Peter Kalis: A Lament for Israel

In the North­ern Pan­han­dle of West Vir­ginia of my child­hood, there were two ma­jor re­li­gious de­nom­i­na­tions: Roman Cath­o­lic and “Other.” “Other” in­cluded most Prot­es­tant churches, and that’s where the few Greek Ortho­dox kids like my brother and me were sit­u­ated. Not that any of this mat­tered on the bas­ket­ball courts and ball fields. I men­tion it here be­cause I have no rec­ol­lec­tion of any Jew­ish stu­dents in my lit­tle high school.

As a se­nior, I worked as a night man­ager in a McDon­ald’s and re­ported to the day man­ager, an Army vet­eran named Don who dis­pensed wis­dom while ma­neu­ver­ing a chaw of to­bacco around his mouth. One day at the tran­si­tion be­tween shifts, Don asked me whether I had heard about the war that had just be­gun.

Don’t mess with Is­rael

I’m sure I said yes but I’m equally sure I had no aware­ness of any war ex­cept the Vi­et­nam War, to which I sus­pected that my friends and I would soon be dis­patched.

Don said Egypt made a big mis­take. “Ev­ery­one knows you don’t mess with Is­rael.” He didn’t say “mess”.

Be­cause I de­liv­ered the Wheel­ing In­tel­li­gencer, I made it a point to fill my in­for­ma­tion void the next morn­ing be­fore school and learned that there was a con­flict be­tween Is­rael and its Arab neigh­bors. I wanted to im­press Don with my knowl­edge, but he beat me to it. “Told ya.” It turns out that what came to be known as the Six Day War had al­ready con­cluded with Is­rael as the vic­tor.

Sev­eral years later I ar­rived in New Haven to study law just as the Munich Olym­pics be­gan. Arab ex­trem­ists launched their deadly as­sault on the Olym­pic Vil­lage and killed Is­raeli ath­letes, took oth­ers hos­tage, and killed them too.

A year later, just as I ar­rived in En­gland for grad­u­ate school, a co­a­li­tion of Arab states led by Egypt and Syria launched a sur­prise at­tack on Is­rael on the Jew­ish holy day of Yom Kip­pur. This one took about three weeks to con­clude with Is­rael once again the vic­tor.

As I pre­pared to de­fend my dis­ser­ta­tion a few years later, the Pal­es­tin­ian-led hi­jack­ing of an Air France flight from Tel Aviv led to a mass hos­tage sit­u­a­tion at En­tebbe Air­port in Uganda. Is­rael res­cued the hos­tages. The older brother of cur­rent Prime Min­is­ter Netan­yahu led the res­cue and lost his life.

The holy sites

I men­tion these mile­stones in my knowl­edge of Is­rael to il­lus­trate how head­line-driven my knowl­edge has been. I knew about the Ho­lo­caust, of course, and the need of the Jew­ish peo­ple to call their his­tor­i­cal home­land as their own na­tion. It was both right and nec­es­sary. But you would think that a guy who had spent 22 years in for­mal ed­u­ca­tion would know a lit­tle more about Is­rael and the Jew­ish tra­di­tion.

In 2018, my fam­ily and I de­cided to spend a few days in Is­rael as stops on an Eastern Medi­ter­ra­nean cruise. Our first Is­raeli dock­ing was to be in Ash­dod, but the ship cap­tain awoke the pas­sen­gers at 5 a.m. to in­form us that there were in­com­ing rock­ets from Gaza. We would need to move north­ward to Haifa. There, we met our Is­raeli guide, a gre­gar­i­ous guy who ac­com­pa­nied us to Jeru­sa­lem and Gal­i­lee. On that visit I ex­pe­ri­enced a spir­i­tual awak­en­ing.

Over the years, I had de­vel­oped the same re­la­tion­ship with church at­ten­dance as I now have with my busi­ness suits – wed­dings and fu­ner­als only. I’m still pretty much that way.

But the Chris­tian in me — the spir­i­tual one my mother hoped for — flick­ered to life in Jeru­sa­lem at the Church of the Holy Sepul­chre, the site of Je­sus’ empty tomb and where he was cru­ci­fied, and in Gal­i­lee, the lo­ca­tion of most of Je­sus’ min­is­try. The mem­ory of my adult chil­dren stand­ing next to the Sea of Gal­i­lee is one of the last­ing im­ages etched in my mem­ory.

Is­rael made it pos­si­ble

Is­rael made this pos­si­ble. Since the Six Day War when it as­sumed con­trol of East Jeru­sa­lem, it has made the ho­li­est sites of the Abra­hamic re­li­gions — Ju­da­ism, Chris­ti­an­ity, and Islam — ac­ces­sible to one and all, an open­ness that had not been en­joyed when Jor­dan con­trolled the lo­ca­tion. The Western Wall, the Church of the Holy Sepul­chre, and the Dome of the Rock have moved tens of mil­lions closer to their faiths.

Now we see Is­rael at­tacked by sa­dis­tic sav­ages. And we see Amer­i­can col­lege stu­dents — shal­low chil­dren who couldn’t find the Mid­dle East on a map — sid­ing with geno­cidal ma­ni­acs. We are surely at an in­flec­tion point for the civ­i­lized world, and those kids aren’t the an­swer. Is­rael is, as it fights for our civ­i­lized fu­ture.

Peter Kalis was be­fore his re­tire­ment chair­man and global man­ag­ing part­ner of K&L Gates LLP.

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