"SAMSON, THE PALESTINIANS ARE UPON YOU!" PART III

“We can forgive the Arabs for killing our children. We cannot forgive them for forcing us to kill their children. We will only have peace with the Arabs when they love their children more than they hate us.”

Golda Meir

Critics provide endless examples of Israel’s racism and hatred. Indeed, probably most are true. The difference between Israel’s sins and those of the Palestinians is that the Jews justify them, excuse them, regret them, even repent of them. But they call them what they are: sins. The Palestinians call them virtues.

To judge a nation’s sins, you have to address the context because…everyone sins. It’s easy to look at the corruption and ugliness of a people and say they are bad. But bad compared to whom? Why is Israel judged by some super standard?

Are there coffee shop discussions in Israel with a “kill ‘em all” rhetoric? Surely. But how are Arabs really treated? 20.7% of Israeli citizens are Arab. There are more who refuse citizenship to avoid recognizing Israel. There are Arab political parties, some of whom openly call for Israel’s destruction. There have been several attempts to ban any party calling for Israel’s destruction but the bans are always voted down because Israel values free speech. There is an Arab on the Supreme Court and there have been many notable Arabs in the highest levels of society including the Cabinet, military (some generals), and Foreign Service. Arabs currently hold 12 of 120 seats in the Knesset.

In 2009, Israeli Arab Journalist Khaled Abu Toameh, declared to a Muslim audience, "Israel is a wonderful place to live and we are happy to be there. Israel is a free and open country. If I were given the choice, I would rather live in Israel as a second class citizen than as a first class citizen in Cairo, Gaza, Amman or Ramallah." 

Ishmael Khaldi is an Arab citizen of Israel and the nation's first high-ranking Muslim in the Israeli Foreign Service. He wrote, “I am a proud Israeli – along with many other non-Jewish Israelis such as Druze, Bahai, Bedouin, Christians and Muslims, who live in one of the most culturally diversified societies and the only true democracy in the Middle East. Like America, Israeli society is far from perfect, but let us deal honestly. By any yardstick you choose – educational opportunity, economic development, women and gay's rights, freedom of speech and assembly, legislative representation – Israel's minorities fare far better than any other country in the Middle East”.

Can you imagine this scene in any Muslim country?

Israelis make constant overtures of peace. One of Israel’s hospitals recently treated the daughter of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh. Gazans are frequently flown to Israel for emergency treatment. After Israeli civilians murdered 16 year old Mohammed Abu Khder in retaliation for Palestinians kidnapping and murdering three Jewish teens, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu actually called the Palestinian victim’s father personally to apologize and express outrage and solidarity. The mother of one of the Hamas suspects, however, was proud of her son for the murders. “My boys are all righteous, pious and pure. The goal of my children is the triumph of Islam.”

The common narrative is that Israel has no interest in peace. Yet, they evacuated Gaza, ripping hysterical and grieving families out of their homes. They’ve offered to do much the same in the West Bank. In 2000, Bill Clinton moderated and sponsored the Camp David Summit. Israeli Prime Minister and former IDF General Ehud Barak bucked public opinion, offering all but a sliver of the moon to Yasser Arafat. Palestinians would receive sovereignty over 86-91% of the West Bank, 100% of Gaza, most of East Jerusalem with custodianship of all Islamic Holy sites, and the dismantling of 63 settlements in the West Bank, the only ones remaining to be the ones with large populations. The main sticking point was the full resettlement of Palestinian refugees, the so-called “right of return”. Israel offered the repatriation of 100,000 and financial aid to a 30 billion dollar international fund to resettle refugees within the new Palestine and surrounding Arab nations.

Arafat’s counteroffer was the second intifada, a years-long episode of rock throwing and suicide bombing. Most observers view it as an epic mistake. Some thought the intemperate and foolish traipsing of the hawkish Ariel Sharon all over the Haram-Al Sharif/Temple Mount, the third holiest site in Islam and the holiest site in Judaism as the catalyst. But many Palestinian officials as well as Arafat’s wife admitted Arafat planned it all along. The widowed Suha Arafat said on Dubai television in December 2012, “'Immediately after the failure of Camp David (negotiations), I met him in Paris upon his return...Camp David had failed and he said to me, ‘You should remain in Paris.’ I asked him why, and he said, ‘Because I am going to start an intifada. They want me to betray the Palestinian cause. They want me to give up on our principles, and I will not do so.’” Today, there could be a member of the nations called Palestine but Arafat, who had grown incredibly wealthy by being an international victim, was not ready to take on the burden of running a country.

 The “Nakam”, meaning “vengeance”, were a group of Jews who, after WWII, travelled Europe silently dispatching those with Jewish blood on their hands. Then they hatched "Tochnit Aleph", an astounding plan to repay eye for eye and tooth for tooth, millions of guilty and innocent alike. They would poison water supplies all over Germany, forever putting the world on notice that to spill Jewish blood would invite pain. They enjoyed strangling former SS officers and Auschwitz guards but regarding this plan, one question nagged them: "Who set you as leaders among us?" So they sought the moral approval of the prominent Chaim Weizmann, the future first president of Israel, and the heads of Hagana, the future Israeli Defense Force. The plan was blessed. They would soon carry out what would certainly be the most consequential act of revenge in history. Except, as Abba Kovner boarded a ship, he was arrested. Betrayed. The Hagana intercepted the group’s members at water treatment plants all over Germany to stop the “dishonorable” plan. Less than a year after the bitter pill of the holocaust, the Jews chose forgiveness over vengeance, creation over destruction. Bring the temple down on their own heads? Unthinkable. The Jews were sick of dying and wanted to live. Someday, God willing, the Palestinians too will get sick of dying.

“SAMSON, THE PALESTINIANS ARE UPON YOU!” PART II

“You will kill ten of us. We will kill one of you. In the end, you will tire of it first.”

Ho Chi Minh

 

During the Korean War, Mao Tse Tung ordered many thousands of young men to storm entrenched American positions, assuring their certain death. He thought there were too many men in his country anyway so it was convenient. Iraqi machine gunners in the Iran/Iraq war were psychologically traumatized when Ayatollah Khomeini sent tens of thousands in “suicide brigades” to be mowed down in glorious martyrdom. Yet, while the Palestinians share a similar collectivist attitude about the meaninglessness of individuals, there seems more to it. Many are willing to die for the cause but this is nothing new as Kamikaze pilots and virtually all revolutionaries throughout history were willing to do the same. No, what is different here is that this willingness to die seems more of a death wish. Frequently repeated on Palestinian television is the phrase, “We love death more than you love life”. Maybe we should take their word for it. Maybe theirs really is a culture of death.

 

It’s an oft-repeated canard: “If Arabs laid down their weapons, there would be peace. If Israel laid down their weapons, there would be no Israel”. Is it true? Arab rhetoric, while admittedly hyperbolic and cartoonish, is frightening and often genocidal.

 

 

 The cartoon above depicts rats wearing Stars of David and skullcaps. Arab News, an English-language Saudi state owned daily widely read by expats in Saudi Arabia, is widely regarded as moderate. The imagery may be inspired by a well known scene from the Nazi film “Jew Suess,” in which Jews are depicted as vermin to be eradicated by mass extermination.

 

Is Muslim anti-Semitism inherent or merely a result of the Nakba or “Catastrophe”, referring to the creation of Israel? Maybe both. There were periods of oppression and anti-Semitism over the centuries but Jews, while forced to acknowledge Muslim superiority and pay infidel taxes known as jizya, enjoyed relative peace and security in the Middle East. However, consider common statements like this: On 11/23/37, Saudi Arabia’s King Ibn Saud told a British Colonel: “Our hatred for the Jews dates from God’s condemnation of them for their persecution and rejection of Isa (Jesus, whom they regard as a prophet) and their subsequent rejection of His chosen Prophet (Muhammed).” He added, “for a Muslim to kill a Jew, or for him to be killed by a Jew ensures him an immediate entry into Heaven and into the august presence of God Almighty.”  A well-known Hadith (saying attributed to Muhammad) states that, “The Hour [of Resurrection] will not come until you fight the Jews. The Jew will hide behind stones or trees. Then the stones or trees will call: ‘Oh Muslim, servant of Allah, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him.’” A July, 2011 poll indicated a staggering 73% of Palestinians believe this Hadith must be fulfilled. Muslims frequently refer to Jews as apes and pigs. This comes from multiple verses in the Koran. Cultural attitudes towards Jews have ebbed and flowed over the years but when the climate heats up, the Koran and Hadith provide theological cover and encouragement for hatred.

 

How do Jews and Christians fare in Arab countries now? Terribly. The number of Jews living in Muslim countries is miniscule, a whopping .01% in Iran. Egypt may have 300. Total. After Israel’s declaration of statehood, systematic violence and expulsions along with the obvious attraction of Zionism essentially emptied the Arab nations of Jews, contributing to a mass exodus of 800,000 to a million Jews in the few years after 1948. 23 Arab nations could not abide by a single Jewish one. It is also widely recognized that the rise of militant Islam has led to a massive exodus of Christians. As of 2012, there were about 12 million Christians left in the Middle East but the exodus has been so drastic, this number is expected to halve by 2020. Christians are becoming extinct in the West Bank and the new crisis in Iraq with ISIS has led to expulsion, robbery, and crucifixion even. ISIS also burned down the oldest Christian church in the middle east in Mosul.

 

Countless news articles decry the death of hundreds of Palestinian children and civilians in the current conflict. Yet Hamas is openly genocidal. While Israelis go to extreme lengths to avoid civilian deaths, dead women and children are Hamas’ intent. Just since 2000, this list shows thousands of rocket and mortar attacks targeted at cities and villages. The Hamas charter states, “Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it…It firmly rejects peace negotiations…[Peace] initiatives, and so-called peaceful solutions…are in contradiction to the principles of the Islamic Resistance Movement…There is no solution for the Palestinian problem except by Jihad”. Even in the more moderate West Bank, they glorify terrorists by naming streets and squares after the likes of Yahya Ayyash, a bomb maker responsible for hundreds of civilian deaths and schools after people such as Dalal Mughrabi, a woman who attacked a bus, killing 37, twelve of them children.

 

Yahya Ayyash St.

 

 

Martyrdom posters, a staple of Palestinian culture, are plastered everywhere in cities and villages.

 

 

 They love their children.

 

Whether or not their cause is just, what is clear is that they suffer. Gaza has a 50% unemployment rate. U.N. designated refugee camps, which developed from tented cities to rows of concrete blockhouses to urban ghettos indistinguishable from their surroundings, now hold almost 2 million refugees. Since the Israeli declaration of independence in 1948, the number of refugees has grown from 750,000 to about 5 million mostly through birth rate. But what does this suffering mean?

 

Charles Krauthammer recently stated that most Americans who side with Palestinians do so out of ignorance. Maybe. More likely is that there are a large number of people who instinctively, with much passion but without much thought, equate suffering with righteousness, poverty with nobility, inequality with oppression. It is the kind of thinking that can make one side with somebody who commits murder, rape, or robbery. Somehow they find a way to pity him because he probably was never pitied or loved. It’s a good instinct, in a way, to automatically care for the downtrodden. But when this kind of thing is devoid of context, when it is applied rigidly and firmly, it can be destructive. And stupid. Yes, the Palestinians suffer. Here’s a thought: Sometimes people get what they deserve.