This past week saw the successful completion of Israel's latest one-sided endeavor of offering painful concessions for a peace that will surely not materialize. One hopes that Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has a very big payoff in his sights to recompense the Gaza and Samaria families who have poured so much of their hearts - not to mention blood - into building a positive, thriving society in the midst of a medieval culture of hatred and death, only to have it taken away. The Israeli people, who time after time unify to offer sacrifices and compromises for peace, are truly ready to gaze upon a horizon with resolution on it. I have some ideas about what Arik the Bulldozer's future plans might entail vis-a-vis unchecked terror attacks on Israel coming out of a sovereign Palestinian Arab state. Giving enough rope, as it were.
So, once again, an immigrant Arab Muslim people, in a nonexistent state, with an invented refugee status (complete with their own huge, personal UN welfare program) have managed to get what they want through the homicidal terror of jihad. And of course, they couldn't have done it without the support, tacit and overt, of the terror-enabling Western states, useful idiots and media, who grant legitimacy to their inveterate hatred of Israel and their murder of Israelis. If Arafat can see this from whatever circle of hell he's in (probably the same one as Muhammad), he must be downright proud.
Why is it that a nation that won land fighting a defensive war must return it to the people who have never stopped murdering that nation's citizens? One might also ask how a political entity founded on arrogant enmity and barbaric terror could be invited into the august halls (such as they are) of the United Nations, or how its dead arch-terrorist leader could have been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. A better question would be: where is the sanity, morality and justice in a world that sides with hateful, vicious killers against a free, democratic state governed and constrained by the rule of law?
I'm happy that my nation supports Israel. In fact, as far as I'm concerned, valuing our allegiance with Israel is part of being a good American. Outside of the legion practical benefits of this friendship, it is only right to appreciate our mutual affinity with Israelis. They are the only free and democratic people in a brutal and backward part of the world. They are always on our side. They consistently show their loyalty to us, while virtually all of their neighbors fan the fires of their America hatred with all the money we throw at them.
Sadly, however, too many of us don't understand the great pain that Israel must endure to protect its people and their democracy, while striving to be ethical to its belligerent enemies on one hand, and contending with a slanted world opinion on the other. Too many do not consider the fact that in Israel, every day can be a 9/11.
I respect Condoleezza Rice, and it has recently come to light that she was disgracefully mischaracterized in her latest interview with the New York Times as being unduly unsympathetic to the high price of Israel's Gaza withdrawal. However, Dr. Rice is the newest spokesperson of an often wrongheaded US bureaucracy called the State Department, which has long appeared to be intent on minimizing the sacrifice and suffering of Israelis in the interest of promoting the policy of rewarding Arab/Islamic terror and the notion of a nonexistent "cycle of violence" when Israel finally does something about the cowardly Islamic monsters who kill its kids and other innocents. I hope that she can change, however little, this wrongful mindset.
It also doesn't help when President George Bush portrays Mahmoud "Arafat 2" Abbas as a man dedicated to democracy, when Abbas doesn't seem to comprehend the democratic concept of neutralizing those who launch murderous attacks on noncombatants of a sovereign state. Perhaps he'll embrace this simple doctrine of decency as he launches into his "big jihad" following the victory that he dedicated to his people and their "martyrs".
Speaking of Arafat 2, the blue and white Magen Davids weren't even down yet in Gush Katif before he proclaimed, without a hint of self-consciousness, that Israel is not doing enough for peace. Then, when the IDF went into Tulkarem to deal with the wretched killers of Islamic Jihad and Hamas, whom Abbas has steadfastly refused to disarm, the PA condemned Israel for inciting violence. When these same jihadi terrorists kill Israelis, though, they are perhaps publicly denounced as not being helpful to the Gimme-Gimme-Gimme game, even as they are lauded as heroes in the PA press and other media.
A rational, ethical person sees the hypocritical madness of how Israel is chastised and vilified for defending itself and asks, "What the heck is going on here?" You can find yourself questioning your fellow man's sanity or your own. Why does the PA and its murderous population get a free pass, while Israel is villainized, even as it gives and gives to them? How do Palestinian Arab Muslims get away with the ceaseless killing and destroying?
It's simple: hating, killing and destroying has always worked for Palestinian Arabs. It's brought them everything they hoped for and more. The chronic Western appeasement and apologetics for their bad behavior, along with biased criticism of Israel has justified Palestinian Arab terror and provided incentive to carry out more. It would be illogical, if moral, for them to stop doing what has gained them so much.
Applying the misinformed notions of the noble savage and always rooting for the underdog, much of the West has decided that the brown people with the exotic religion and the high-explosive apparel must be the victims of the white people with the Western culture and Apache Longbow helicopters equipped with Hellfire missiles. The poor people who raise their kids to hate and kill are surely more worthy than the prosperous society whose children grow up to cure diseases, advance technology and routinely win Nobel Prizes.
That's pretty much what it comes down to. This wrongheaded attitude is what I call Kipling's White Man's Burden in reverse. It's one polar extreme, with ignorant racism being at the other. It's an intellectually lazy, yet somehow gratifying, way of alleviating oneself of the guilt that comes along with mindlessly hating one's own culture and ignoring the important contributions of one's own civilization. In this case, it also amounts to Jew-hatred, because it wholly discounts Jewish efforts at making peace with Arabs, and it rejects their right to live peacefully in their homeland - a homeland for which they have fought constantly since it was reborn in 1948.
What many Americans and Westerners don't quite grasp - but soon will, judging by recent events - is that Israel has been the canary in the coal mine of Arab and Islamic terror all these years. Everyone shook their heads for a moment before flipping to the next channel whenever dead Israelis appeared on the news next to a bus blown open by another Koran-crazed maniac and his fiery one-way ticket to Allahland. No one remembered the kids, Holocaust survivors - whole families even! - deliberately cut down by hateful people with the UN, the media and university campuses worldwide behind them.
It still saddens me to see Israel maligned in the press and elsewhere, despite her tireless efforts to always do the right thing, even for the people who want to destroy her. It's not surprising, though. When great numbers of us are resentful that US troops are fighting the mujahideen in Iraq only four years after 9/11, apathy over the plight of Israelis dealing with the same madness thousands of miles from here is, unfortunately, to be expected.
So, Arafat 2, Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Al-Aqsa, et al. all think they have secured a resounding victory as a result of their violent, uncivilized behavior. And they didn't really have to pay for it, outside of the occasional withdrawal from the ever-full martyr pool of stooges for Allah. We'll see what happens, and if it was worth it. It could be Sharon's last stand. It could (and likely will) get ugly, but it could turn out right in the end. Right now, though, all we can see is the PA and its terror gangs gloating over a perceived victory in driving out the Jews and Zionists.
The Arab Islamic terror is sure to start again, because that's what these people do, and the world has implicitly given them its approval. I will personally be glad to see Mahmoud Al-Zahar, Ismail Haniyye and Khaled Mashaal take a Hellfire to the head on the streets of Gaza. These fine events are all but assured to happen. Islam dictates that Muslims must fight body, heart and soul to regain any land that they took in conquest, so these degenerate thugs won't be inactive for long.
However things turn out, the Israelis deserve our respect for trying yet again to make peace with one of the most bellicose peoples in history. There's no way that any of Israel's detractors would have such patience and righteousness in the same situation. In spite of the ongoing terror attacks since the absurdly named dahadiye, anglicized as "relative atmosphere of calm" or more dishonestly, "de facto truce" (it should have been called the "we'll kill you in slightly fewer numbers 'til we get what we want" period), proclaimed this past February, Israel has managed to uphold its end of this Faustian bargain. The PA and Palestinian Arabs still have one hand held out demanding more, with the other hand holding a Kalashnikov. Israel continues to balance the ponderous weight of ethics and self-preservation on its shoulders, as the world throws stones.
"We can be the vanguard of culture against barbarism." - Theodor Herzl, Diaries
copyright ©2005 Patrick D. O'Brien; cannot be copied, published, or otherwise used (except for quotes) without express permission of the author.
So, once again, an immigrant Arab Muslim people, in a nonexistent state, with an invented refugee status (complete with their own huge, personal UN welfare program) have managed to get what they want through the homicidal terror of jihad. And of course, they couldn't have done it without the support, tacit and overt, of the terror-enabling Western states, useful idiots and media, who grant legitimacy to their inveterate hatred of Israel and their murder of Israelis. If Arafat can see this from whatever circle of hell he's in (probably the same one as Muhammad), he must be downright proud.
Why is it that a nation that won land fighting a defensive war must return it to the people who have never stopped murdering that nation's citizens? One might also ask how a political entity founded on arrogant enmity and barbaric terror could be invited into the august halls (such as they are) of the United Nations, or how its dead arch-terrorist leader could have been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. A better question would be: where is the sanity, morality and justice in a world that sides with hateful, vicious killers against a free, democratic state governed and constrained by the rule of law?
I'm happy that my nation supports Israel. In fact, as far as I'm concerned, valuing our allegiance with Israel is part of being a good American. Outside of the legion practical benefits of this friendship, it is only right to appreciate our mutual affinity with Israelis. They are the only free and democratic people in a brutal and backward part of the world. They are always on our side. They consistently show their loyalty to us, while virtually all of their neighbors fan the fires of their America hatred with all the money we throw at them.
Sadly, however, too many of us don't understand the great pain that Israel must endure to protect its people and their democracy, while striving to be ethical to its belligerent enemies on one hand, and contending with a slanted world opinion on the other. Too many do not consider the fact that in Israel, every day can be a 9/11.
I respect Condoleezza Rice, and it has recently come to light that she was disgracefully mischaracterized in her latest interview with the New York Times as being unduly unsympathetic to the high price of Israel's Gaza withdrawal. However, Dr. Rice is the newest spokesperson of an often wrongheaded US bureaucracy called the State Department, which has long appeared to be intent on minimizing the sacrifice and suffering of Israelis in the interest of promoting the policy of rewarding Arab/Islamic terror and the notion of a nonexistent "cycle of violence" when Israel finally does something about the cowardly Islamic monsters who kill its kids and other innocents. I hope that she can change, however little, this wrongful mindset.
It also doesn't help when President George Bush portrays Mahmoud "Arafat 2" Abbas as a man dedicated to democracy, when Abbas doesn't seem to comprehend the democratic concept of neutralizing those who launch murderous attacks on noncombatants of a sovereign state. Perhaps he'll embrace this simple doctrine of decency as he launches into his "big jihad" following the victory that he dedicated to his people and their "martyrs".
Speaking of Arafat 2, the blue and white Magen Davids weren't even down yet in Gush Katif before he proclaimed, without a hint of self-consciousness, that Israel is not doing enough for peace. Then, when the IDF went into Tulkarem to deal with the wretched killers of Islamic Jihad and Hamas, whom Abbas has steadfastly refused to disarm, the PA condemned Israel for inciting violence. When these same jihadi terrorists kill Israelis, though, they are perhaps publicly denounced as not being helpful to the Gimme-Gimme-Gimme game, even as they are lauded as heroes in the PA press and other media.
A rational, ethical person sees the hypocritical madness of how Israel is chastised and vilified for defending itself and asks, "What the heck is going on here?" You can find yourself questioning your fellow man's sanity or your own. Why does the PA and its murderous population get a free pass, while Israel is villainized, even as it gives and gives to them? How do Palestinian Arab Muslims get away with the ceaseless killing and destroying?
It's simple: hating, killing and destroying has always worked for Palestinian Arabs. It's brought them everything they hoped for and more. The chronic Western appeasement and apologetics for their bad behavior, along with biased criticism of Israel has justified Palestinian Arab terror and provided incentive to carry out more. It would be illogical, if moral, for them to stop doing what has gained them so much.
Applying the misinformed notions of the noble savage and always rooting for the underdog, much of the West has decided that the brown people with the exotic religion and the high-explosive apparel must be the victims of the white people with the Western culture and Apache Longbow helicopters equipped with Hellfire missiles. The poor people who raise their kids to hate and kill are surely more worthy than the prosperous society whose children grow up to cure diseases, advance technology and routinely win Nobel Prizes.
That's pretty much what it comes down to. This wrongheaded attitude is what I call Kipling's White Man's Burden in reverse. It's one polar extreme, with ignorant racism being at the other. It's an intellectually lazy, yet somehow gratifying, way of alleviating oneself of the guilt that comes along with mindlessly hating one's own culture and ignoring the important contributions of one's own civilization. In this case, it also amounts to Jew-hatred, because it wholly discounts Jewish efforts at making peace with Arabs, and it rejects their right to live peacefully in their homeland - a homeland for which they have fought constantly since it was reborn in 1948.
What many Americans and Westerners don't quite grasp - but soon will, judging by recent events - is that Israel has been the canary in the coal mine of Arab and Islamic terror all these years. Everyone shook their heads for a moment before flipping to the next channel whenever dead Israelis appeared on the news next to a bus blown open by another Koran-crazed maniac and his fiery one-way ticket to Allahland. No one remembered the kids, Holocaust survivors - whole families even! - deliberately cut down by hateful people with the UN, the media and university campuses worldwide behind them.
It still saddens me to see Israel maligned in the press and elsewhere, despite her tireless efforts to always do the right thing, even for the people who want to destroy her. It's not surprising, though. When great numbers of us are resentful that US troops are fighting the mujahideen in Iraq only four years after 9/11, apathy over the plight of Israelis dealing with the same madness thousands of miles from here is, unfortunately, to be expected.
So, Arafat 2, Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Al-Aqsa, et al. all think they have secured a resounding victory as a result of their violent, uncivilized behavior. And they didn't really have to pay for it, outside of the occasional withdrawal from the ever-full martyr pool of stooges for Allah. We'll see what happens, and if it was worth it. It could be Sharon's last stand. It could (and likely will) get ugly, but it could turn out right in the end. Right now, though, all we can see is the PA and its terror gangs gloating over a perceived victory in driving out the Jews and Zionists.
The Arab Islamic terror is sure to start again, because that's what these people do, and the world has implicitly given them its approval. I will personally be glad to see Mahmoud Al-Zahar, Ismail Haniyye and Khaled Mashaal take a Hellfire to the head on the streets of Gaza. These fine events are all but assured to happen. Islam dictates that Muslims must fight body, heart and soul to regain any land that they took in conquest, so these degenerate thugs won't be inactive for long.
However things turn out, the Israelis deserve our respect for trying yet again to make peace with one of the most bellicose peoples in history. There's no way that any of Israel's detractors would have such patience and righteousness in the same situation. In spite of the ongoing terror attacks since the absurdly named dahadiye, anglicized as "relative atmosphere of calm" or more dishonestly, "de facto truce" (it should have been called the "we'll kill you in slightly fewer numbers 'til we get what we want" period), proclaimed this past February, Israel has managed to uphold its end of this Faustian bargain. The PA and Palestinian Arabs still have one hand held out demanding more, with the other hand holding a Kalashnikov. Israel continues to balance the ponderous weight of ethics and self-preservation on its shoulders, as the world throws stones.
"We can be the vanguard of culture against barbarism." - Theodor Herzl, Diaries
copyright ©2005 Patrick D. O'Brien; cannot be copied, published, or otherwise used (except for quotes) without express permission of the author.