The New Iron Wall
The only way to reach the point where “both peoples can live together in peace, like good neighbors,” is to create an impregnable iron wall – a strong power that can stand against the many regional enemies to Zionism. So Ze’ev Jabotinsky, an early Zionist philosopher, presciently and practically foresaw the struggle Israel faces to this very day.
While his language is anachronistic and fails the modern P.C. linguistics litmus test, the underlying conceptual framework soundly predicted both the impact of the advent of a modern Jewish state as well as the best means of ensuring the success and protection of that state.
An iron wall of strength and will to protect the Jewish people from eradication.
Now Israel is engaged in constructing a new Iron Wall, but the purpose and the beneficiaries are far broader and more consequential to humanity as a whole. Israel is building an iron wall to protect and preserve Western, liberal, democratic values in the face of intolerance, fanaticism, and barbarity. One tiny sliver of land and 0.2 percent of the world serve as the Iron Wall between West and East, the vanguard of a war no one other country is strong or brave enough to wage but Israel cannot avoid.
This war began one year ago with Israel, but it will not end there. We – and by we, I mean all Americans – are target Number Two in this war we refuse to acknowledge at our doorstep. For the driving force behind this latent war has always been Iran, and Iran has always referred to us as The Great Satan. Recall that Israel is merely The Little Satan.
What do Americans marching callously in the streets celebrating the horror of October 7 with Hizballah and Hamas flags think the Iranian regime plans to do if it ever succeeds (heaven forbid) in its shamelessly stated goal to eradicate Israel? Who do they believe is next in the line up for eradication?
The enemy has infiltrated our borders through our schools and universities. It has insinuated itself into our social justice movements, hijacking our internal politics for its nefarious ends. It has manipulated leftists into foolishly believing they share common cause and will not be immediately discarded upon any success in its imperialist mission of religious conquest.
The enemy has made public its intent over the course of the past year with the funding of university riots, weekly rampages through our cities, and daily demonization of our people and values.
Israel now stands between the existential threat posed by the Islamic Republic of Iran and the remainder of this globe. It stands at the forefront of an ongoing world war that represents not the clash of civilizations envisioned by Samuel Huntington, but rather a clash between civilization and barbarism, between the love of life and the worship of death, between a future of hope and progress and one of regression and destruction.
In this conflict between lightness and darkness that threatens to engulf the world, Israel stands as the stalwart Iron Wall. This new Iron Wall with its expanded scope and purpose is held up with the grit, tenacity, and morality of a miniscule group of people accustomed to standing alone on its own behalf. For the first time in history, however, those people, the people of Israel, stand on the front lines for all of humanity.
The New Iron Wall protects you, too.
Israelis send their 19-year-old children to the front lines of what truly is a global conflict because they have no choice. They live on those front lines. They have stepped up to free themselves of the tyranny and chaos of terror that has served as a sword of damocles hovering above their heads and airspace for far too long. But they have stepped up for you, too. Every forward-thinking, freedom-loving person who celebrates life, advancement, and the basic mores of western civilization should be thanking the one Jewish state for holding that front line.
In the year since the worst calamity to happen to the Jewish people since the Holocaust, Israelis rose as a phoenix from the ashes reborn of the burned bodies of their brutally murdered loved ones to grasp control of this conflict and their future. No longer are Israelis waiting for the approval of the broader western world to protect both themselves and that broader world.
Jews have never possessed the luxury to rely on others for succor. Jews relied on community, ingenuity, knowledge, determination, and faith to survive millenia of trauma. Jews shall survive this one and the next one in the same manner.
But we will bring you with us and save you, as well.
We will stand as the New Iron Wall for all.