Is The Best Defense, Self- Defense or Offense? Is Life Like Football?

Israel Hayom has an excellent thought-provoking op-ed Defense is not the best offense by Dr. Eyal Levin.

In Israel, however, a new invention has become the essence of our national resilience: self-defense. No longer is psychological resilience important. No longer does it matter how we conduct ourselves geopolitically. The nature of the regime doesn’t matter either. Self-defense is the new response to any attack.

Self-defense, in contrast to the classic yin-yang offense vs defense competition is a total defense strategy.  Just make sure the other team doesn't score a touchdown.  If your team is made up only of defensive players, like these two guys, your team won't win a game.  At best, you'll tie, zero all.  That won't give you the championship, victory.

To win a game, you must have more than a strong defense.  You need a powerful offense.  And there must be defensive players working with the offense and the defense must also be capable of taking the ball to score a touchdown, when the opportunity arises.  In actuality, that's what happened in the 1967 Six Days War.  The Israeli Government originally just wanted to defend itself and keep status quo, land-wise*, but with the ball in its possession and the other team disintegrating it just ran with it and scored.


 

I'm getting to know football, since I have a son who plays in the IFL, and I attend the games when I can.

And another thing we can learn from IFL American Football in Israel is how to thank our chief fan, G-d.



Football players know that it's easier to win when they have loyal fans cheering them on, and we must remember that without G-d's support and help, we'll lose big.

*The Israeli Left is reactionary, ultra-conservative stuck in that pre-Six Days War mentality.  They're too inflexible to accept that their war aims were not only incorrect but are totally irrelevant. That's why they keep insisting that we revert to the pre-June, 1967 "green line."