Saving Israel: How the Jewish People Can Win a War That May Never End [Hardcover]

In 2001, while the 2nd intifada raged, a UN conference against racism was held in Durban, South Africa. What was predictable about the conference didn't make it any less shocking; the meeting very quickly turned into an anti-Zionism hate-fest, with the world's worst human rights violators condemning Israel, and Zionism, as being racist.

The conference descended into farce. The US Secretary of State, Colin Powell, walked out. The conference continued unabated (so a bit like the UN Security Council then). The draft resolution that followed contained sentiments of Holocaust denial (that too much had been made of the Holocaust) and that Israel is an Apartheid state.

A while later there was the international furore surrounding the massacre in Jenin. Before a UN enquiry even took place - which exonerated the IDF from having committed a massacre in its anti-terror operation - Kofi Annan responded to Israeli protests by saying "I don't think the whole world can be wrong." Neither the European press nor Kofi Annan apologised...

Then, after the Intifada subsided; after Israel's withdrawal from Gaza and the election of Hamas, which started a rain of 12,000 rockets on Israel, two American academics, Stephen Walt and John Mearshimer, published 'The Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy'. Although it was lambasted by a significant body of critics and academics alike, it still seemed to encapsulate the direction public debate about Israel was headed...

If the UN of today were to take the same fateful vote they did back in 1947, it's highly unlikely that the Jewish state of Israel would have been born. That same UN has now become a relentless critic of Israel.

In this compelling and highly readable book, Daniel Gordis makes the case that it is not Iran's looming nuclear weapons that pose the greatest long term challenge to the Jewish state's survival, and neither is it terrorism. The real challenge to the Jewish people is not only restoring that sense of pride long since lost after the 1967 War, but in rediscovering the value of Israel to the Jewish world.

But how do we instil a sense of worth to the world if we don't understand what benefit Israel has for ourselves? (This after a recent survey which showed a significant proportion of American Jews would not view their lives as greatly affected if Israel were to disappear.) Gordis acknowledges that we are a people so persecuted we would like to be a part of public opinion for once, not against it all the time; But writes that the Jewish people's inability to convey why the Jews need a state, has weakened Israel immeasurably, with some even joining the critics. `Perhaps' Gordis writes `what is needed is a decision not to be like all other states. Perhaps it is time to recognise, accept and even celebrate the fact that in order to survive with purpose, Israel needs to be different. Perhaps, by deciding to be different, Israelis could overcome the malaise that threatens to consume them.' (p.124)

Rather than hide away from problems, Daniel says, he would rather as a nation and people, endure the pain of talking, rather than leaving problems until they become critical.

Although this is part wake-up call, it is still very much a book of inspiration. Daniel seamlessly weaves his way through some of the more contentious arguments made against Israel, but this isn't really a history book, and it isn't one of those books making a case by case rebuttal of the latest fairy-tale accusation against Israel (although there is some of that, done brilliantly). This is more like a blog by a very informed writer, meditating on various themes out of which we can gain a sense of worth and purpose.

Although I've visited Israel many times before, the recent journey in which this book accompanied me will always be remembered. This book became my travel companion, bringing to life my surroundings. Not as a tour guide explaining any particular location, but the thoughts the land would tell me, if it could speak. And Gordis knows what the land is thinking. His chapter entitled `The Next 6 Million' compelled me to visit the Yad Vashem Holocaust museum in Jerusalem. In `The First War, All Over Again' he shows why, even though terrorism has never constituted a threat to Israel's very existence, the poor performance in the 2006 conflict with Hezbollah (not to mention the incitement) have put questions about Israel's vulnerability back on the table. Each war is the unfinished war for independence, all over again. With many other issues discussed ranging from what Israelis should do with the (at the time) recent influx of Sudanese refugees, to Israelis now having woken up to the fact that Palestinians are not so concerned about the creation of a Palestinian state, but the destruction of the Jewish one, Daniel helps put it all in perspective. He provides the bigger picture, the smaller details we've missed, he manages to make us aware, educate, enlighten and warn, all at the same time. I know this is a book I'll come back to when I want inspiration, or comfort.

Saving Israel is not like any previous Gordis book. Though he has lost none of his thoughtful eloquence, here is a more direct, steadfast Daniel Gordis than we encountered in his previous tomes.

Gordis has no illusions about the many threats to its future that Israel faces. However, he shows that much of what needs to be done to save it from those threats can be done internally by Israelis themselves. Israelis, he believes, need to reconnect with the original purpose of the Jewish state in order to guarantee the state's future. He passionately restates that purpose and vividly re-evokes the pioneering spirit that took the dream of Zionism and turned it into reality. He's on breathtaking form in these passages as he laments the `withering of Zionist passion' and shows how it can be - and must be - reawakened.

Then he turns to the issue of Israeli Arabs and the more steadfast Gordis begins to show his hand. He addresses the issue with humanity, but also unflinching honesty. When he turns to the many external threats to Israel's future, Gordis is again admirably frank. He shows once and for all the true intentions of Israel's enemies and then powerfully shows why - contrary to the views of some diaspora Jews - winning and fighting wars is not antithetical to Judaism. Sweeping deftly through Jewish history, this chapter is overwhelmingly powerful.

Much as I adored his previous books, there was an occasional tendency for hand-wringing in their pages. In Saving Israel, Gordis is far more partisan and route-one. This is not to say that he has lost any of his thoughtfulness and charm. Similarly, while this is a less personal book than his previous efforts, there are still some occasional insights into his family's life. (Once again, they leave you thinking: `Oooh, he sounds like such a great Dad!')

And such a great thinker, too. I hope this book is read very, very widely. Not only will those who take the time to read it be entertained, informed and inspired. They will also emerge from the experience all the more able to do what must be done to save the Jewish state and take it to new heights.

In one section of Saving Israel, Gordis calls for the reinvention of the `new Jew' of Zionism. Well, he walks it like he talks it. In this brilliant book we meet a new Daniel Gordis who has - in an entirely humane and appropriate way - taken the gloves off. Long may he spar.

In this pivotal contribution to the discussion about Israel's struggle for survival and that country's nature, Daniel Gordis takes the bull by the horns and grapples both with the seemingly insurmountable challenges facing Israel today as well as how Israel can win what seems to be an unwinnable struggle to survive in these frightening and sombre days.

Israel, Gordis argues needs to rediscover it's Jewish roots and values while reconnecting faith with nationhood.
The last decade has made it painfully clear that 'Palestinian nationalism' has no interest in working towards statehood and a better life for the Palestinian people but is solely aimed at the destruction of Israel.This glaring fact destroys the illusion that territorial compromise can bring the conflict to an end.
The issue is not Palestinian statehood but Israeli statehood.
Gordis points out that the so-called "Intifada" of 2000-2005 was not at all a "popular uprising" that the international media had fooled the world into believing but was rather a terror war launched by and orchestrated and directed by terror chief Yasser Arafat and the PLO leadership.in defiance of Israel's right to exist.
These realities can be further explored in such excellent works as Right to Exist: A Moral Defense of Israel's Wars ,Myths and Facts: a Guide to the Arab-Israeli ConflictHistory Upside Down: The Roots of Palestinian Fascism and the Myth of Israeli Aggression , and Israel: Life In The Shadow Of Terror .

Every time Israel withdraws from land this has the polar opposite result to the peace Israel intends to bring about by doing so. Israel's Arab enemies see this as a sign of weakness and respond with further aggression.
The 2000 comprehensive peace offer by Ehud Barak to the Palestinians, of Judea, Samaria, Gaza and East Jerusalem, resulted in the 2000-2005 Palestinian terror war, and the 2005 withdrawal from Gaza, accompanied by the forced removal of Gaza's 20 000 Jewish residents' led to the election of the Islamonazi Hamas movement by the Palestinians, the pounding of Israel by tens of thousands of Kassam rockets and the kidnapping of Israeli soldiers, finally forcing Israel to retaliate in the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah War and the 2008-2009 war against Hamas.

While Israel has become the scapegoat of the world, and the victim of such bottomless and venomous hatred across the world, this has been compounded by the abandonment of Israel by Israel of many diaspora Jews. A recent survey revealed that a full 50% of American Jews under the age of 35 said that Israel's destruction (and the accompanying annihilation of Israel's Jews) would NOT be a personal tragedy.
Add to this the overwhelming support of American Jews for Barack Obama, whose attitude to the Jewish state verges on open hostility and whose ruthless pressure of Israel to act against her own survival, together with a determination to ingratiate the USA with the Islamic world, including it's most radical elements including Iran and Syria.
The denial of Israel's right to exist, not only by Islamic extremists, but also by a myriad of left wing opinion makers such as Tony Judt and Noam Chomsky, puts the existence of Israel in very real danger. This is because delegitimization and demonization paves the way for physical annihilation, as we saw with the Holocaust.
This is already leading the world (including the Obama administration) to refuse to take action to prevent Iran's acquisition of nuclear weapons, especially in the face of Iran's bloodthirsty President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's determination to "'wipe Israel off the map"

Many diaspora Jews, (and even some Israelis) are comfortable with the idea of Jews and defenceless victims, rather than as a strong nation, always ready to fight for survival whenever the need may be.
Gordis puts forward the premise that for Israel to survive Israel's people need to rebuild their will to survive. Secular Jews must rebuild some kind of connection to their faith and traditions, and religious Jews to the Nation of Israel as a whole.
Jewish and Zionist values must be imbibed and Jews need to realize that warfare in defence of survival of the Jewish people is not in contradiction to Jewish values but rather a necessity according to Judaism, given the fact the fact that the alternative would mean national suicide and a second Holocaust.

Israel is the embodiment of Jewish survival, Jewish recovery, Jewish being and the Jewish future. Jews in Israel and the diaspora need to embrace this and rediscover a sense of people-hood for Israel and world Jewry to survive. Israel cannot simply be the recreation of a mini-America, but must be governed according to Jewish norms and values.