Israel's conundrum

The modern state of Israel is in a bind. Barring divine intervention, the conumdrum seems to be insoluble. Will Israel survive? This may be an empirical test of Dispensational hermeneutics. 

i) How do you respond to an enemy that refuses to make peace? If the enemy is bent on your wholesale annihilation, how can you survive short of annihilating the enemy? If your enemy will do absolutely anything and everything to wipe you off the face of the map, how do you survive unless you wipe them off the map before they do it to you? 

Critics are branded Israel's counterattack as "genocide." Of course, that's wildly hyperbolic. But suppose the Muslims give Israel no other option? If the ultimatum is: we (Muslims) will destroy you (Jews) unless you destroy us first, isn't that a forced option? 

Short of detonating some well-placed neutron bombs in Gaza, the West Bank, maybe Syria and Iran, how does Israel defend itself? 

ii) But that brings us to another horn of the dilemma. The "international community" won't allow Israel to solve the problem. If Israel took drastic action, it would face crippling economic sanctions.

iii) Israel has two adversaries: Muslims and liberals. The liberals are the nonviolent counterpart to the Muslims. It's a variation on the same conundrum. What if you have facts and logic on your side, but your opponent doesn't care? What if you argue with your opponent on his own grounds, but he makes no effort to be consistent?

To my knowledge, Israel is a liberal democracy. Its laws reflect blue state values. Conversely, its Muslim adversaries embody everything the Left says it deplores. Yet American liberals side with Israel's enemies. When Israel's ideological soul-mates side with their ideological opponents, israel has no traction. There's nothing left to say. 

Everyone agrees on the rules going in. You win the poker match fair and square. Then your opponent responds by drawing his revolver. 

iv) Suppose the Muslims succeeded in exterminating the Jewish population in Israel. Suppose Iran nukes Israel. Of course, the nuclear fallout would be devastating to the region, but if the Mullahs had the mindset of suicide bombers, that would be their ticket to the garden of carnal delights. 

What would be the reaction? Millions of people would celebrate their demise. Dancing in the streets.

Then you'd have academics with mixed feelings about the outcome. They'd say the Muslims went too far, but the Israelis were asking for it. 

The UN would issue a condemnation. The Pope would issue a condemnation. The US president would issue a condemnation. Someone might establish a new Holocaust museum. 

But life would quickly go back to normal. Most people wouldn't miss the death of another six million dead Jews. Millions of people die every year. Most people don't notice. Never knew them in the first place. It's just an abstraction. A statistic.

Moral of the story: if you don't defend yourself, don't expect anyone else to come to your rescue. You and I don't mean that much to strangers.