FWD: Lessons from the Blitz 1

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International Jeruslaem Post, 26. September 2003
 
Lessons from the Blitz
 
by Evelyn Gordon
 
After three years of murderous terrorism, economic recession and 
international vituperation, "inspiritional" is not usually the first word that comes to 
mind when I think of Israel. It was thus something of a shock to come across the 
following sentence in former New York mayor Rudolph Gulliani's book 
Leadership.
Describing his thoughts on the night of the September 11, 2001 terror attacks 
he wrote: "I thought about the people of London (during the Blitz) enduring 
relentless bombing and continuing to lead their lives. I thought about how 
people in-present-day Israel do the same. It reaffirmed a strong feeling I had 
that Americans would rise to this challenge."
What really struck me about this statement was the comparison between 
modern-day Israel and London during the Blitz. For me, as for all children of my 
generation, Britain during World War Two had always been the epitome of heroism: 
the country that made victory over Hitler's evil possible by defying him, alone 
and unaided for almost two years.
Yet it had somehow never occured to me before that in the summer of 1940 the 
Londoners enduring the horrors of the Blitz had no surety of ultimate victory 
to comfort them; they must often have been gripped by the same despair thast 
has so often gripped Israelis over the past three years. Indeed, in that summer 
of 1940 victory seemed impossible.
Yet it was precisely in this atmosphere of despair that Winston Churchill 
offered his famous recipe for victory: "We shall defend our island, whatever the 
cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight in the fields and 
in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender...until, 
in God's good time, the New World with all its power and might, steps forth to 
the rescue and the liberation of the old."
Thart recipe worked for Britain then, and it can still work today for Israel.

kwp
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