Exchange Values
It seems utterly pointless, hopeless for a society with distinct humanitarian values to exchange anything worthwhile with one for which there are no recognizable human values, only those of diminished returns due to its complete rejection of any values remotely similar to those dear to a compassionate society.In situations where a society is faced with the problem of how to deal internally with a segment of its population given to defiance of authority, rejection of societal norms in the practise of egotistical psychopathy, the best that can be hoped for is to put them away behind bars, when they prey relentlessly on the rest of society.
Israel has for generations attempted to pacify the murderous psychopaths unleashed upon it by the greater Palestinian population in their ongoing attempts to wreak mayhem and havoc, instill terror in the country and its people. Payback for mass murder committed by dedicated jihadists or secular terrorists is arrest followed by a court proceeding, the presentation of evidence, and the declaration of guilt followed by incarceration.
Seething hatred of all that Israel represents which results in bloodshed can only be solved by locking away the perpetrators.
There is no death penalty in Israel, but for the sole instance when a single Nazi mass murderer, the primary facilitator, was placed on trial and his life forfeit, as a powerful symbol that his eager complicity in the murders of millions of Jews through the application of the Final Solution could be put to rest in no other way. Adolph Eichmann represented the bland face of duty, those who would commit mass murder in allegiance to orders from the state.
Israel is too civilized a country, too committed to life, to commodify vengeance by imposing death upon those who visit it upon Jews, but for that singular aberration. In a way, that's a pity, since mass murderers who exhibit not a shred of pity for their victims really don't deserve life.
And in the case of Arab terrorists who claim not to value life, but to court death in the name of their dedicated cause, Jews shrink with horror at the perversion of life-values and the symbolism of the celebration of martyrdom to a cause as reprehensible as the annihilation of a perceived enemy. Even so, to exact that ultimate penalty - upon those whose deliberately sordid crimes against civilians, against children - would deny the national humanity of the state executioners.
And because Israel values its liberal democratic ideals, it seems the country and its leaders cannot get their heads around the reality that surrounds them, despite having had to live with its grim results for generations. Those not of the tradition of primitive tribalism cannot recognize, much less relate to honour as fulfilling a tribal commitment to mass murder; courage as the manifestation of a hatred so all-consuming as to override the universal will to survive.
Surrendering basic humanity to the most base of impulses; to destroy life. Destruction of life, property, hope. Even their own futures, and those of their people. How to respond to such blank, bleak and blunt nihilism born of unappeasable hatred? Denying all overtures toward reason?
As others feel entitled to hope for the future under a bright and promising sun, these vengeance-compelled terrorists prefer their dark night of passionate blood-letting, the blight of war, the triumph and finality of death. They boast proudly of their courting of the Grim Reaper. And heap contempt on Israel for clinging to life.
Compromise is weakness. The clasp of jihad held close and dear is the delirious figment of their faith, both religious and ideologically secular. And they would have it no other way. It is the faith shaped by the tribal psychosis of insular superiority and entitlement, of no compassion extended to the other, and none anticipated from that other.
In this environment to extend a tentative gesture toward accommodation, of reasonable discourse, of appeasement in the hopes of breaching the iron gate of hatred, is to declare oneself impotent.
Historically, Israel has agreed to exchange Palestinian or Arab prisoners with their adversaries. Sometimes as a sign of "good faith" when talks are underway to attempt to reach some agreement leading to a ceasefire or a cessation of outright hostilities altogether. More often, when Israel desperately wants information about the fate of one of its citizens.
Israel will then agree to exchange live prisoners with its enemies for the exchange of dead Israelis. Confounding and delighting her enemies, the supporters, and those also who are of the same persuasion, but wish Israel no real harm.
In the best-case scenario, hoping against all hope that somehow one of their captured soldiers could be returned to them. One soldier, one Israeli, whose life is often worth the exchange of hundreds of Palestinians who languish in Israeli jails for crimes against the state, against its citizens, and in the worst instances, for mass murder.
The terror militias know full well the value that Israel places in its people, the country's desire to have their people returned. Live, if possible, dead if all other hopes have been dashed. Respect for life isn't directed solely toward their own. Israel truly, deeply and honestly grieves for the loss of innocent Palestinian lives, but that reality somehow eludes those who should care.
This reverence for life, and allegiance to their own is held in contempt by those who prey on the country. It's held as a sign of weakness, of loss of strength and resolve, of cowardice. A signal that the time may be ripe - once again - to mount another debilitating attack on the state. Now Ehud Olmert has admitted publicly that his cabinet has agreed to a prisoner exchange with Hezbollah.
The Shi'ite Palestinian-Lebanese Party of God stands to gather in its notorious murderers in exchange for the bodies of two Israeli soldiers. Never outright admitting that it holds corpses, not live and expectant human beings, hoping to be returned to their country. Even while knowing that Israeli intelligence has informed the country of that fact.
Effectively, in the process, informing jihadists and terrorists that dead Jewish bodies have as much value to Israel and its people as live ones, so why bother to keep abducted Jews alive? Israel's political body, the governing elite has determined that it must make this exchange, which will free a truly abhorrent mass murderer, among other criminals, returning them to a jubilant Hezbollah, ready to toss back at Israel two corpses in exchange. Little wonder Hezbollah claims yet another victory.
The chief of Hezbollah's executive council exulting on their television station that the exchange demonstrates Hezbollah's "word was supreme". Hezbollah speaks, and Israel quavers. Their rhetorical hold on reality goes beyond quixotic bravado. It verges on mass insanity. It is incomprehensible to the managed mind anticipating clarity of vision, recognition of reality.
It quite simply boggles the mind how two entities, the terror-imposing group and the embattled democracy practise two completely morally-severed and incomparable value systems. Any movement at all proposed or practised by Israel for the purpose of hinting at compromise - expected of it by the outside world - is received by Hamas, Fatah and their cohorts and Hezbollah, as a signal of weakness.
Any act by Israel that speaks of practicality and decency and accommodation offering its adversaries the opportunity for normalization, deteriorates into triumphant "victory" in the minds of diehard, committed jihadists and terrorists. Conditions for peace constitute "normalcy" for civilized societies. "Normal" for tribal avengers is a constant state of warfare.
They glory in it, live for it, die by it and are jubilantly exultant when they cause the death of their enemies, military or civilian. The culture greets its success in exacting death upon its enemy, in the successful enacting of innocent civilian deaths as worthy of joyful celebration. Sweets are distributed, gunfire shot into the sky, people dance in the streets.
All their actions - not their words, carefully geared to the international community's tender feelings and expectations, ensuring support for themselves as the occupied, driven by extenuatingly unfair circumstances to launch themselves against their occupiers - exemplify their pathology of entitled exclusivity.
Their unforgivingly blighted hatred of those whom they exclude from their entitled territory, their sacred Islamic geography.
They represent humankind's worse nightmare of a portion of its species for whom enlightenment, even enlightened self-interest, becomes hostage to a waylaying and overriding resentment steeped in hatred. Resulting in the warped creation of a collective sociopathy willing to destroy all in its path to an imagined conquest.
The pinnacle of success and power for jihadists and terrorists is the utter routing of the enemy. The more that die, the better, the more emphatic their message delivered, that their purpose will not be denied. Once they have satisfied themselves they have achieved that goal, they can then return to life as normal.
Which presents as turning upon one another in an ongoing, implacable war against discrete tribal adherences, against various interpretations of Islam. Just for the joy of being themselves, and reminding the 'others'; both infidels and those of their own faith practised "illegally" exactly who it is who commands and who obeys.
Labels: Israel, Justice, Political Realities, Terrorism
posted by Pieface @ Monday, June 30, 2008
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