No wonder Jewish people fight to keep their land

By Letter to the Editor on April 7, 2020.

Re: Letters to the editor by Larry Shapiro and Mike Fegelman, March 27, in response to Gwynne Dyer’s article of March 14 in the Lethbridge Herald.

There is nobody that agrees or shows sympathy with Larry or Mike’s view of Israel in the Herald’s online comments (10 responses as of this writing).

The state of Israel on the world map is the size of a postage stamp but it is always in the news; people love it or hate it; the same for the Jews. When writer Mark Twain was there in 1867 he wrote “the area is desolate.” So what is so special about Israel? There is not a nation where there is more information about than Israel and proof of ownership, starting with Abraham. It has not always been an easy and peaceful time. They lost the land a couple of times, the last time to the Roman empire in 79 AD.

After almost 2,000 years the Jews started coming back to Israel from all over the world and in 1948 the new state of Israel was reborn. (The Romans had renamed Israel “Palestine,” after the Philistines, the enemies of Israel.) It’s not hard to figure out why the Jews of Israel fight so hard to keep their land, and how annoying it is to get fired upon daily with missiles. They had a couple of wars since 1948, in 1967 and 1973, impressive battles, which they won.

Many people and nations and religions hate the Jews, even some Christians like Martin Luther, who wrote a book about it, and some Christian groups and churches talk about “replacement theology” (meaning that the Christians took over the place of the Jews).

But what amazes me is that with President Trump, who did probably more for Israel than any other president of the U.S., it’s the Jews in the government (Democrats) that are trying to impeach him, like Chuck Schumer, Adam Schiff, Jerry Nadler and more.

I think it is understandable that the Jews are very careful never to lose any more of their land if the whole world is against them. After all they have gone through, I don’t think the Jews are going to consider Gwynne Dyer’s idea or advice. And in the 72 years of the new state of Israel, they have transformed Israel into a very productive, prosperous state.

John Van Liere

Coaldale