Tuesday, May 14th, 2024

On this Yom Ha’Atzmaut, the 76th Independance Day of the State of Israel, there’s an awful lot that I don’t understand.

I don’t understand how over 130 people are kept hostage in Gaza, in unknown, but most certainly intolerable, traumatizing conditions, while the media almost never mentions them.

I don’t understand how an international song competition created to bring people together, becomes a wild, political, hate-filled protest rally about Israel.

I don’t understand how, in 76 years, a tiny country in the Middle East, built on sand and wilderness, became a world leader in agriculture, arts, science, technology, and medicine.

I don’t understand how, in spite of what I just wrote above, so many still want to wipe Israel off the map. Israel was ranked the world’s 5th most innovative country by the Bloomberg Innovation Index. Don’t people realize what they would lose without Israel?!

I don’t understand how, 76 years ago, a tiny, brand-new state in the Middle East, when attacked by Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Egypt, and Iraq, with help from Saudi Arabia, Sudan and Lebanon, somehow managed to win. And how they kept winning when attacked over the next 76 years. (Oh, wait. I do understand how. They have no choice but to survive.)

I don’t understand how the mayor of Toronto – one of the most multicultural and cosmopolitan cities in the world, and the fourth most populous city in North American – refused to attend any Yom Ha’Atzmaut commemorations for political reasons, saying that she wants to be “neutral”.

Does anyone understand?!

Am Yisrael Chai!