The day after Israel was reestablished as a Jewish state, the armies of Egypt, Transjordan, Syria, Lebanon, and Iraq invaded the territory of the newly established state. Israel was less than 24 hours old, surrounded by enemies determined to prevent the rebirth of Jewish sovereignty in the ancestral homeland of the Jewish people.

The odds appeared overwhelming. Israel had no established army, no air force, no navy, and few of the resources normally associated with a sovereign nation. Yet the fledgling Jewish state survived. The invading Arab armies were defeated, and Israel emerged from the war with its independence intact.

But the defeat did not end the conflict. The fundamental objective of many of Israel’s enemies remained unchanged: the elimination of Israel as a Jewish state.

That objective has appeared in different forms and under different names throughout the decades. Arab nationalism, Palestinian nationalism, Islamist ideology, terrorism, rejectionism and, more recently, the genocidal ambitions of Hamas and other Iranian-backed organizations have all contributed to the continuing struggle against Israel.

Some Arab governments eventually recognized the reality that Israel could not be destroyed and chose a different path. Egypt and Jordan made peace with Israel, and the Abraham Accords brought additional Arab states into formal relations with the Jewish state.

But peace treaties between governments did not magically eliminate hostility toward Israel among significant segments of their populations, nor did they extinguish the ideology of those organizations committed to Israel’s destruction. Hamas, Hezbollah, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and the Iranian regime have continued to proclaim, in words and deeds, their determination to destroy Israel or end its existence as a Jewish state.

And that brings us to the extraordinary double standard applied to Israel.

War is ugly. War is brutal. War inevitably produces death, destruction, displacement and suffering. Civilians are tragically........

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)