Anniversaries

Recently there have been a slew of anniversaries of importance to Jews, Israelis, as well as other people. Starting with the oldest:
July 1 marked the 90th anniversary of the Battle of the Somme, which was one of the bloodiest in WWI and one of the costliest in history. It is thought that nearly 100,000 men from many countries were killed and many more were wounded on that day. 20,000 British Army soldiers were killed and of them 5,000 Irish soldiers who had volunteered to fight on the British side and many Anzacs and Canadians. The French lost ca. 30,000 men and the Germans possibly as many as 40,000. The battle which continued for 3 months had little tangible results. A State ceremony took place at the impressive monument that marks the site in northern France, where Prince Charles, PM Blair and Pres. Chirac of France participated in the ceremonies. Stirring speeches were made, but nothing can recompense for the horrific suffering and death that occured on that day when nearly a whole generation of young men were decimated. The ultimate defeat of Germany in WWI led to the rise of Nazism and WWII.
July 4 marked the 60th anniversary of the Kielce massacre of 1946, when after WWII Jews who had returned to Poland were massacred at Kielce by local Poles. This has been called the "last pogrom in Europe" when 42 Jews were murdered, supposedly for kidnapping a small boy (who of course later was found to have lied) in order to extract his blood to make matzo. The fact that this was nowhere near the time of the Passover festival and anyway the charge is ridiculous, made no difference to the good people of Kielce. After having suffered the terrible indignities of the Holocaust these survivors thought that they were at last safe, but they neglected the intense anti-Semitic hatred of the Polish people. Now President Lech Kaczynski marked the anniversary of the Kielce massacre by unveiling a monument to the memory of the dead and declaring in a statement that in Poland today there is "no room for racism."
July 4 was the 30th anniversary of the daring Entebbe raid of 1976, in which Israeli forces in several planes surprised and attacked Ugandan guards of Pres. Idi Amin and a group to pro-Palestinian terrorists, some of them Germans, at the Entebbe airport. About 250 Jewish and Israeli hostages were freed, and in the action only two of the hostages and one of the Israeli soldiers, the Commander of the troops Yoni Netanyahu, the older brother of Benjamin Netanyahu, were killed. Later an old woman Mrs. Bloch who had been removed to hospital was also killed by Idi Amin. The particular aspect of this terrorist incident that was so terrible was that the Jews and Israelis were separated from the other passengers, and were to have been killed. It was one of the happiest days of my life when the news came in of the incredible successful operation that released these captives. There was a sense that we had passed a watershed, that capturing Jews would no longer be easy, how wrong we were.
July 7 marks one year from the terrorist bombings in London that killed 52 people. The day was commemorated in London with many ceremonies, one including PM Blair. Wreaths were laid and speeches were made and survivors described the terrible scenes of carnage that they had experienced and vividly remember. One young woman, who nearly bled to death, described how she was dragged from the underground train near Edgware Road, where most of the casualties occured, and she lost both of her legs. In listening to the descriptions of the incidents I was struck by the similarlity to the murders that we have become only too familiar with in Israel, with suicide bombs going off in buses, restaurants and malls. What a pity that the British (and American) services did not learn from our experiences sooner, to track Muslim extremists, to have a well-organized terrorist response organization, to ensure easy communications between different services (police or fire brigades could not communicate with each other in London) and casualties were taken to hospitals in a random manner, there was no clear evacuation plan. These are the lessons that all Western countries must learn in the midst of the world war against terrorism.
It has recently been revealed that one of the leaders of the 7/7 terrorist gang, Shehzad Tanweer, had visited Israel for a day and was also a contact of the two British Muslims who entered Gaza three years ago. There they received instructions and bombs from Hamas operatives, and then entered Israel with a group of British tourists and proceeded to blow themselves up in Mike's Place, a pub on the Tel Aviv waterfront, killing three and injuring many (one of the bombs did not detonate and the bomber was later found drowned). These Muslim youths were all in turn connected to the training camps in Pakistan where the planning for these disparate suicide bombings began (Tanweer spent 3 months there). It was once argued that the Jews had a plan to take over the world, which of course was monumentally false. But, I am not being paranoid when I say that Islamist extremists have a well documented plan to undermine Western civilization by terrorist attacks against civilian targets in order to replace it.
I cannot say that there is any obvious and clear connection between all the incidents described here that were commemorated this July, maybe all months have their share of terrible anniversaries. But, the bloodshed and suffering continues, as illustrated by these disparate commemorations during this first week of July.