The Futility Of Attempts To Annihilate Israel

The Futility Of Attempts To Annihilate Israel

Ty Perry 

From Egypt’s Pharaoh to Persia’s Haman to Germany’s Hitler, many a world leader has attempted to destroy the Jewish people, defying God’s declaration that He will “curse him who curses” Israel (Gen. 12:3). Even today, motivated by a satanic hatred, many say, “Come, and let us cut them off from being a nation, that the name of Israel may be remembered no more” (Ps. 83:4).

Modern Israel’s history has been a fight for survival. Though often battered and humbled by brutal assaults, the Jewish nation lives, demonstrating the futility of attempts to annihilate it.

War for Independence (1948)

On May 14, 1948, Britain’s 31-year mandate over Palestine, as it was then known, came to an end; and Israel gained its independence. Six months earlier, the United Nations gave part of the area to the Jews and part to the Arabs. The dream for a revived Jewish nation in its Promised Land became a reality.

No sooner was the State of Israel born than its neighbors—Egypt, Syria, Transjordan, Lebanon, and Iraq—banded together to invade it. Their goal: Wipe the Jewish state off the map. But they could not.

Israel’s War of Independence lasted ten months and went down in history as the country’s bloodiest conflict. Of its 650,000 Jewish citizens in 1948, 6,373 (approximately one-third of whom were Holocaust survivors) perished. But the little Jewish nation pulled through, defeating massive, well-equipped Arab armies.

Six-Day War (1967)

Yet the Arab nations persisted in refusing to accept the Jewish state’s existence. For them, the 1949 armistice lines merely marked where their next attacks should begin.

In May 1967, Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser, advised by false intelligence from the Soviet Union, began moving 80,000 Egyptian troops, 550 tanks, and 1,000 pieces of artillery into the Sinai Peninsula. On May 23, he cut off Israel’s shipping lanes by blocking the Straits of Tiran, a direct violation of UN Security Council resolution 118. This was, by all definitions, an act of war.

By early June, five Arab nations had allied against Israel and assembled their armies on Israel’s borders: 80,000 Egyptian troops; 60,000 Jordanian troops, plus Iraqi forces; 50,000 Syrian troops; and a combined Arab air force of some 600 planes.

On June 5, 1967, Israel’s air force, flying low to avoid radar detection, made its way to Egypt. Before Egypt’s air force could get its jets in the air, Israel bombed Egypt’s runways and took out two-thirds of Egypt’s air force, the largest in the Arab world—all in merely four hours.

What Egypt had promised would be “the extermination of Zionist existence” was anything but. Though Egypt’s forces outnumbered Israel’s by three to one, its army retreated in defeat. Israel took control of the Sinai and opened the Port of Sharm el-Sheikh, reopening the sea lanes.

The defeats of the other Arab armies came in quick succession. Most significantly, on June 7, Israel pushed Jordan’s forces out of eastern Jerusalem, taking control of the Temple Mount. This was the first time in 2,000 years that a united Jerusalem lay in the hands of a sovereign Jewish nation. Jordan’s assault on Israel was over.

In merely six days, Israel not only defeated its powerful Arab neighbors, but it also captured militarily strategic territory (the Golan Heights from Syria, Judea and Samaria from Jordan, the Gaza Strip and Sinai from Egypt), making it far easier for Israel to protect its people.

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