(Jewish Ideas Daily) Sol Stern - Jonathan Spyer, a scholar and journalist specializing in the Middle East conflict, is also an Israel Defense Forces reservist in an armored combat unit. His new book, Transforming Fire, begins like an Israeli war memoir, with his call-up in 2006 for the Second Lebanon War. His unit took several direct hits, killing one reservist. Abandoning their tanks, Spyer and his comrades scrambled for cover through an irrigation ditch, barely eluding the hundreds of Hizbullah fighters in the area. They were rescued by an Israeli armored vehicle after 13 hours. In his judgment, the Jewish state now faces relentless Islamist/jihadist warfare. With Hizbullah and Hamas sitting on its northern and southern borders, and with Iran, the principal backer of these two terrorist organizations, about to go nuclear, the Jewish state has entered into what Spyer characterizes as a permanent cold war. By its nature, this overarching struggle is wholly unrelated to whether or not Israel ends its "occupation" of the West Bank. The Islamists are not interested in any territorial or political settlement; they are interested in Israel's elimination.
2011-01-07 08:07:42Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive