Turn The Other Cheek
Turn the other cheek. Perish.In this biblical land, home since time immemorial to Jews and Arabs, the strife that signalled everyday accommodation between tribes, clans, cultures and traditions continue. But doesn't the Old Testament give the message of defense against insult? An eye for an eye? And is that not the prevailing precept of delivering the indelible message that one will pay for one's transgressions against others with like punishment?
And what, exactly, is the deterrent value? Questionable. Palestinians continue their fury at the Israeli presence by instilling terror in the hearts and souls of Jewish villagers and farmers by shelling their settlements across the border from Gaza, unceasingly. The government of Israel has decided it can no longer satisfy international opinion in detriment of its duty to its beleaguered people by continuing to ignore the assaults.
Yet another of the so-called "Abrahamic" religions born of Judaism, extols the virtue of turning the other cheek. Defend not thyself against thine enemy. Thine enemy will cease and desist. He will be shamed of his violence, his aggression, his anger, his murderous intent. He will lay down his arms and seek instead to embrace his erstwhile enemy. Christ would have it so. And to its great credit the Christian community of communities continues its presence.
Ah, but the last-born of the triumvirate of Abraham's inheritance is of a fiercer mien, determined that no vestige of land that was ever deemed to be in possession of Islam may be surrendered to infidels, apostates, non-believers, enemies of Islam. To permit this to occur is to insult Islam, and in insulting Islam, displeasing Allah, mightily. Mohammad would have it so. And to its great shame, Islamism purports to represent Islam.
Therefore, as a measure beyond protesting to the Palestinian Authority that it must exert its authority over its irregular armies of terror-inducing militias which has availed it nothing - the decision has been made to cut off sources of energy production to Gaza. At which prospect the protests and accusations of human-rights-abuses ring loud and clear from both the PA and Europe.
Turn the other cheek. Perish.
The Yad Yair synagogue built as a memorial ten years ago in honour of a victim of Palestinian terrorism has been vandalized by Palestinians in the past, its sacred scrolls desecrated. Now, however, the synagogue has been destroyed, set on fire and consumed. The house of worship northwest of the PA government seat of Ramallah is no more. A playground for children too destroyed.
Turn the other cheek. Perish.
In Sderot and Ashkelon as Jewish families sat at their Sabbath meals a rocket hit a factory in the industrial zone, causing extensive damage in Ashkelon. The alert system warned Israelis as usual and they sought shelter in concrete bunkers, quieting traumatized children. PA chairman Mahmoud Abbas condones, for he does not forbid, the rocket attacks, and he condemns electricity cut-off as "collective punishment".
In response to 7 years of constant rocket attacks what kind of solution might he recommend? Turn the other cheek. Perish.
As a hopeful measure to instill a modicum of restraint into the mindsets of Palestinian terror militias with the thought that the misery and inconvenience that the Palestinian population is subject to as a result of their deadly insurgency. The Israeli "Peace Now" movement has ample compassion for all the victims, on both sides of the conflict. "We believe this to be an illegal, immoral act of collective punishment", they state.
Turn the other cheek. Perish.
It is clear the Palestinian Authority has no intention of reining in their terror factions. It is obvious the Palestinian terrorists have no compassion for their civilian counterparts. It is more than a little apparent that they will permit nothing to deter them from their deadly hobby of inflicting damage and sometimes death on the hated Israelis. Yet the world clucks its disapproval of desperate Israeli sub-solutions.
Turn the other cheek. Perish.
Palestinian terrorists fired at a Jewish motorist, a common enough occurrence, as shooting attacks have increasingly become a favourite gambit of target-shooting fun. Increasing, oddly enough, even while Israel, as a 'good-will gesture' toward the PA has been releasing and pardoning incarcerated terrorists, while at the same time removing irritating checkpoints to make points as political "gestures".
Turn the other cheek. Perish.
In an obvious accident when a bomb detonated before it was meant to, a home in south Gaza exploded, killing two Arab women and a four-year-old child. Another lamentable sacrifice in the holy jihad against Israel. When the front of the house collapsed, another two children were wounded in the blast, which also damaged another home. Hamas was proud to confirm this was a premature detonation in a bomb-building laboratory installed within a private home.
Turn the other cheek. Perish.
IDF soldiers are regularly targeted, sometimes successfully. Ideally they can be abducted and held interminably for ransom, yet never released. In northern Gaza soldiers are attacked, wounded. The IDF has noted an increase in the presence and use of anti-tank missiles by Gaza terrorists. Weapons smuggling from Egypt into Gaza is an ongoing element of this cat-and-mouse game of well defined terrorism. Seek them out and destroy.
Turn the other cheek. Perish.
In the third instance of deliberate agricultural vandalism in several months vines were torn up as well as extensive irrigation equipment. Jewish locals identified a cadre of foreign leftist activists and local Arabs turning toward Jewish agricultural plots where police and IDF soldiers apprehended three women from Britain as they fled the scene. Sympathetic foreign nationals and local Arabs work in tandem to wreak havoc on Jewish agricultural lands.
Turn the other cheek. Perish.
In Palestinian Shechem plans are underway for PA security forces to take control of a city with the nomenclature of "terrorist capital of Israel", where terror-fugitives and other terrorists are often brought into custody; where weapons caches and bomb factories are a daily discovery. A spokesperson for the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades informs Associated Press that 200 of its members have retained their weapons in defiance of Israel's amnesty programme.
One Fatah terrorist who had allowed his weapon to be confiscated is yet teaching his 6-year-old son to shoot an M-16 semi-automatic.
Turn the other cheek. Perish.
While spectacularly failing in its obligation and stated determination to prevent terrorist attacks from Gaza into Israel, the Palestinian Authority charges Israel with preventing it from controlling such attacks. PA authorities claim that fully 90% of the three thousand Palestinian police officers to be deployed for the purpose of controlling terrorism are without adequate arms to assist in carrying out their assignment. Is Israel to arm them?
Turn the other cheek. Perish.
It is, after all, and illogically, Israel's fault for the inability of the PA to control their affiliated militias. For it is Israel's counter-terrorist methodology that makes it difficult to disarm Fatah operatives. One Hamas terrorist leader has stated to the Associated Press: "We can hide, or keep the weapons buried under the dirt for a while, but then we will rise again." Fatah attempting to disarm Hamas, which group has just successfully disarmed Fatah within Gaza.
Turn the other cheek. Perish.
Labels: Middle East, Political Realities, Terrorism
posted by Pieface @ Monday, October 29, 2007
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