"Saving Israel" Expert says American Jews key to Israel's survival
By Fredric Leder

WESTPORT - A standing-room only crowd of close to 300 people filled the small sanctuary at The Conservative Synagogue in Westport on Sunday, Dec. 6 to hear Dr. Daniel Gordis, senior vice president of the Jerusalem-based research and educational institute, The Shalem Center, discuss the future of Israel, Zionism and the U.S.-Israel alliance.  The author of "Saving Israel: How the Jewish People Can Win A War That May Never End" delivered a message that was a mixture of hope and warning; a message that stressed the key role of American Jewry in ensuring the survival of the Jewish state. 

Here are some of Gordis' key points:

1. Israel has survived all conventional military attacks and frustrated their aims, and Israel has reduced terrorism to a minor threat.

2. There is one potent attack by the Arabs against Israel that is capable of succeeding and against which Israel has no defense:.  That is the direct assault that Israel is now under by the Arabs via appeals to the world community.  This coordinated effort aims to delegitimize the Jewish state and cause it to be treated as an international pariah, whose products and scholars will be boycotted and ostracized from the international community.  

3. In order to survive this new attack American Jews must fight it in the halls of Congress and on the American campuses. This means getting involved with organizations willing to present Jewish arguments, e.g. the American Israel Political Action Committee (AIPAC).

4. If Israel were to be destroyed, American Jewry would be reduced to the bleak existence they experienced years ago in Poland or Russia.

5. Israel cannot accept a nuclear-armed Iran because the basic Zionist ethic was to relieve Jews of existential threats. The Iranian threat could easily have been stopped by Presidents Bush or Obama, via bombings by the United States Air Force. Since, clearly, this didn't and won't happen, the Israel Defense Force (IDF) will have to do it. [Gordis noted that his prediction was not based on any special inside information, but on his own analysis of the situation.]  In the event of such an attack, it is likely that Hezbollah, Hamas and Iran would retaliate with massive rocket assaults on the Jewish state.

6. We are at war with Islam and any denials to the contrary may be politically correct, but are wholly inaccurate. Of course, there are Muslims who are not Jihadists, but they represent a small percentage and are irrelevant. Militant Islam is succeeding in Europe, the Middle East and is coming to America. 

<I>Fred Leder is a retired oil company executive living in Westport who writes periodically for the Ledger.</I>
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