[FONT="]Samuel Clemens, better known as Mark Twain, wrotein 1898:
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[FONT="]If the statistics are right, the Jews constitutebut one per cent of the human race. It suggests a nebulous dim puff ofstar-dust lost in the blaze of the Milky Way. Properly the Jew ought hardly tobe heard of; but he is heard of, has always been heard of. He is as prominenton the planet as any other people, and his commercial importance isextravagantly out of proportion to the smallness of his bulk. His contributionsto the world’s list of great names in literature, science, art, music, finance,medicine, and abstruse learning are also away out of proportion to the weaknessof his numbers.[/FONT]
[FONT="]He has made a marvellous fight in this world, inall the ages; and has done it with his hands tied behind him. He could be vainof himself, and be excused for it. The Egyptian, the Babylonian, and thePersian rose, filled the planet with sound and splendour, then faded todream-stuff and passed away; the Greek and the Roman followed, and made a vastnoise, and they are gone; other peoples have sprung up and held their torchhigh for a time, but it burned out, and they sit in twilight now, or havevanished.[/FONT]
[FONT="]The Jew saw them all, beat them all, and is nowwhat he always was, exhibiting no decadence, no infirmities of age, noweakening of his parts, no slowing of his energies, no dulling of his alert andaggressive mind. All things are mortal but the Jew; all other forces pass, buthe remains. What is the secret of his immortality?[/FONT]
[FONT="]Between 250 CE and 1948, a period of 1700 years,the Jews were expelled from more than eighty countries. That’s a new countryapproximately every 22 years. To provide a few examples, the Jews were expelledfrom England, France, Austria, Germany, Lithuania, Spain, Portugal, Bohemia,and Moravia. History shows that a people expelled from its land assimilate intothe new land within three to four generations. How is it possible that the Jewshave continued to survive as a distinct nation for over 2,000 years, and this despitenot one, but eighty expulsions?[/FONT]
[FONT="]The Torah predicts that the Jews will be expelledfrom the Land of Israel, which will then become barren and desolate, but thatthe Jews will later return to Israel. Both parts of this prediction fly in theface of the norms of world history.[/FONT]
[FONT="]The Land of Israel is located at the meeting pointof Europe, Asia, and Africa. In ancient times, it was a highly prized traderoute, leading all the successive ancient empires (Egypt, Assyria, Babylonia,Persia, Greece, Rome, etc.) to give high priority to conquering it. It was alsorich in olives (used for olive oil), grapes (used for wine), and otheragricultural crops. It is in the interests of conquering powers to colonize anddevelop the lands they conquer, especially a land that is so geographically important.Yet, after the Jews were expelled by the Romans, the land fell into desolationfor nineteen centuries, just as the Bible prophesized.[/FONT]
[FONT="]Mark Twain travelled to Palestine in 1867. Hedescribed the utter desolation and barrenness that he witnessed there:[/FONT]
[FONT="]A desolate land whose soil, though more thansufficiently rich, produces only thorn bush and thistle—a silent mourningexpanse. There is such desolation; one cannot even imagine that life’s beautyand productivity once existed here… The Land of Israel dwells in sackcloth andashes. The spell of a curse hovers over her, which has blighted her fields andimprisoned her mighty potential with shackles. The Land of Israel is wasteland,devoid of delight.[/FONT]
[FONT="]Remarkably, as soon as the Jews returned, startingin the late 19th century, the land became fertile and reinvigorated.[/FONT]
[FONT="]The return of the Jewish people to their ancestralhomeland after 1900 years is unprecedented in history, and can only bedescribed as miraculous. Moreover, the achievement of the Jews of Israel sincethe establishment of the modern State of Israel fifty-five years ago is beyondthe norm of reason or logic. It is the 100th smallest country, with less than1/1000th of the world’s population, yet it boasts accomplishments that have changedthe world:[/FONT]
[FONT="]The cell phone, which today is viewed by most ofthe world community as “indispensable,” was developed in Israel by the Israelibranch of Motorola, which has its largest development centre in Israel.[/FONT]
[FONT="]Every contemporary computer has Windows NT or XP.Most of these operating systems were developed by Microsoft-Israel. The PentiumMMX Chip technology was designed in Israel at Intel. Both the Pentium-4microprocessor and the Centrino processor were entirely designed, developed,and produced in Israel. Voice mail technology was developed in Israel. Fouryoung Israelis developed the technology for the AOL Instant Messenger ICQ in1996.[/FONT]
[FONT="]According to industry officials, Israel designedthe airline industry’s most impenetrable flight security. U.S. officials nowlook to Israel for advice on how to handle airborne security threats.[/FONT]
[FONT="]Israel’s $100 billion economy is larger than allof its immediate neighbours combined. Israel’s GDP ranks number third amongdeveloping countries, following behind only Hong Kong and Singapore. Israel hasthe highest percentage in the world of home computers per capita.[/FONT]
[FONT="]Israel has the highest ratio of university degreesto the population in the world. Israel produces more scientific papers percapita than any other nation by a large margin—109 per 10,000 people—as well asone of the highest per capita rates of patents filed. Israel is ranked #2 inthe world for venture capital funds, right behind the United States.[/FONT]
[FONT="]On a per capita basis, Israel has the largestnumber of biotech startups.[/FONT]
[FONT="]Israel has the world’s second highest per capitaof new books.[/FONT]
[FONT="]Israel is the only country in the world thatentered the 21st century with a net gain in its number of trees, made moreremarkable because this was achieved in an area considered mainly desert.[/FONT]
[FONT="]Israel has more museums per capita than any othercountry.[/FONT]
[FONT="]Israel leads the world in the number of scientistsand technicians in the workforce, with 145 per 10,000, as opposed to 85 in theU.S., over 70 in Japan, and less than 60 in Germany.[/FONT]
[FONT="]Israeli innovations have had a major impact on thefield of medicine: Israeli scientists developed the first fully computerized,no-radiation, diagnostic instrumentation for breast cancer. An Israeli companydeveloped a computerized system for ensuring proper administration ofmedications, thus removing human error from medical treatment. (Every year inU.S. hospitals 7,000 patients die from treatment mistakes.) Israel developedthe first ingestible video camera, so small it fits inside a pill. Used to viewthe small intestine from the inside, the camera helps doctors diagnose cancerand digestive disorders. Researchers in Israel developed a new device thatdirectly helps the heart pump blood, an innovation with the potential to savelives among those with heart failure. The new device is synchronized with theheart’s mechanical operations through a sophisticated system of sensors. A newacne treatment developed in Israel, the ClearLight device, produces ahigh-intensity, ultraviolet-light-free, narrow-band blue light that causes acnebacteria to self-destruct—all without damaging surroundings skin or tissue.[/FONT]
[FONT="]An Israeli company was the first to develop andinstall a large-scale solar-powered and fully functional electricity generatingplant, in southern California’s Mojave Desert.[/FONT]
[FONT="]On October 6, 2004, two Israeli scientists won theNobel Prize in Chemistry for their research into ways that cells can shut downbad proteins and enzymes. This amazing research is being utilized to learn howto end the creation and proliferation of cancer cells and neurologicaldisorders.[/FONT]
[FONT="]All the above was accomplished while engaged inintermittent wars with an implacable enemy that seeks its destruction, and aneconomy continuously strained by having to spend more per capita on its own protectionthan any other country on earth.[/FONT]
[FONT="]The Torah also prophesizes that the Jews willreturn to Israel en masse from the four corners of the world. In the last fiftyyears, Israel has absorbed Jewish immigrants from every continent and overseventy different countries. Israel, at the time of its inception in 1948, hada population of 600,000. Within its first five years, it absorbed 600,000immigrants, doubling its own size. Relative to its population, Israel is thelargest immigrant-absorbing nation on earth. In 1984 and again in 1991, Israelairlifted a total of 22,000 Ethiopian Jews to safety in Israel.[/FONT]
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[FONT="]This entire sequence of events, prophesized in theBooks of Ezekiel, Jeremiah, and Isaiah, defies nature, history, and logic.[/FONT]
[FONT="]A brief overview of the history of modern Israelalso reads like a litany of miracles:[/FONT]
[FONT="]On the very day in May 1948, that the modern stateof Israel declared its independence, five Arab armies attacked. The incipientstate of 600,000 Jews was surrounded and attacked by nations populated by 50million Arabs. Azzah Pasha, then the Secretary General of the Arab League,proclaimed over the airwaves: “This will be a war of extermination, and amomentous massacre.”[/FONT]
[FONT="]The British, who were in control of Palestine from1917 until the day the Jewish state was declared, prohibited the Jews fromacquiring arms or military training. Thus, the army whose job it was to resistthe well-equipped, British-trained invading Arab armies was a rag-tag group,many of whom were Holocaust survivors who were sent into battle on the very daythey landed in Israel.[/FONT]
[FONT="]Yet, the fledgling Jewish state miraculouslysurvived the onslaught. In fact, when the armistice lines were drawn in January1949, the Jews had gained 21% more land than had been originally given to themin the United Nations partition plan.[/FONT]
[FONT="]Nineteen years later, a coalition of Egypt, Syria,Lebanon, and Jordan decided the time had come to annihilate the Jewish state.They were equipped with $3,000,000,000 of military aid from the Soviet Union.Egypt demanded that the United Nation’s peace-keeping force stationed in Sinaileave, a demand to which they promptly complied. The four Arab armies thendeployed on Israel’s borders, backed up by the armies of Iraq, Algeria, Kuwait,and Sudan. President Nasser of Egypt then closed the Straits of Tehran, thusblocking all shipping to Israel’s southern port of Eilat. This was aninternationally recognized act of war.[/FONT]
[FONT="]Israelis, out-numbered and out-armed, listened todaily Arab broadcasts threatening to drive them into the sea. And who wouldstop them? Not one nation in the world was willing to stand behind Israel orprovide them with arms. The mood in the young Jewish state was so despairingthat when the Prime Minister Levi Eshkol addressed the nation, adjuring them tobe strong, he himself broke down and wept.[/FONT]
[FONT="]Miraculously, the war that broke out was over insix whirlwind days. Instead of defeat, Israel scored a stunning victory. Toeveryone’s consternation, the Jews had tripled their territory, and hadregained, after 2,000 years, their holiest sites in Jerusalem, Hebron, andBethlehem.[/FONT]
[FONT="]On October 6, 1973, Israel was again engaged inwar. It was called the Yom Kippur war because most Israelis had been in theirsynagogues, fasting and praying when they were suddenly attacked. Egyptattacked the Sinai Peninsula and Syria attacked the Golan Heights. In total,eleven Arab nations attacked Israel. Remember that Israel is a country smallerthan the state of New Jersey. Miraculously, the Jews gained all strategiclocations, threatened Damascus, and headed for Cairo. Two major Arab nationswere seriously threatened, so Russia called for peace. Israel survived yetanother attempt at annihilation.[/FONT]
[FONT="]In 1991, Israel was threatened again, this time byIraq. After Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait, the United States attacked Iraq. SaddamHussein vowed to “incinerate” Israel with his Scud missiles. While the UnitedStates ordered Israel to refrain from self defense and retaliation, Iraqshowered 39 Scud missiles on the most densely populated area of Israel.Miraculously, only one Israeli was killed.[/FONT]
[FONT="]In the wake of this war, the prestigiousscientific journal Nature, as well as M.I.T., published articles trying toevaluate how Israel was spared massive tragedy. Scientifically and militarily,the casualties should have been far greater. In previous wars elsewhere in theworld in which V-2 Scud missiles were launched, massive casualties ensued. Evenduring the Gulf War, one Iraqi Scud missile striking Dhahran, Saudi Arabia,killed 28 American soldiers.[/FONT]
[FONT="]Let’s analyse the miracle of the Gulf War inIsrael. In 1944, when Germany attacked London, the ratio of casualties was fivedeaths and eleven severe injuries per missile. In the Tehran War, 1980-88, Iraqlaunched Scud missiles against Iran. In this war, the ratio of casualties wasapproximately thirteen deaths and thirty severe injuries per missile. Relativeto these statistics, Israel should have suffered between 195 and 507 totaldeaths from 39 Scuds. Instead, it suffered only one death. (The populationdifferential was: Iran 300/hectare and London 43/hectare. The population in TelAviv, which suffered the major brunt of the missile attacks, was 70/hectare.That’s more than 1.6 times the amount of London!) In terms of severe injuries,Israel could have been expected to suffer between 429 and 1170 severe injuriesfrom 39 Scud missiles. Instead, there were 230 injuries. Of these, ten weremoderate, and only one was severe.[/FONT]
[FONT="]In Israeli television broadcasts after everymissile attack, the fervently secular news reporters would again and again usethe word, “miracle.”[/FONT]
[FONT="]Interestingly, West Point Military Academy in itscourses on military strategy does not attempt to analyse Israel’s wars. Itomits them from its curriculum because they do not follow the normal laws ofwarfare.[/FONT]
[FONT="]Objectively, we must conclude that such miraculousevents suggest Divine intervention in human affairs. God not only created theuniverse; God is still involved in its workings.[/FONT]
[FONT="][1] Genesis& the Big Bang, (Bantam Books, 1991)[/FONT]
[FONT="][2] Concerning the Jews, Harper Magazine, March,1898[/FONT]
[FONT="][3] The Innocents Abroad, Mark Twain, London 1881[/FONT]
[FONT="][4] Nature,January 1993, Why were the Casualties So Low[/FONT]
[FONT="][5] Casualties and Damage from Scud Attacks in the 19991 Gulf War (MIT,Defense and Arms Control Studies, January, 1993)[/FONT]
[FONT="]excerpt from Search Judaism[/FONT]