How did the State of Israel come about? Open miracles! In fact, R' Ovadia Hadaya (1889–1969) describes the miracles of Israel’s War of Independence as comparable to the miracles of Chanuka and the splitting of the Yam Suf.
In his book “A History of the Jews,” Paul Johnson wrote: “On May 14, 1948, the State of Israel was declared. The next day, five mechanized armies attacked...sizably larger than the small band of Holocaust survivors defending Israel. The entire armament of the Israeli forces consisted of 17,600 rifles, 2,700 sten guns, 1,000 machine guns and 45,000 soldiers.” In 1948, the land ratio of Arab land to Jewish land was 640 to 1. For every acre of land that Jews possessed, the Arab nations had 640. Also, fewer than 5% of Jews alive at that time lived in Israel. A total of 650,000 Jews were surrounded and attacked by nations populated by 50 million Arabs. We were outnumbered 75 to 1.
In addition to this, let’s recall that before the United Nations declared Israel an independent state, Palestine was ruled by the British. They had very strict rules against Jews owning guns. Consequently, there surely was no Israeli army. No military drills, no armaments, none of the normal exercises of military units. All of this continued until May 14, 1948. And on May 15, five Arab nations attacked Israel, one day after they were granted official statehood. Furthermore, for decades the Arabs were constantly at war with each other. As a result, they had practice with war. On the other hand, we had no air force, army or navy. Moreover, many times a nation had lost a war because the defending nation had to fight on more than one war front. In 1948, Israel was not fighting on one front alone because there simply was no front. They were being attacked from every side.
Let’s remember that between 1948 and 1973, the Arab nations declared war four times on tiny, frail Israel. Yet they did not have one victory.
The secular Israeli newspaper Maariv had the following article on April 17, 1983: “...By all logic and by all human reasoning, everything that happened in 1948 is in the category of the impossible. It was impossible, with the limited arms that the Jews possessed, with the rudimentary international support they managed to garner, with the limited resources that were available to them, to do all that they did. To bring a system of public services into operation from nothing. To establish a military from its beginning. To sustain supplies and minimal services, and to run a war that had no clear delineated front or rear lines, no organized defense, no organized reserves of ammunition, and no expert commanders to lead its battalions!”
Military analysts are still stunned when they study the sweeping military victories against all odds in Israeli wars, as they defy explanation. A cadet at West Point once asked why the Six-Day War was not part of the curriculum. The general explained that Israel’s victory in the Six-Day War wasn’t studied because at West Point they study strategy and tactics, not miracles.
In fact, R’ Asher Wade related that when he was a chaplain on an army base in Berlin in 1974, he met a Jewish American officer named Stuart who had started wearing a yarmulke although he wasn’t particularly religious because of this incident at West Point.
About The Six-Day War in 1967, a German journalist summarized: “Nothing like this has happened in history. A force including 1,000 tanks, hundreds of artillery cannons, many rockets and fighter jets, and 100,000 soldiers armed from head to toe was destroyed in two days in an area covering hundreds of kilometers filled with reinforced outposts and installations. And this victory was carried out by a force that lost many soldiers and much equipment, positions, and vehicles. No military logic or natural cause can explain this monumental occurrence.”
With all that we mentioned we can understand why the only pasuk in the Torah that has the same gematria as the two words ארץ ישראל (832) is י-ה-ו-ה ה שמו-ו-ה-איש מלחמה י. Absolutely astounding!
Many open miracles have occurred throughout the existence of the State of Israel. In 1991, 39 Scud missiles were shot at Israel. Although many houses were destroyed, miraculously only two Israelis were killed.
After this happened, a secular Israeli woman responded: “That wasn’t a miracle, because things like this happen all the time in Israel.”
Historical Reflections and Miracles
A French author from the latter part of the 19th century, Jon DeBileda wrote the following before the Russian Revolution, the rise of Nazi Germany, and prior to the ingathering of millions of Jews to Israel: “In essence, the Jewish people chuckle at all forms of anti-Semitism. Think all you want and you will not be able to find one form of brutality or strategy that has not been used in warfare against the Jewish People. I cannot be defeated says Judaism. All that you attempt to do to me today has been attempted 3,200 years prior in Egypt. Then tried the Babylonians and the Persians. Afterward tried the Romans and then others and others. There is no question that the Jew will outlive us all. This is an eternal people. They cannot be defeated. Understand this! Every war with them is a vain waste of time and manpower. Conversely, it is wise to sign a mutual covenant with them. How trustworthy and profitable they are as allies! Be their friends and they will pay you back in friendship one-hundred-fold! This is an exalted and chosen people!”
In The Six-Day War, there was a tank that fired 100 shots without missing its target. Afterwards they sighted what appeared to be a troop carrier and they fired four shots without one hit. One of the soldiers shouted to the others in the tank, “Maybe it’s ours?” They waited long enough to discover that it was an Israeli troop carrier that was in the wrong area!
The Six-Day War in June 1967 is described as the start of the Teshuva movement in Israel. In the period leading up to the war, prominent Arab spokesmen declared daily their intent to drive the Jews of Israel into the sea. The tens of thousands of graves dug in public parks in Tel Aviv to receive the anticipated war casualties attest to the seriousness with which those threats were received. The pre-war pessimism and dark foreboding quickly gave to ecstasy as Israel recaptured the Old City of Jerusalem including the Temple Mount, West Bank, Gaza, Sinai and the Golan Heights in just a span of days. The scope and speed of the Israeli victory seemed to many as an open miracle on a biblical scale. In the Diaspora, Israel’s victory against enemies on three fronts impelled Jewish pride. Jewish tourism spiked dramatically, as Jews from abroad came to view the Kosel and tour the newly recaptured territories. After the Six-Day War, R' Shlomo Wolbe would travel to army bases and kibbutzim to give lectures to soldiers and members of the kibbutz in order to capitalize on the spiritual awakening that resulted from this miraculous war.
No other country has faced such overwhelming odds against its very survival or experienced the same degree of endless international demonization or confronted the same relentless challenges to its very right to exist.
Statistical Miracles
In 1991, 39 Scud missiles were fired at Israel by Iraq with 14 exploding in highly populated residential areas of Tel Aviv and Haifa. These Scuds directly killed two Israelis while 11 were seriously injured. The average number of deaths per Scud in 1991 in Israel was .14, in contrast to Scuds that have struck other countries where the average number of casualties per Scud was 18.61. Consider a Scud that hit Bakhtaran, Iran on April 4, 1985 that killed 25. Or the one in Sana’a, Yemen on May 11, 1994 that slew 25. And the one in Grozny, Chechnya that slaughtered 27 on October 21, 1999. And don’t forget the four Scuds that struck Aleppo and Tal Rifaat, Syria on February 19, 2013 where 141 perished. The average number of casualties per Scud is 133 times higher outside Israel than in Israel! The total number of casualties from all 14 Scuds that exploded in Tel Aviv and Haifa were less than the casualties from a single Scud exploding anywhere else! The probability of observing two deaths (or less) by chance is 0.000000184 (1/5,434,783). The probability of the lack of serious injuries happening by chance is 0.00000000000000426. That is, approximately one in 234 trillion!
