Israel At 76

Floor Speech

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Mrs. KIGGANS of Virginia. Mr. Speaker, I include in the Record remarks submitted at the request of a Virginia Beach constituent, Rabbi Dr. Israel Zoberman of Temple Lev Tikvah, and are a reflection of his views:

At its 76th anniversary, the State of Israel, the Middle East's only democracy and America's staunch ally, has been plunged into a national trauma given the unfathomable October 7th massacres by Hamas, Iran's radical proxy, rivaling Nazis, al-Qaida, ISIS and the likes' inhuman conduct with revolting sexual violence aimed at enraging and destabilizing Israel's psychological well-being. In 2006 Gaza's population callously elected terrorist Hamas, America's avowed adversary, rejecting international norms and Judeo-Christian values. Those were the last elections held in Gaza. Hamas triggered the current Gaza War bringing much suffering on their own oppressed Palestinians as well as the Israeli neighbors who benefitted them. Incredulously, majority of Palestinians yet uphold Hamas and the October 7th vile assaults.

The ensuing existential threats to Israel's very security and essential deterrence, followed years of rockets' bombardments that no nation would have tolerated. The world's only Jewish entity and ironically a nuclear power, experienced a described 9/11 tragedy, the darkest day since its 1948 establishment, a second Independence War, and a page taken from the Holocaust's unsettling lexicon. Israel was forced to mobilize 350,000 civilian reservists while handling the trying dislocation of thousands of Israelis from the country's invaded south as well as the heated up north where Hezbollah, the other Iranian and even more toxic proxy, disallows normal living with its constant shelling from Lebanon.

Uprooting unrelenting Hamas from ruling Gaza which Israel is rightfully insisting upon, is exacerbated by dense urban terrain and a system of unparalleled tunnels, all shielding an enemy with hellish treatment of torturing and murdering hostages of all ages, including American citizens, with many still captive without Red Cross visitation. The terrorists use hospitals, schools and mosques as launching pads with shocking impunity and a duplicitous United Nations. This mega eruption affecting the entire region and beyond is directly tied to the growing relationship between Israel and the Sunni Arab world with the near historic alliance between Israel and Saudi Arabia that belligerent Iran is seeking to forestall. A game changer is the April 14th massive air onslaught including over 100 ballistic missiles, though thwarted, exposing Iran's intent to destroy the Jewish state. Israel's limited response did however send a powerful message of penetrating so close to Iran's threatening nuclear facilities. The essential American support for Israel benefits both allies, protecting the entire world.

The provoked Gaza War increased Israel's familial bonding with American Jewry, the largest Jewish diaspora, which Jews at large have faced since October 7th an alarming rise of antisemitism, repugnantly visible on American campuses. Dr. Rabbi Daniel Gordis' recent book, Impossible Takes Longer (New York: HarperCollins Publishers 2023), written for Israel's 75th anniversary, lays bare Israel's astonishing progress along with challenges in light of promises and premises of Israel's May 14, 1948, Declaration of Independence.

The author asserts, ``Today, one needs to exert considerable effort to recall the world as it was only recently precisely because Israel's mere existence not only has fulfilled the promise to afford Jews security and an end to heartbreak but has been successful far beyond what Herzl (Israel's founding visionary) and his compatriots could have dared imagine.'' Thus, reflecting Israel's foremost asset as a safe haven to a long--suffering people at the mercy of others, finally seizing an historic opportunity to radically alter as treacherous trajectory. Notwithstanding October 7th shaking aberration catching Israel so agonizingly off guard, just as the 1973 Yom Kippur War did fifty years earlier.

Gordis ponders since a ``new Jew'' arose with Israel's establishment, will Israeli society be one ``based on freedom, justice and peace as envisaged by the prophets of Israel,'' so stated its Declaration of Independence. I believe that Israel's under duress remarkable accomplishments, along with world's leader in non-profits, are admirable though lofty Jewish aspirations face a regressive Middle East, and an Israel with unresolved core issues of Judaism's intersection with democracy, calling for a needed guiding constitution. Clearly, Israel spearheads the indispensable defense of the West and its civilization which the Jewish people mightily gifted.

Rabbi Dr. Israel Zoberman is founder of Temple Lev Tikvah in Virginia Beach, and son of Polish Holocaust survivors. He is Kazakhstan's only born Rabbi (1945) and grew up in Haifa, Israel.

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