The Blame Game Perfected
Saudi King Abdullah is alarmed. So are we all. Terming the internecine warfare in currency between Hamas and Fatah military factions in Gaza and the West Bank "a disgrace", he urges leaders of the factions to meet with him at Mecca's Grand Mosque, the sacred house of God. Has no one explained to these people that God helps those that help themselves? It isn't really God's fault, nor is it his fight, since his word appears to have been taken in vain."This great atrocity with all its unjustified and weak reasons has stained the Palestinians' honourable national struggle" and "serves only the enemies of the Islamic and Arab nations" Kind Abdullah is quoted as having said. And that's fascinating. Labelling the Palestinians' ongoing blood feuds and historical hatred for the infidel and particularly Jews as an honourable national struggle reveals a universal mind-set in that geography, aided and abetted by all parties to the "struggle" of removing an alien presence from Muslim soil.
Islam itself is soiled by its lack of vision, its ingrained hostility to reason, responsibility, reconciliation and acceptance of the world at large and its place in it. How can non-Muslims bring themselves to respect the Arab world, the world of Islam when it continually demonstrates its fundamental inability to accept others as equals and their beliefs, values and social systems as being of at least equal quality to their own?
That aside, how can a head of state claiming to be acting in the best interests of the Arab world and Muslims in general on the one hand implore sectarian Muslim combatants to view one another in a more kindly light of brotherhood, and on the other hand, identify a scapegoat toward whom their undying enmity needs to be directed? That, in a nutshell, is the conundrum that is the Middle East, the Arab world and the community of Islamic believers. Xenophobia, suspicion, tribal divisions, blood feuds, hatred toward the "other".
This situation between Hamas and Fatah is a direct result of one faction purporting to attempt peace negotiations with an identified enemy seen as an oppressor, (but which is in reality an internationally-recognized legal entity, not a geographic interloper) while the other clings to its mission of destruction of that entity. Within Gaza and the West Bank Palestinians are being forced to seek refuge inside their homes, while others are being forced to evacuate for their safety and that of their children while the battles rage.
The two militias are targeting, abducting, injuring and murdering one another - and just incidentally innocent bystanders as well. They cannot, as they love to do, shout bloody murder and call on the United Nations to condemn Israel, haul international newspeople into the area to demonstrate the atrocities being visited on innocent Palestinians because they are themselves the perpetrators. Yet even while they are preoccupied in warring with one another they haven't forgotten the existence of Israel.
A suicide-bomber, a martyrdom-and-virgin-seeker blew himself and three innocent Israelis to atomic particles in a small bakery in the resort city of Eilat. So duty to the greater glory of Allah is not forgotten in all of this inner turmoil. King Abdullah seeks to address the issue of brotherly love between two Palestinian factions, to restore a semblance of order within the Palestinian Authority. The better to enable them to continue the Hamas goal of eradicating Israel.
And in fact Kassam rockets continue to be fired from Gaza at Israeli cities. Islamic Jihad is taking up the slack, uninvolved as yet with the Fatah and Hamas battles. Pitch-hitting terrorists. Even they are calling upon on Arabs to advance the "common goal of killing Jews", and are promising to begin launching improved rockets with longer ranges and a more impressive explosives payload.
Witness a functioning democracy where, while embattled on all sides, a parliament of the people, for the people, can reach a reasonable accord and elevate an Arab Member of the Knesset to a cabinet position. MK Ghaleb Majadleh, a veteran Labour party figure and union leader is now a minister in the coalition government of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. Mr. Majadleh considers his appointment a historic step forward for relations between Jews and Arabs in Israel.
The question is, in the larger picture, what will it avail Israel to be this beacon of reason and light in the world of darkness and revenge that surrounds it?
Labels: Middle East
posted by Pieface @ Monday, January 29, 2007
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