After years of relative quiet and peace, the Middle East is on fire yet again, and Americans are worried about Islamic terrorist attacks in the United States.
This latest chapter of hell started on the 50th anniversary of the Yom Kippur War when hundreds of Iranian-backed Hamas terrorists infiltrated southern Israel. Many entered on foot and in vehicles. Dozens landed at a music festival from paragliders, slaughtering 260 young people dancing in a field. Entire neighborhoods were wiped out, families were killed at their breakfast tables and in their beds. Civilians who tried to flee in cars were shot and burned. Thousands from 36 different countries were killed. Adjusted for population, the total murdered in cold blood adds up to at least six 9/11 attacks. The ones who survived the initial onslaught were taken hostage and back to the Gaza Strip.
So, why should America care about the latest war in the Middle East? Isn't this the status quo? A battle that's been raging for centuries?
To start, Hamas just killed 27 Americans, and at the time of this writing, at least 11 are still missing. American authorities believe the missing have been taken to Gaza, making the current hostage crisis the worst since the 1979 U.S. embassy siege in Tehran.
Second, the United States has been in an alliance with Israel since the country's official, modern-day 1948 founding in the aftermath of World War II. Over the decades, the two governments have shared key intelligence, working together to confront and destroy seemingly endless Islamic terrorism. Israel is one of only a few countries outside of the U.S. that has a 9/11 memorial and whose government hosts a moment of silence on that grave anniversary to remember what happened to their friends.
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But the history of America and Israel didn't start in 1948. It goes back to the foundation of the United States when the hope of the Promised Land gave the Founding Fathers the courage to battle the British Empire, against all odds, and establish a new nation.
"The majority of America's Founding Fathers believed that God's providential Hand was actively directing the establishment of the United States. Why did these highly-educated men believe such a thing? Because the Founders were students of the Bible. Scripture played a massive role in the daily life of early Americans, and the story of the Nation of Israel served as a model and inspiration in the creation of the United States," author and filmmaker David Kiern writes.
"In 1776, a month after the signing of the Declaration of Independence, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson and John Adams met to discuss the design of the Great Seal of the United States. Benjamin Franklin's idea for the Great Seal wasn't an eagle or the stars and stripes. We wanted the Seal to depict Moses leading the Children of Israel through the Red Sea, out of slavery and into freedom," Kiern continues. "Jefferson countered, proposing imagery of the Hebrews in the desert, led by a pillar of fire, marching toward the Promised Land."
In fact, George Washington wrote to the Hebrew Congregation of Savannah in 1790, "May the same wonder-working Deity, who long since delivered the Hebrews from their Egyptian oppressors, planted them in a promised land, whose providential agency has lately been conspicuous in establishing these United States as an independent nation, still continue to water them with the dews of heaven and make the inhabitants of every denomination participate in the temporal and spiritual blessings of that people whose God is Jehovah."
There are, of course, many other reasons America cares about Israel. These are some of the basics.
The usual suspects protesting on behalf of terrorist murderers, including Black Lives Matter and other groups, are the same leftists working overtime to destroy America from the inside out. They, and the murderous ideology they support through terrorist groups like Hamas, must be defeated. Common values and common culture matter, especially in the battle between good and evil. America and Israel are longtime partners in that righteous fight.
Editor's note: A previous version of this column stated Israel is the only country outside of the U.S. with a 9/11 memorial. That is incorrect and has been corrected in the piece.
