EDITORIAL: Israel at 50 (05/10/98)

EDITORIAL

Israel at 50

On April 29-30, Israel, Israelis and well-wishers around the world marked the 50th Yom Ha'atzmaut (Independence Day) according to the Hebrew Calendar.

On May 14, 1948, Israel's founding father and first prime minister, David Ben-Gurion proclaimed a Jewish state at the Tel Aviv Museum. As the British Mandate in Palestine expired on the following day, there was already jubilation on the streets.

Mr. Ben-Gurion and the 36 other signatories of the new country's Declaration of Independence made a 3,000-year-old dream a reality. The state emerged from the Jewish people's darkest nightmare, the Holocaust, perpetrated by the Nazi regime and its collaborators. However, the new state was immediately plunged into a desperate fight for existence, as its indignant neighbors vented their rage.

On the eve of the country's 50th year, Israel's Ministry of Foreign Affairs made an announcement that was both joyful and sobering - in 1998, the population of Israel would reach 6 million. It is uplifting that the country continues to draw people, the "ingathering of exiles," with its promise. Yet it serves as a grim reminder of the number who perished in the Nazi mills of death in 1933-1945.

On June 15, 1948, Ukrainian Congress Committee of America President Stephen Shumeyko sent a greeting to Israeli President Chaim Weizman expressing happiness that "the Jewish people have managed to establish their own free and independent State of Israel," sympathy for their "valiant efforts to preserve it," and the hope that a truce then reached between Arab and Jewish combatants would "allow the State of Israel to live in peace and security as a sovereign and independent state."

Mr. Shumeyko pointed out the parallel experience of Ukrainians and Jews in pursuit of their dream of statehood. Zionism was born out of the same ferment of desire for national self-determination that gave impetus to Ukrainian aspirations. One of its great leaders, Ze'ev Jabotinsky, the founder of the Israeli Army, was born in Ukraine and worked closely with Ukrainians.

Now that Ukraine also has its independence, even more similarities present themselves. Both Ukraine and Israel have a state born out of an empire's loosened grip. Ukraine benefitted from the dissolution of the USSR, Israel from the passing of Britannia's supremacy in the Middle East.

Along with the realization of any dream come both transports of euphoria and cautionary tales, fulfillment and disillusionment, new opportunities for peace yet new bones of contention and conflict. Over the 50 years of statehood Israel has seen its share, and as a state it invites mature examination.

As the realization of a people's dream, however, Israel inspires awe and celebration. Mazel Tov.