Book Reviewed: Israel: A Simple Guide to the Most Misunderstood Country on Earth by Noa Tishby

Israel’s resilience Over many centuries, the Jewish population have overcome incredible sacrifice to do inspirational things such as creating a nation of their own. They thrive against all odds. For them, survival isn't optional, it's a necessity. Israelis routinely carry on with their day-to-day lives not just when things are calm and peaceful but when rockets are launched at them, during conflicts and wars and unofficial waves of gruesome terrorism that precede wars. They not only survive, but they thrive. This is not a history book per se. But it is more of author’s story book, about her mother and grandparents. The author argues that over the course of recorded history, the land of Israel belonged Jews, Romans, and others but it was never a sovereign Palestine. Jewish people have built a state of their own on a piece of desert that was nearly uninhabitable, but they turned into a flourishing community of agriculture and booming economic growth, a foundation for the state Israel today. The author observes two potential problems in how the conflict with Israel is viewed by the larger Islamic world. The international community started paying for the protection of Arabs to a tune of $1.2 billion a year, and the United Nations help to perpetuate the problem. The United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) provide crucial assistance such as food, education, and healthcare to 5.7 million Palestinian refugees. Children under UNRWA are taught antisemitic propaganda and encouraged for violence and martyrdom. For Palestinians, the best way to keep the war with Israel alive is to maintain a perpetual "refugee problem" under UN legitimacy, which maintains an international concept of "right of return. This has become a conflict of Israel with Islam that is mobilizing opinion against Jews across the globe and the continuation of attacks by terrorist proxies of Iran. Every time a peace process starts, the Islamic radicals resist the attempts. When Israelis send soldiers into Gaza or the West Bank to deal with terrorists, Palestinians are killed, and the cycle of violence continues, which is exactly what Iran, and its proxies are after. The second problem, the author points out is the "boycott Israel" movements that have become legitimate. Activists are crying for sanctions and boycotts, effectively stopping Israel from helping the world and Arab neighbors advance in technology, science, healthcare, and agriculture. When you weigh the entire region and look at Israel's unique freedoms (of religion, speech, gender, LGBTQ+ rights, etc.) it is hard to understand why it feels like everyone wants to drag Israel down. The reality is that once Golda Meir, the first prime minister of Israel said that "If the Arabs put down their weapons there will be no more war. If Israel puts down her weapons, there will be no more Israel.” This is precisely what much of Palestinians and the Islamic world is after.