israel on the map that’s strange mhh sounds to me like ther Sailing Jews for American and the EU were abunch of warmongering greedy barstards Palastine will always remain Arab.