The Hatred That Will Not Die
The Hatred That Will Not Die
"The obsessive need to blame Israel for every catastrophe in the
Middle East highlights the antisemitism at the heart of the anti-Israel
movement." "For centuries, antisemites have blamed Jews for every evil –
and now some feel the need to do the same to the Jewish state." "Evidence
and facts must always supplant paranoid conspiracy theories." Michael Mostyn, Chief Executive Officer, B'nai Brith Canada
 |
| The skyline of Beirut, Lebanon following the Port's ammonium nitrate explosion (New York Times) |
The propagandist rumour mill was, and continues to be rife with
accusations that the explosions that blasted Lebanon's capital city's
port into oblivion last week, annihilating up to 150 lives, wounding six
thousand people, and creating a homeless count of an estimated 300,000
Beirutis was a sadistically evil plot carried out by the State of
Israel. In the Arab world this type of deadly slander is generally
fodder for bolstering anti-Jew hatred; pleasing an audience that is
always on the lookout for deadly incidents that Jews can be blamed for.
In
this particular instance, Lebanese themselves are disinclined to take
those accusations against Israel seriously. They have for far too long
suffered inhumane assaults against their dignity as decent human beings,
with tribal, sectarian, clan and ethnic antipathies morphing into a
civil war, the presence of Palestinian militants wreaking havoc over the
border into Israel bringing an IDF occupation force to oust Yasser
Arafat and his Fatah movement, a UN peacekeeping mission, where the
fledgling Party of God mid-wifed by the al Quds Islamic Revolutionary
Guard Corps was inducted as an Iranian proxy to carry out suicide truck
bombings that killed 300 U.S. marines.
 |
| The front page of the February 28 edition of al-Meshwar, an
Arabic-language Canadian newspaper that published an article falsely
accusing Israel of burying Palestinians alive and stealing their organs.
(Screenshot) |
Ammonium
nitrate was found to be extremely useful to Hezbollah. It has
assembled, among other munitions, rockets, sophisticated arms and
ammunition, stockpiled against the day when the Islamic Republic of Iran
would call it into action in a pincer movement along with the Syrian
military and Hamas to attack Israel from a strategic front encompassing
all its borders to accomplish the promised annihilation of the Jewish
state. There would be little need to persuade Fatah, with the
Palestinian Authority, to join the fray.
Citizens
of Lebanon, those not part of militias headed by Christian, Sunni,
Shiite, or Druze factions, are fed up with constant strife. They resent
Hezbollah at Iran's behest involving them in another country's war with
its own citizens where Bashar al Assad has succeeded in destroying the
lives of a half-million Sunni Syrians in response to their protesting
against their inferior status -- though a majority, under a government
comprised of Alawite Shiites -- with the use of barrel bombs and
chemical weapons. Where millions of Syrian citizens have been made
homeless internally and millions more have become refugees.
 |
Four Hezbollah members in Rafik Hariri murder
|
Lebanon's
government, traditionally moulded to include all factions of its
fractious population, is now controlled by Hezbollah. The Lebanese are
under no illusion that assassinations have eliminated patriotic Lebanese
strongmen who tried to counter the influence of Hezbollah, Syria and
Iran like former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. The level of ineptitude
and corruption of their government has enraged Lebanese living in
precarious straits in a failed economy, with the additional stress of
coping with a global pandemic which its inadequate medical system is
unable to cope with.
The most recent daily protests
against the government and the influence of Hezbollah post-blast
succeeded in shaming some government ministers to resign as a disgrace
to their community in their ineffectiveness, leading to the downfall of
the entire government at a time when the nation needs a strong guiding
hand to carry it through the combined disasters of financial disarray,
COVID-19, fallout from the blast that would require part of Beirut to be
rebuilt, and the burden of hosting a million Syrian refugees.
To
think that the Canadian Arab community has nothing better to do than
level accusations against Israel of having fomented a plot to destroy a
significant portion of a city, killing a large group of people, injuring
thousands, creating a huge homeless population, is beyond contemptibly
pathetic. There is no level of malevolence they will not ascribe to
Jews, so deep is their hatred. As Canadians, where the national culture
is one of both integration and multiculturalism, this is a community
that distinguishes itself by spreading hatred.
A
situation that somehow fails to make much sense where Canadian values
encompass, justice, equality, respect for human rights and equal
opportunity. Yet an Arab-language newspaper, al-Meshwar, published an August 7 editorial bylined editor-in-chief Nazih Khatatba titled "Who
Is Responsible for the Beirut Port Disaster?" "The Beirut disaster
cannot be anything but the result of a planned Israeli-American act by
direct implementation or via their local proxies" ... "In the event that
Israel is responsible for the detonation, Hezbollah can do nothing but
respond with attacks at the same level as the crime".
And
nor is this the first time that this newspaper has published slanderous
accusations reflecting their obsession with Jew-hatred. Back in
February there had been another published attack against Israel:
 |
j.post.com
|
"The Abuse of the Martyrs and the Manipulation of Their Bodies Are
Jewish Commandments and Israeli Directives." by Dr. Mustafa Yusuf
al-Lidawi, identified as a former Hamas representative. B’nai Brith
Canada states that al-Lidawi’s story 'falsely accuses Israel of burying
prisoners alive and stealing their organs, a practice he blames on
Israel’s ‘ancient malice, and Talmudic and Torah commandments'."
Antisemitic
article in a Canadian newspaper in Arabic. The article written by
former Hamas official Dr. Mustafa Yusuf al-Lidawi, who has a track
record of accusing Jews of blood libel and other ugly charges. Roz
Rothstein, March 2020
Labels: Arabs, Canada, Hezbollah, Israel, Lebanon
Israel's Righteously Unblemished Critics
"[The
Kingdom of Saudi Arabia] rejects and disapproves] of the new State of
Israel proclaiming Israel a "Jewish" state by legislation which
contradicts international law]."
"[The international community should] confront such a law and or other
Israeli attempts, aimed at perpetuating racial discrimination against
the Palestinian people."
Saudi Foreign Ministry
"[The new law is] racist [it] enshrines the racism of this
entity [Israel] through an apartheid system that goes beyond the former
apartheid system in South Africa."
"This Israeli law would not have been issued without the unlimited
support provided by successive U.S. administrations to this rogue entity. [The Trump administration’s recent relocation of
the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem] came as a green light [for Israel] to
pursue its aggressive policy and racism."
Syrian Foreign Ministry
"[Adoption of the law] reflected the regime of racism and
discrimination against the Palestinian people."
"[Israel clearly means to obliterate the Palestinians'] national identity and depriv[ing] them of their legitimate civil and
human rights on their occupied homeland."
GCC [Gulf Cooperation Council] secretary general
Abdullatif al-Zayani
 |
| Israeli flag..
(photo credit: REUTERS)
|
Amazingly, unpredictably, there are others in the Arab world of
diplomatic niceties who politely and vehemently feel threatened that a
clearly Jewish state which freely celebrates its home-coming in the
re-establishment of its heritage lands as a place of comfort, security
and haven for persecuted Jews worldwide, finally asserting its
preeminent position as the only country in the world where being Jewish
is not a reason to fear being yet again persecuted, oppressed,
threatened and violated adamantly presents itself in legal terms, as
Jewish.
The chorus of Arab condemnation of the new Israeli legislation that now enshrines the country as
"the national home of the Jewish people",
has sung its outrage in a choir including the six-nation Gulf
Cooperation Council, comprised of Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman,
Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. Israel, must be feeling utterly
devastated, disappointed, outcast and alone; its neighbours, in a
totally new move will surely now exclude the Jewish state from the
friendly and civil relations that prevail among all countries in the
Middle East.
How can Israel possibly live with this rejection and the loss of
comradely relations between it and its Middle East neighbours? Possibly
if it explains that the thousands of years of Jewish yearning to return
to its ancient homeland, to escape the recurring deadly hostility that
Jews have been subjected to; culminating from endless pogroms,
humiliations, expulsions, scorn, and victimization, Jews have felt worn
out from being forced to find a place for themselves where no country
would accept them.
Turning as a bright alternative to the ageless pledge to one day return
to Zion, they did, after the world extracted an exorbitantly horrendous
price, tasking the Angel of Death to hover over the Jews
of Europe while they were tormented and vilified, ghettoized and
anguished in preparation for mass annihilation as the ultimate assault
and insult to the existence of that people collectively refusing to
vanish from the face of the Earth.
 |
| Proclamation of Nationhood is read by Israel's Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion. Frank Scherschel—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images |
In the State of Israel, which considers itself the final refuge for
Jewish life, non-Jews were welcome to remain, and they did. Arabs
constitute 17.5% of the eight million population, with the Jewish
presence estimated at over six million, hosting as well Druze, Kurds,
Armenians, Africans and Bedouin among others such as European
Christians. Hebrew will now legally represent the only official language
of the Jewish state; Arabic downgraded to special status.
Saudi Arabia guards its citizenship, awarding it to Saudis exclusively;
it recognizes no religion other than Islam, and its concern for the
welfare of Palestinians has not excited it toward offering either haven
nor citizenship to them. It considers the Shiite sect of Islam false and
results in accusations of a heretical nature, leading to violent
enmity. The conflicts that result from sectarian hatred and violence
creates gross destabilization, military assaults, mass murder of
civilians, starvation, deprivation, refugees.
Syria's Shiite regime has waged an unrelenting war against its sectarian
majority population, viewing them as 'terrorists' for the unsupportable
crime of protesting against the unjust treatment meted out to them by
their dictator-president Bashar al-Assad. Millions of Sunni Syrians have
become both internally displaced and external refugees, crowding for
safety from the regime into Jordan, Turkey, Lebanon and Egypt, flooding
Europe for asylum.
Iran has mustered the strength in numbers of the minority Shiites,
supporting their armed militias, creating non-state militias as
terrorist groups such as Hezbollah and Hamas, with an agenda focused
solely on the destruction of the State of Israel, with a side-issue of
promoting Shiism over Sunni Islam, with all the attendant fury of
accusations, venom and threats that accompany a power struggle of one
over the other, each reaching to attain the coveted status of ultimate
power.
Israel, seeking to live in peace and security in its ancient homeland,
cradled in a geography that once held disparate indigenous populations,
all of which jockeyed endlessly for territory, has brought modernity and
democracy to the Middle East in a geography to which both were foreign
in a world stilled in the amber of quaint medievalism and backwardness.
Viewing Israel as an usurping intruder, the Arab world shudders at the
progress and civility Israel represents, challenging the brutality and
ignorance that suffuses their culture.
 |
After an Arab air raid, bodies of dead Jews lie in the rubble along the Tel Aviv waterfront.
Frank Scherschel—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images |
Labels: Arabs, Conflict, Heritage, Hostilities, Israel, Middle East, Security
The Arab World -- Frozen In Time
"Arab youth today remain mired in poverty; they are politically marginalized and voiceless, economically disenfranchised, and socially prone to radicalization and violence."
Nimrod Raphael, Israeli analyst
"The United States created the Islamic State ... the U.S. was the secret instigator of all the Arab Spring uprisings ... the Syria uprising was not a popular movement but instead was instigated by the U.S. in order to remove the anti-imperialist Assad ... the U.S. intentionally creates failed states like Libya in order to keep the region in turmoil ... the Bush administration planned the 9/11 attack in order to further repression and start wars in the Middle East."
Reese Ehrlich, left-wing conspiracy theorist
The face of the world has changed in just a short period of time. It started in the Middle East, when between 2009 to 2014 roughly 22 million Arabs decided to migrate from their places of birth. Arab emigres wound up in immense numbers in Europe, where they joined earlier migrants in the areas now known as "no go" zones that so efficiently breed jihadis. And while European state police evade entering those "no go" zones to avoid the violence that will invariably descend upon them, out of those zones venture inhabitants into the larger areas where they protest and attack non-Muslim residents.
Radical Islam has been on the march for quite some time. Its essence has been bred in the Salafist Wahhabist Islam practised in Saudi Arabia, which has generously funded the establishment of mosques and madrassas throughout Europe, North America, Africa, Asia, to ensure that their particular brand of Islam is practised and continues spreading. Out of that brand has come a volatile anger against the West, against democracy and its vision of human rights.
That Sunni Wahhabist fundamentalism need go no further than the Middle East to find its targets, the vulnerable Christians of ancient lineage among them. These minorities of the Arab world have been the target of venomous attacks for daring to remain within a geography consecrated to Islam. The United Nations is where the Arab bloc led by the Arab League and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation speaks of the evils of "Islamophobia", but appears to have no words to describe the genocidal miseries suffered by Christians in the Medieval world of Islam.
The population of the Middle East is heavy on its youthful component where 30 percent of the population is between the ages of 15 and 29, poorly educated, and lacking employable skills in an area where there is little employment to be had, other than within government and where positions are monopolized by family units and authority and opportunity rests within the patriarchy and the clan. The government elites control oil wealth and the great bureaucracy that exists is exclusive to
"forged uncompetitive and monopolistic alliances".
It is a broad atmosphere where manufacturing is virtually absent, with oil wealth maintaining everything. Overseas investment is the order of the day, since the elite never know with any certainty whether the order may change and their wealth might be compromised. Development reports of the Arab world point to sparse translations from other languages into Arabic; a general disinterest in what generates advances elsewhere. Freedom of speech is absent, and interest in science is abysmal, reflecting a
"curiosity deficit" where a modern economy eludes and censorship rules.
But wait, there's more, thanks to the United Nations' statistics informing that while five percent of the global population resides in the Arab world, 45 percent of all global terrorist attacks are accounted for emanating out of that world. Of the world's violent conflicts, 17.6 percent belong to the Arab world, as well as 68.5 percent of deaths related to those conflict, and certainly not to be overlooked, 47 percent of the internally displaced worldwide.
Over 43 percent of the world's total proven oil reserves lie under the sands of the Middle East and North Africa. Which helps enormously to fund the Arab world's spending on military technology, 65 percent higher in expenditure than the global average, fuelling the ongoing agony of the Arab world's people. No measure of success by any standards whatever. But resentment in abundance. And invented reasons why there is such lack of success in a vast population disinterested in furthering its own interests to advance into the future.
That resentment taking the form of the conspiracy theories serving to explain just why it is that Arab states represent such total failures in every index of human ingenuity, discovery, education, production and culture. See the enumerated themes above as listed by journalist Reese Ehrlich.
Labels: Arabs, Heritage, Islam, Middle East, Moderation, North Africa
Social, Political, Military Religious Arab Culture
"There is a huge difference between learning and being educated. We are teaching our young but they are not getting educated."
"They
are not encouraged to find their way to the truth. The truth is
considered the exclusive domain of authority -- religious, political or
social authority."
"I
am writing about the Arab world as a son. I write out of concern
regarding the Arab world, which has descended into a dark age. I am the
insider turned outsider to tell a story about a culture that was once
great, but is now crashing, collapsing."
Elie Mikhael Nasrallah, author, Hostage to History: The Cultural Collapse of the 21st Century Arab World
 |
| Palestinian children dressed as Hamas suicide bombers |
The
answer is in the closed-mindedness of the traditions and the culture,
the heritage and the religion clasped close to the heart of the Arab
world. At its heart the Arab world cannot rescue itself from its tribal
Bedouin history and the culture that grew out of that heritage, handed
down proudly and with firm conviction from generation to succeeding
generation. Tribalism excludes any not from the tribe, and loyalty to
clan closets the mind even more strenuously to shut out all trust of
others.
Above all, it is the overarching and
all-enveloping nature of Islam that closes minds and keeps them firmly
shut. The religion that is all things to the faithful. Demanding
five-times-daily obeisance as symbols of faith in the all-powerful deity
demanding that loyalty. With so many daily reminders how can the mind
lapse into forbidden wanderings of the imagination and awkward questions
demanding answers? Rationality is of necessity absent, for there is no
room left for it to manoeuvre when faith and emotions of exclusivity and
exceptionalism crowd out all else.
 |
Young Palestinian children “executed” an Israeli soldier in a play at an
art exhibition at the Al-Surra Elementary School for Boys and Girls,
which is under the Hebron Education Directorate under the PA Ministry of
Education. A photo from the exhibition posted on the school's Facebook
page shows a Palestinian boy wearing a ribbon with the Palestinian flag
and the word "Palestine" on it preparing to “execute” another child
dressed as an Israeli soldier. He is pointing a toy M16 rifle at the
Israeli soldier who kneels with his arms raised in surrender. A second
photo shows “the Israeli soldier” lying on the ground after being
“executed” by the smiling Palestinian child. |
People's minds are kept strictured
for a decided reason. Women are subjugated to men's needs and men are
assured, under Islam, that their wives and daughters, sisters and
cousins are kept in thrall to the stern admonitions of Islam that women
must be chaste and worthy of the men who keep them so obedience is a
requirement. As the faithful obey Islam, just so must women of faith
obey the religion and the culture that delineates them as possessions
first and foremost.
Islam despises those among its
faithful who have the temerity to think for themselves and to question
established culture and Islamic rules. To convince the faithful just how
forbidden it is from on high to leave Islam and accept another religion
the death penalty is regarded as the cure for such unforgivable
abandonment; once a Muslim there can be no other path to god and the
penalty for apostasy is foreordained by the Almighty.
When
the world turned its attention in fascination at the stirrings of
challenges to the Middle East Arab governments that have failed their
peoples' aspirations and futures in 2011, it was with the expectation
that the tyrants would fall and the people clamouring for change would
take charge, tasking those among them with the grasp of what it takes to
turn an uncivil nation into a civil one, to lead them to a new era.
The
fallen tyrants, whether removed by popular demand of the people or
interference by foreign nations seeing an opportunity to alter the
politics of failed nations, simply gave away to dictators even more
brutal in their manipulative assaults on their populations. But even
their predations on Arab society were eclipsed by the rise of Islamist
jihad, persuading the fanatics among the population that Islam's
renewal required a return to medieval coercion and violent force.
The world is now witness to the rise of jihadist
movements each of which is more devoted to atrocities than those they
succeed. Yet their horrific mass assaults on those whom they claim to
represent and on the ethnic and religious minorities living among them
are well matched by governments such as (non-Arab) Iran, Saudi Arabia
and Pakistan/Afghanistan whose mendacious capital punishment laws
resemble the punishments meted out by Islamic State, Hezbollah and Hamas.
Yet it is the regime that manages to retain its hold on what is left of Syria that exemplifies the stark brutality inherent in Islamist vengeance and Arab perfidy in its willingness to exterminate challengers to the status quo. From Saddam Hussein to (Persian) Ruhollah Khomeini and Bashar al-Assad, the tradition of violent Islam leads to intimidation, torment, assassination.
In
the world of the West people with no conscience exercising their free
will to reject the universal social compact of compassion toward
humanity are called psychopaths. In the Arab/Muslim world they are
called heroes and 'martyrs' for Islam.
Labels: Arabs, Culture, Heritage, Islam, Jihad
The Anti-Humane Volatility of the Middle East
"There is no strategy planned by the [Kurdistan regional government]
to destroy or destruct any component villages, any component set up in
these newly liberated areas. [Peshmerga forces] have been in full obligation to
implement the standards of and principles of international human rights,
international humanitarian laws."
"[But] there are a few cases where an entire village stood against the Peshmerga ... they fought in line [alongside Isis militants]."
Dindar Zebari, Peshmerga spokesman, Iraq
"It
does appear to be a form of collective punishment of perceived
sympathizers [with Islamic State]. Rather than deal with individuals,
they [Kurds] are punishing whole [Sunni Arab] communities."
"If
you're interacting with those forces Canadian special forces working
closely with Kurdish troops] I think you're obliged to know what they're
doing."
"You have an obligation to ensure that violations of human rights and humanitarian law aren't occurring."
Hilary Homes, spokesperson, Amnesty International, Ottawa
 |
| "By barring the displaced from returning to their villages and
destroying their homes KRG forces are further exacerbating their
suffering," AFP |
This is the Middle East. This is the
geography of militant tribalism, of venomous sectarianism, of violent
attacks against minority groups, led for the most part by Islamist
distrust and hatred for non Muslims and 'apostates' alike. Where verses
in the Koran enjoin the faithful to conflict with the despised infidels
and Jews:
"Do not take the Jews and the Christians
for your friends and allies” (5:51) and “You shall find none who
believe in Allah and the Last Day on friendly terms with those who
oppose Allah and His Messenger [i.e., non-Muslims] — even if they be
their fathers, their sons, their brothers, or their nearest kindred"
(Koran 58:22; see also 3:28, 60:4, 2:120).
The
incessant violence being perpetrated by one Muslim sect against another
reflects the culture of viral tribalism and poisonous sectarian
animosities. And when geography throws in the complications of ethnic
groups, the Kurds and the Yazidis, the Druze and other minorities whom
the majority groups view as inferior and think nothing of depriving of
their lives, the dangerous cocktail of Arab and Muslim dysfunction
erupts under the volcanic pressures of endemic and constantly erupting
issues of survival.
The
West and its human rights groups look on from afar at what unfolds in
the Middle East as one 'nation' after another implodes, and often with
considerable assistance from the meddling West. Remove a totalitarian
government and the vacuum that results invites even more intolerance and
violence to explosively erupt as tribal and sectarian and ethnic and
clan hatreds are inflamed, setting the landscape onto a trajectory of
inflicting utter disorder and bloodshed in generous proportions.
A
new Amnesty International report highlights the region's Kurds taking
the initiative to seek revenge for the humiliations and violence and
depredations they suffered in Iraq under the regime of Saddam Hussein.
This is the militant Kurds who have given haven and protection to the
minority groups whom the Shiite Iraqis have persecuted more latterly and
whom the Sunni terrorist groups like ISIL have tormented, enslaved and
slaughtered.
According
to Amnesty its report accuses the Kurdistan Regional Government and its
allied militias in northern Iraq of bulldozing, exploding, or torching
thousands of homes in a deliberate campaign to banish Arab communities
from the area the Kurds claim sovereignty in. The displacement of Arab
populations by force and destruction reflects Amnesty's research of 13
villages and towns including testimony from eyewitnesses and victims.
"It
would be very hard to see how this was militarily justified [widespread
destruction of villages]. This is deliberate destruction, the punishing
of entire communities", commented Hilary Homes,
spokesperson for Amnesty International on security issues in Ottawa of
the report corroborated by satellite imagery. The claim is that Kurdish
Peshmerga forces and sometimes Yazidi militias and Kurdish armed groups
from Syria and Turkey operated alongside the Peshmerga to force
thousands of Arabs to abandon their homes.
And
the Kurdish Regional Government forces have barred those Arab civilians
from attempting to return to the areas recaptured from the Islamic
State of Iraq and the Levant, where the Sunni Arab civilians lived under
the banner of the Sunni ISIL jihadists. The Kurds are busy
consolidating their territorial gains in "disputed areas" claimed
traditionally by the Kurdish Regional Government as their own, in a
drive to address abuses from the past by the Saddam Hussein tyranny.
Kurds
had formerly been forcibly displaced by Saddam Hussein's military for
the purpose of settling Arabs in those very same areas. It was the Kurds
who launched the rescue of Yazidis trapped by Islamic State when the
jihadi terrorists captured Sinjar, slaughtered Yazidis, took their women
captive as sex slaves, and people fled in terror from the invasion onto
Mount Sinjar, trapped without provisions on the winter mountain. Little
wonder that Yazidis seek their revenge.
It
is dreadful that the revenge falls not on the jihadists who attacked,
raped and enslaved Yazidis, but on their co-sectarian civilian Sunni
Arabs who may have viewed their actions with favour, or indifference. On
the other hand, war is a dreadful human construct of misery and dread.
And in the Middle East empathy and compassion always appear to be on
short order unless it is directed at people of the same clan or tribe or
religious sect.
The
horrible excess of slaughter that has taken place under the command of a
tyrannical president in Syria punishing his civilian subjects who
protested their unequal treatment as opposed to that of the opposite
sect, just about equals the wretchedly grotesque butchery of the
non-state Islamist militias associated with al-Qaeda, and most
particularly Islamic State. It is the danger posed by the Islamists who
look beyond the region to inflict their brand of Islamic justice on the
West that democracies are engaged in bringing to a halt.
Thus
far, it is has not been the military of Iraq or of Syria that have
successfully contested the advance of the Islamists, but the courage and
perseverance of the Kurds in defending their people and their
territory. And it has been the Kurds whom the Americans and the
Canadians have favoured in tutoring in the art of successful warfare
against an implacable enemy of humankind. There should be the
recognition of a universal standard of human rights obligations, that
much is true.
The
old adage, when in Rome do as the Romans do might not fit exactly here,
but it does go a long way to explaining why and how it happens that a
large ethnic group long suffering persecution and existential hardship
is finally determined to claim its territory and to defend its
population and in so doing is deserving of the assistance of those
attuned to the situation and immersed in doing what they can to change
it.
Labels: Arabs, Conflict, Iraq, Islamic State, Kurds, Shiites, Sunnis, Yazidis
It's The Optics, Stupid
"They are responding to what they perceive to be an insult, an insult where somebody got hurt, or somebody got killed or a settlement got uprooted."
"They immediately interpret any insult or humiliation of themselves to be a humiliation of God."
"[No rabbi tells them to destroy property or to attack Palestinians] But there is in certain corners an atmosphere created -- Meir Kahane had a lot to do with this initially -- there's an aura of the exercise of power being a sanctification of God's name, and it almost doesn't matter how the power is exercised."
"What is happening now within Israel is a growing willingness to castigate and criticize them [the violence-prone], including from this current government, which is a centre-right government. I think everybody realizes it's bad for Israel."
Don Seeman, professor of religion, Emory University, Atlanta
"We see how terrorism is escalating, every generation has to show something more shocking in order to gain attention."
"Of course it's horrific, but from a national security point of view, unless they do something really shocking that would escalate the situation with the Palestinians and with the rest of the world, they are not as dangerous as their predecessors."
Ami Pedahzur, director, Institute for Israel Studies, University of Texas, Austin
"[The ultra-Orthodox driven to violence represent the] fringe of a fringe, [young men absorbing the incitement of radicals claiming invalidity of the Israeli government. Their attitude] The land belongs to us and to nobody else [motivates them]."
"This is part of a theology that says that, insofar as my reaction is spontaneous and pure for the sake of heaven, it's really god moving me."
Shlomo Fischer, sociologist, Hebrew University, Jerusalem
These are Jewish extremists who have their counterparts in the Palestinian community; just as the Jews who claim ultimate sovereignty over all the land consecrated by God to his Chosen People decry the presence of Arabs where they don't belong, Palestinian Arabs have been incited by their leaders to believe that the Jews have taken Arab land consecrated to Islam, and must be driven from the land, the Palestinian Arabs reunited with what is their rightful possession.
The difference between the two groups in large part is that it has been the Arab 'resistance' that has, since 1948, chosen to express their rage at the presence of a sovereign Jewish state by attacking all those who live in that state. Yasser Arafat and the Palestine Liberation Organization gave cohesion and a united purpose to the mission to destroy the State of Israel, prodded by surrounding Arab states which themselves attempted on multiple occasions to destroy Israel with their conventional military.
It took the PLO to develop other tactics of a guerrilla, terrorist nature, abducting Jews, attacking and killing Jews, hijacking international aircraft and vessels at sea, bombing international venues owned by or catering to Jews. When the PLO set up shop using Jordan as their military base, they precipitated Black September when the Jordanian military routed the PLO which ended up in Lebanon, attacking Israel over the border until the IDF entered Lebanon.
That era saw the creation of Hezbollah from among Lebanon's oppressed Shiite population, groomed by the al-Quds division of the Iranian Republican National Guard, and the entry of Syria to a despoiled and fractured Lebanon. Whatever the sectarian non-state militia, along with the state administrations of the Middle East intended, the foremost goal to be attended to, was the dismantling of the State of Israel to 'free' Palestine from its grip and return it to the Palestinians.
Because, truth be told, none of the Middle East Arab nations had any wish to absorb the Palestinian refugees, known as troublemakers, held in contempt wherever they went, living in their permanent 'refugee' camps, and the resolve was to keep them a festering victim yearning to return to the land that they felt Jews had co-opted. Attacks against Israel and Israelis never stopped and they were gruesomely atrocious.
Nothing Jews ever did to Arabs ever came close to the atrocities committed by Arabs against Jews with the possible exception of a Jewish medical practitioner who in 1994 killed 29 Muslim worshippers at the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron, wounding many others. The difference between the Israeli and the Palestinian leaders' reactions was that the former deplored and grieved the assault while the latter had a habit of congratulating Arab attackers against Jewish targets.
While Jews felt shaken and desperately unsettled that a Jew would take human life, the Palestinians had a habit of celebrating, from shooting off celebratory firearms into the air, to handing out sweets to savour the moment of revenge. Israel feels shame and anticipates that any such incident will serve to aid those happy to slander them. Palestinians feel justified and depend on sympathy as the underdog from the international community, and they are not disappointed.
The late Rabbi Meir Kahane formed the Jewish Defence League in the United States to impress upon Jews that there would be those among them to protect them from anything resembling a recurrence of the Holocaust, using violence if required. When he migrated to Israel, forming the Kach Party, its volatile ideology of violence responding to violence alarmed authorities sufficiently to ban the movement, now taken up once again by his grandson.
JACK GUEZ / AFP/GETTY IMAGES Meir Ettinger, the head of a Jewish extremist group, stands at the
Israeli justice court in Nazareth Illit on Tuesday, a day after his
arrest. Ettinger, 23, is the grandson of Rabbi Meir Kahane, Israel’s
most notorious Jewish extremist.
Israel, and Jews, are held to a loftier standard than others living in the Middle East, of whom not much is expected from a tribal, ultra-religious society for whom worship and clan trump all other interests in populations given to suspicious aggravation and a penchant for both hatred and violent upheaval.
Labels: Arabs, Conflict, Heritage, Israel, Jews, Palestinians
Palestinians: The Difference between Us and Them
|
|
Palestinians: The Difference between Us and Them
Translations of this item:
- We Palestinians have failed
to educate our people on the principles of tolerance and peace. Instead,
we condone and applaud terrorism, especially when it is directed
against Jews. We want the world to condemn terrorism only when it claims
the lives of Palestinians.
- Abbas's ambiguous, half-hearted condemnations of attacks by
Palestinians against Israelis are only intended for public consumption
and are primarily aimed at appeasing Western donors so that they will
continue channeling funds to the Palestinian Authority. In addition, his
condemnations seek to blame Israel for Palestinian terror attacks.
- Netanyahu's strong and clear condemnation left me and other
Palestinians wondering when was the last time we heard similar
statements from our leaders. I cannot remember Abbas or any other
Palestinian leader ever expressing shock and outrage over the killing of
a Jew in a Palestinian terror attack, nor the last time a Palestinian
official visited the Israeli victims of a Palestinian terror attack.
- Each time Abbas reluctantly condemns a Palestinian terror attack,
he faces a wave of criticism from many Palestinians. Unlike the Israeli
public, many Palestinians often rush to justify, and even welcome,
terror attacks against Jews. Has there ever been a Palestinian activist
who dared to hold a rally in a Palestinian city to condemn suicide
bombings or the murder of an entire Jewish family? The Israeli president
has good reason to feel ashamed for the murder of the baby. But when
will we Palestinians ever have a sense of shame over the way we react to
the murder of Jews?
I cannot count the number of times that I heard from Israeli Jews the
phrases "I'm ashamed" and "I'm sorry" in response to the horrific crime
that claimed the life of Palestinian toddler Ali Dawabsha in the West
Bank village of Duma last week.
The strong response of the Israeli public and leaders to the arson
attack is, truthfully, somewhat comforting. The wall-to-wall Israeli
condemnation of this crime has left me and other Palestinians not only
ashamed, but also embarrassed -- because this is not how we Palestinians
have been reacting to terror attacks against Jews -- even the
despicable murder of Jewish children.
Our response has, in fact, brought feelings of disgrace and dishonor.
While the Israeli prime minister, president and other officials were
quick strongly to condemn the murder of Dawabsha, our leaders rarely
denounce terror attacks against Jews. And when a Palestinian leader such
as Mahmoud Abbas does issue a condemnation, it is often vague and
equivocal.
Take, for example, what happened after last year's kidnapping and
murder of three Israeli teenagers by Palestinians in the West Bank. It
not only took President Abbas four days
to issue a statement condemning the terror attack, but even then, the
condemnation was at best a tentative: "The Palestinian presidency...
condemns the series of events that happened last week, beginning with
the kidnapping of three Israeli youths." Abbas then went on to denounce
Israel for arresting dozens of Hamas members after the abduction and
murder of the three youths.
Later in 2014, when Abbas did condemn a Palestinian terror attack
that killed five Israelis in a Jerusalem synagogue, Fatah official Najat
Abu Baker, a few days later, explained that Abbas's condemnation was made "within a diplomatic context... [he] is forced to speak this way to the world."
Abbas's condemnation of the attack at the synagogue in Jerusalem's Har Nof neighborhood apparently came only under pressure
from U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, who telephoned the Palestinian
leader twice to demand that he speak out against the killings.
Abbas's
statement said that the Palestinian leadership condemns the "killing of
worshippers in a synagogue and all acts of violence, regardless of their
source." His statement then also called for an end to "incursions and
provocations by settlers against the Aqsa Mosque."
Abbas's ambiguous, half-hearted condemnations of attacks by
Palestinians against Israelis are only intended for public consumption
and are primarily aimed at appeasing Western donors, so that they will
continue channeling funds to the Palestinian Authority (PA). In
addition, his condemnations almost always seek to blame Israel for the
Palestinian terror attacks -- presumably an attempt to justify the
killing of Jews at the hands of Palestinian terrorists.
In contrast, Israeli leaders who condemned the murder of the Palestinian toddler sound firm and unambiguous. Here is what Prime Minister Netanyahu said
after visiting the murdered baby's parents and brother, who were
wounded in the arson attack and are receiving medical treatment in
Israeli hospitals: "When you stand next to the bed of this small child,
and his infant brother has been so brutally murdered, we are shocked, we
are outraged. We condemn this. There is zero tolerance for terrorism
wherever it comes from, whatever side of the fence it comes from."
Netanyahu's strong and clear condemnation left me and other
Palestinians wondering when was the last time we heard similar
statements from our leaders. I cannot remember ever hearing Abbas or any
other Palestinian leader express shock and outrage over the killing of a
Jew in a Palestinian terror attack. Nor can I remember the last time we
heard of a Palestinian official visiting the Israeli victims of a
Palestinian terror attack.
The Israeli leaders' condemnation of the baby's murder is a sincere
voice that reflects the views of the overwhelming majority of the
Israeli public. In contrast, the Palestinian leaders' denunciations of
terror attacks do not reflect the general feeling on the Palestinian
street. Each time Abbas reluctantly condemns a Palestinian terror attack, he faces a wave of criticism from many Palestinians.
Unlike the Israeli public, many Palestinians often rush to justify,
and even welcome, terror attacks against Jews. This was the situation
just a few weeks ago, when an Israeli man was shot dead near Ramallah.
Several Palestinian factions and military groups applauded the murder, calling it a "natural response to Israeli crimes."
This is the huge difference between the way Israelis and Palestinians
react to terrorism. The murder of Dawabsha saw thousands of Israelis
hold anti-violence rallies
to condemn the horrible crime. But has anyone ever heard of a similar
rally on the Palestinian side whenever terrorists kill innocent Jewish
civilians? Is there one top Palestinian official or prominent figure who
dares to speak out in public against the murder of Jews, at a rally in
the center of Ramallah or Gaza City? Has there ever been a Palestinian
activist who dared to hold a rally in a Palestinian city to condemn
suicide bombings or the murder of an entire Jewish family?
While Israelis have been holding rallies to condemn terror attacks
against our people, we have been celebrating the killing of Jews. How
many times have we taken to the streets to hand out sweets and candies
in jubilation over the killing of Jews? Such sickening scenes of men
and women celebrating terror attacks against Jews on the streets of the
West Bank and Gaza Strip have never been condemned by our leaders. These
scenes have become commonplace each time Palestinian terrorists carry out an attack against Jews.
These scenes stand in sharp contrast to the public statements and
rallies in Israel in response to terror attacks against Palestinians.
Our leaders need to learn from Israel's President, Reuven Rivlin, who
said he was "ashamed" and "in pain" for the murder of the Palestinian
toddler. When was the last time a Palestinian leader used such rhetoric
to condemn the murder of Jews? The laconic statements issued by Abbas's
office in response to anti-Jewish terror attacks never talked about
shame or pain.
Israeli
President Reuven Rivlin visits 4-year-old Ahmed Dawabsha in hospital on
July 31. Dawabsha was badly burned in an arson attack on his house in
the village of Duma, which killed his baby brother and also injured his
parents. (Image source: Mark Neyman/Israel Government Press Office)
|
We have failed to educate our people on the principles of tolerance
and peace. Instead, we continue to condone and applaud terrorism,
especially when it is directed against Jews. We want the whole world to
condemn terrorism only when it claims the lives of Palestinians. We have
reached a point where many of us are either afraid to speak out against
terrorism or simply accept it when it claims the lives of Jews.
The Israeli president has good reason to be ashamed for the murder of
the baby. But when will we Palestinians ever have a sense of shame over
the way we are reacting to the murder of Jews? When will we stop
glorifying terrorists, and naming streets and public squares after them,
instead of strongly denouncing them and expelling them from our
society? We still have a lot to learn from Israeli leaders and the
Israeli public.
Bassam Tawil is based in the Middle East.
|
Labels: Arabs, Conflict, Extremism, Israel, Jews, Palestinians, Remorse
|
|
What about Arab War Crimes against Palestinians?
And who ever heard of the case of
Zaki al-Hobby, a 17-year old Palestinian who was shot and killed last
weekend by Egyptian border guards? Had he been shot by Israeli soldiers
on the other side of the border, the EU and UN would have called for an
international commission of inquiry.
The stories of the Palestinians tortured to death in an Arab prison
have also failed to win the attention of the Western media. Nor have the
EU and the UN, which called for an investigation into the death of Abu
Ein -- who died of a heart attack while in a confrontation with an
Israeli soldier -- deemed it necessary to tackle the plight of the
Palestinians being killed and tortured to death in Syria and other Arab
countries.
As far as the Palestinian Authority is concerned — and the media, the
EU, the UN and human rights groups — the only "war crimes" are being
committed by Israelis, and not by Arabs who are killing, torturing and
displacing tens of thousands of Palestinians. And all this is happening
while the international community and media continue to display an
obsession only with everything connected to Israel.
More than 2,500 Palestinians have been killed since the beginning of the conflict in Syria three years ago, according
to a report published this week by the Working Group for Palestinians
in Syria. It revealed that 2,596 Palestinians have been killed since the
beginning of the conflict in that country in 2011.
But this is a news item that has hardly found its way into mainstream
media in the West. Even Arab media outlets have almost entirely ignored
the report about Palestinian casualties in Syria.
The reason for this apathy, of course, is clear. The Palestinians in
Syria were killed by Arabs and not as a result of the conflict with
Israel.
Journalists covering the Middle East do not believe that this is an
important story because of the absence of any Israeli role in the
killings.
Arabs slaughtering, executing and torturing Palestinians is not
sensational enough to grab a headline in a major Western or Arab
newspaper. That is why most Middle East correspondents have chosen to
turn a blind eye to the report.
According to the report, the victims include 157 women who were
killed in the fighting between Bashar Assad's army and various
opposition groups in Syria. It also said that 268 Palestinians were
killed by snipers, while another 84 were summarily executed. Another 984
Palestinians were killed when their homes and neighborhoods were
shelled by the Syrian army and the opposition groups.
The report also reminded the international community that the
Palestinian Yarmouk refugee camp near Damascus has been under siege by
the Syrian army for the past 547 days. Approximately 160 residents of
the camp have died as a result of the siege, the report said.
It also pointed out that the camp has been without electricity for
more than 620 days. Camp residents have also been cut off from water for
the past 117 days, the report added.
In addition to the deaths, some 80,000 Palestinians have fled their
homes in Syria due to the ongoing conflict. Nearly 15,000 have crossed
the border to Jordan, while another 42,000 have fled to Lebanon, the
report disclosed.
As if that were not enough, last week Muslim terrorists executed six Palestinians from Yarmouk camp after finding them guilty of "blasphemy."
A senior PLO official in Syria, Anwar Abdel Hadi, said that the
Palestinians were executed by the Al-Qaeda-affiliated An-Nusra terror
group.
Abdel Hadi said that only 15,000 Palestinians remain in the refugee
camp, which until three years ago was home to some 175,000 people.
Another report published recently revealed that 264 Palestinians have died as a result of torture in Syrian government prisons over the past few years.
The most recent deaths in Syrian prisons occurred last month, when three more Palestinians died after being tortured. The three were identified as Bila al-Zari, Mohamed Omar and Mohamed Masriyeh.
These Palestinians were arrested by the Syrian authorities on
suspicion of helping anti-Assad forces in different parts of the
country.
The stories of the Palestinians tortured to death in an Arab prison
have also failed to win the attention of the Western media. Had any one
of them died in an Israeli prison or in a confrontation with Israeli
soldiers, his story and photo would have appeared on the front page of
many newspapers and magazines in the U.S., Canada and Europe.
By contrast, when a top Fatah official, Ziad Abu Ein, recently died
of a heart attack after an altercation with Israeli soldiers in the West
Bank, his story immediately caught the attention of the international
media and human rights organizations. Many foreign journalists covering
the Middle East covered the story of Abu Ein from every possible angle
and conducted interviews with his family members and friends.
In
an incident widely reported by international media, Fatah official Ziad
Abu Ein (center) is shown suffering a heart attack while sitting on the
ground, moments after an altercation with Israeli soldiers. Abu Ein
later died. (Image source: RT video screenshot)
|
But the Palestinians who are being killed and tortured to death in
Syria and other Arab countries have never received the same attention
from the same journalists and human rights activists. Nor have the EU
and UN, which called for an investigation into the death of Abu Ein, deemed it necessary to tackle the plight of the Palestinians in Syria.
And who has heard of the case of Zaki Al-Hobby, a 17-year-old Palestinian who was shot and killed
last weekend by Egyptian border guards? The Palestinian teenager was
killed because he came too close to the border between the Gaza Strip
and Egypt. Witnesses said he was shot in the back and died instantly.
Once again, Al-Hobby's story has hardly received any coverage because
Israel was not involved in that incident. Had he been shot by Israeli
soldiers on the other side of the border, the EU and UN would have
called for an international commission of inquiry. But the teenager was
unfortunate because he was shot by Egyptian soldiers, making his story
"insignificant" in the eyes of the international community and media.
That Palestinians are being killed by Arabs does not seem to bother
even the Palestinian Authority, whose leaders are busy these days
threatening to file "war crimes" charges against Israel with the
International Criminal Court. As far as the Palestinian Authority is
concerned — and the media, the EU, the UN and human rights groups — the
only "war crimes" are being committed by Israelis, and not by Arabs who
are killing, torturing and displacing tens of thousands of Palestinians.
And all this is happening while the international community and media
continue to display an obsession only with everything connected to
Israel.
|
Labels: Arabs, Conflict, Israel, Palestinians
