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January 6, 2009
Exclusive: Aggressor Palestine, Defender Israel - There is NO Moral Equivalence (Part 2 of 2)
Click here for Part One.
DISCUSSION
The world has yet to hold radical Islam in general and violent, murderous extremists such as Hamas in particular, to a standard of human rights. Moreover, the threat of more advanced weapons in the hands of terrorists seems to have been ignored by the world. WMDs are available and attainable. The key issue –not if but when will terrorists start using them. It is folly to think WMDs are not possessed by at least one or two terrorist cells worldwide. Nonetheless, Israel is facing some serious weaponry if intelligence estimates are correct. And if they are in the Middle East, they can be brought into the U.S. or Europe or Australia. Our adversaries have no aversion to using weapons. The Iran, Russia and Syria weapons pipeline – and to a lesser degree China – pose a grave threat to the West. This issue should not be lost amidst the coverage of bombs and blasts in Gaza.
The media continue to decry Israel for seeming to “rush into Gaza” especially since most of Western governments have been on holiday, as if the Jews were busting curfew or smoking in the boys’ room before their parents instilled some restraint.
Consider the incredulity of most Western media, which can’t be so well acted as to be feigned incredulity, on the issue that Israel and most who understand the extremist Muslim mind Hamas is willing to sacrifice its own civilians to win. Duh! If Hamas doesn’t care about murdering Jewish children, why would these subhuman terrorists care about their own people who are ample in supply as bullet stoppers, and make for compelling images of suffering for the front pages of world newspapers?
Though counterintuitive and contrary to how most of us in the West are raised or live, Hamas and radical Islamic Jihadists willingly set up their own people to be killed just to engender global sympathy. There’s a great line in the movie The Siege, uttered by Annette Benning’s character, which is insightful and instructive: “The Palestinians seduce you with their suffering.” Their suffering, truth be told, is largely of their own doing and that of their fellow Arabs. History lesson for the left and for extremist Muslims – Palestinians could have had land as far back as into the 1960s, but the Egyptians and other Arab states didn’t want to give it to them. Palestine was the pawn in the chess game to eliminate Israel. Why should Egyptians, Syrians or Saudis die in the fight with Israel when, with the right provocation, Palestinians will do it? Cloak it under the mantle of a religious war, because most people want to belong to something greater than they are, especially when their daily lives are mundane, poverty based or highly difficult. And it is human nature to blame someone else for your lot in life. The “developed” (term used loosely for Arab countries) Arab states didn’t want to take on Israel one on one in a traditional war – been there done that and got their collective rear ends kicked. But asymmetric warfare, such as terrorism and guerilla-style fighting, works. So they use Palestinians to fight that type of war.
Gaza is not a region of innocents. The people voted for Hamas. They hide them. They allow Hamas to embed warriors and security forces in civilian regions, for the sole purpose of using the average person as a human shield. Entities that use human life to bargain for power or victory are not morally equivalent to people who try to avoid harming people. So the fact that Israel may rain fire upon Gaza in response to “a mere” hundred or so rockets from Hamas is not a disproportionate response as the anti Zion world screams.
The politics of jealousy worldwide is only exceeded by the need for self preservation. Jews don’t overpopulate – Muslims do. Jews don’t blow things up when they are angry, but extremist Muslims go crazy when a cartoon offends them – as seen in Europe when numerous riots and injuries occurred because a political satirist had the temerity to exercise freedom of thought to poke fun at Islam. Whatever happened to “sticks and stones?” Seems like the first thought extremist Muslims have is violence when they don’t get their way. With the growing number of extremists in Europe and the United States, we need to be very concerned. Their thought police mentality, adherence to Sharia law and their demand for Sharia Law Finance rules and replete with tons of flash cash dangled in the faces of precariously situated financial institutions, we will increasingly become vulnerable in our society. The extremist Arab world has lots of energy dollars, people and a willingness to use violence to extort concessions from societies within which we find them.
“The direction of warfare is an art similar to a physician seeing a patient” – Fu Le
From a “medical” perspective, Hamas in Gaza is a visible tumor representative or diagnostic of a deadly, metastatic cancer – global Muslim extremism and the impending radicalization of the West. And this cancer is spreading faster than the current strategy of surgical strikes or interdiction can eradicate it. That is simply because not everyone on the “good guy” side is on the same page. Therein lies the real danger. While no one can argue that the violence perpetrated by murderous Muslim jihadists – those in Pakistan, Gaza, Indonesia, Europe and those lying in wait in the United States – is a problem, how to handle it is the subject of great contention.
Iran has been supplying Hamas, much as they have supported the insurgents in Iraq, with advanced guerilla weapons. Instead of Molotov cocktails, explosive jackets worn by suicide bombers, and low tech improvised explosive devices (IED) which were the stock in trade of prior attacks, Iran has equipped the extremists in the region with far more advanced devices. And we have not been able to stop this. So how can we stop radicalization of the West? More on that in a subsequent article.
Diplomacy is important but folly if negotiations fail to take into account the fundamentals – good versus evil and there is evil in the world. Peace promoters fail to recognize that both sides often aren’t equal; that there is a time to defeat evil. Hamas and any entity that intentionally kills women, children, and the elderly or sets them up as unavoidable targets are evil.
“Civilizations die from suicide, not murder” – Alfred Toynbee
Consider the cautionary tale of Britain. Early in the 1970s there were those who warned the British Government about its open policy towards widespread Muslim immigration. Clearly not all Muslims are problematic, but the nations of origin for many of those immigrants made some wonder when London and other metroplexes would face extremist violence reminiscent of the Middle East. The predictions have come true in England as well as in Europe.
This statement could come perilously close to true if Israelis allow aggressor states to continue the practice of “death by a thousand cuts” which seems to be the strategy of Hamas, and the Iranian/Syrian proxy states of Lebanon and Palestine. The recent events in Gaza (again brought on by Hamas) put Israel in the unenviable position of portraying, as Agatha Christie once wrote, “murder by death.” The events are also another example of the Skinner Box effect foisted on a society at an entirely new and heightened dimension – and the expected toll on even the most resolute society by years of intermittent attacks – as exemplified by Israel is predictable. Like to Proverbial “bell” ringing, rockets can trigger behaviors and lead to the transition from we’ll stand strong together to let’s give them (adversary) what they want, so maybe they’ll go away and leave us in peace.
Appeasement or surrendering a piece of your country, or virtues or beliefs is suicide for the sake of avoiding conflict – what kind of approach is that for a sovereign nation? First off, it never works. As was said in the movie Air Force One – give a mouse a cookie, it’ll then want a glass of milk. Second, when societies capitulate they are committing suicide. Capitulation is not peace, nor is it negotiation. Third, the rationale that peace is the endpoint of negotiations between extremes in outcomes suggests there is a reasonable outcome. “What they want,” which most think is “peace,” is – in Arab-speak – rarely what is conveyed in the media or to the other side. “What they want” is conveyed in language Western cultures relate to: the need to enjoy the same quality of life as the Jews in Israel…and if we get our land back that will set the stage to make all become well and friendly again. That gives the West a target, a sense of warm and fuzzy – of attainability. But the actions…they speak louder than words and tell the true story. What the “West and the Rest” seem to ignore – because Israel has been capitulating and demonstrating enormous restraint over the years and given back much of the land to no avail – that the Arab World, through their impoverished proxy Palestine wants Israel GONE. Their definition of “peace” as written in Arabic is the elimination of Israel; Palestine takes it all. That is the real outcome and endgame – how negotiable does that seem?
First, Palestinians wanted Jerusalem. Then they wanted the entire West Bank. Then Gaza. With each request came the promise of “peace;” after each real estate “deal” “peace” was replaced by some imaginary insult (extremists are very thin skinned – serving infidel Dunkin’ Donuts coffee at a West Bank café might have been enough to inflame them into Jihad number 4,995) leading to further attacks on Israeli civilians. When will it stop? When a mosque replaces the Knesset. End game.
If Hamas and the Arabs were sincere about “land for peace,” the natural question one has to ask, given the seemingly endless generosity and restraint Israel has demonstrated to the insatiable appetite of Arab demands, is: just what is the magic number of hectares or acres that Palestine wants that will motivate it to stop firing rockets at purely civilian structures?
PALESTINIANS WERE BETTER OFF IN ISRAEL AND WORKING WITH THEM
And the world fails to see it, recognize it, believe it or more accurately chooses to ignore it. Sadly, Israel is the magnet for the world’s jealousy. Jews are successful – get over it. But the politics of jealousy is pervasive and powerful.
Hating someone is a lot like drinking poison in the hope your enemy dies. As a toxicologist, there is no science in that approach. Palestinians would do better converting the vast expenditure of time, little resources and hatred of the Jews into self-examination and trying to fix their broken society.
People of Jewish tradition own banks and media outlets (and foolishly squander that advantage as an attempt to populate the moral high ground) and industry. Jews are philanthropists and support the arts, hospitals, universities. The Palestinians would have done far better to spend their time hiring or working with the Jews than trying to kill them off. Israel got probably the most worthless piece of real estate in the Middle East and turned it into one of the most arable, livable and lovely locations in the desert region. There’s a lesson to be learned there.
Take a walk through Bethlehem (Palestine) and look at school aged kids during school hours. The kids are on the street (instead of school), filthy and playing on street corners, looking dour, while the men smoke and drink coffee in front of tired looking, modest homes with broken windows – easily remedied with some paint and glass. Then walk through a modest neighborhood in Jerusalem and see kids in neat school uniforms while carrying school books, laughing as moms sweep the sidewalks. Dads are presumably in work. The contrast is striking.
What have Hamas and the Palestinians done with the land they are on over the last decade? They still live in tents. Are there no wealthy Arabs who would build homes or industries there? Are there no teachers who would teach? To say there isn’t enough space or money or opportunity is ludicrous. If you can export a Palestinian to a terrorist training camp, you can import a teacher or export the smartest kid to an Arab university. Cairo, Istanbul, and Tehran all have decent schools. Instead, the powers that be – starting with Egypt starting in the 1950s and 1960s and other nations have used Palestine as a poor proxy to do their dirty work. What the Arab countries surrounding Israel so miserably failed to do in the several wars that the IDF kicked their butts, they decided going head to head against Israel was foolhardy. But asymmetric warfare is effective. It worked when the Colonials kicked Great Britain out.
Moreover, Israel and other nations would be willing to assist Palestinians IF they demonstrated a willingness to renounce violence. Failing that, why should Israel share its expertise? And yet historically, it has done just that.
WINNING THE MEDIA WAR
Hamas-backed Palestine knows when they kill a handful of Jewish civilians, which rarely earns more than passing coverage in the media, Israel will respond militarily, which always earns front page coverage. And the coverage usually starts with a headline on the body count. Never mind that Palestinians once again started it and murdered innocents. That the Israeli Air Force (IAF) or Israeli Defense Force (IDF) defended itself is missed by those who see this struggle as something “solvable” by just the right combination of peace promoting words, or those who are cheering on the pro Arab agenda. Yet truth be told, Hamas, and many of the extremist leaders in Palestine are culpable for the deaths of their fellow countrymen – they intentionally mix intelligence and military operations centers into civilian neighborhoods as a calculated tactic to increase the likelihood of civilian injuries knowing the IDF intentionally and humanly tries to target only such facilities.
What does it say about a society that offers up its own people to make the headlines bloodier and to work the PR angle on the world stage? This strategy is so foreign to our thought process that merely mentioning it probably engenders eye rolling. Yet that is the calculus. Bodies are plentiful in Palestine. Yet our valuation for each individual life is far different than theirs. Any society that allows honor killings, stoning women or genital mutilation has lost any moral equivalence as well as their right to outrage. While it is sad that their children are sometimes accidentally killed in IDF retaliatory strikes – largely because they are placed in proximity to tactical targets, those same “children” are often the ones who strap on bombs and intentionally maim and murder Jewish children who do not share the thirst for blood to then return the favor against Palestinians. There is NO moral equivalence between Hamas Palestine and Israel. And to think otherwise is both idiotic, ignores the evidence and lacks common sense.
Akin to conservatives in the U.S., Israel will probably never achieve parity in media coverage, but they can use their opportunities to better share their story.
Most rational people cannot understand the need to kill, nor have an appetite to do so without provocation or necessity. Even the most highly trained assassins in the SEALS or Russian Army or SAS who do it professionally don’t do it because they get off on killing, or have an inherent hatred of their targets. Yet the pseudo intelligentsia would have us believe there is no evil in the world; that peace is the most desirable and ultimately achievable endpoint, even at any price – if you ignore slavery, capitulation sacrificing someone’s freedom for another’s aggressor appetites. They will argue that there is the poverty factor, or the rage factor, or the disenfranchisement factor that somehow justifies violence. They will argue that Israel is a rich and powerful nation state that has waged genocide on Palestine after denying those bedraggled urchins their rightful real estate in the desert. Somehow poverty is the defense for murder. Perception is power. Reality without the right marketing is as exciting as listening to a biostatistics lecture extolling the virtues of endless streams of facts. Yawn. Glaze over.
CONCLUSION
Israelis are taking the stand, as in days of old – “we will not go gently into the good night” as eloquently penned by Dylan Thomas. Let us hope this does not escalate to a place where advanced weapons are unleashed against them. Radicals require little provocation to kill. While this remains a conventional weapon battle – advanced munitions notwithstanding – it is only a matter of time when WMDs are used, whether they be biological, chemical or nuclear. It may arrive when Iran is nuclear. To date the Israeli capability to deliver nuclear response has been the counterbalance towards WMD. That advantage may be short lived.
As we speak, the UN Security Council is planning on meeting. What took them so long? How many Jews had to die before they would have met? Today Dr. Barghouti of Palestine (fmr PM) agreed with a notion of international observers in Gaza as condition of a cease fire. Tomorrow what will the story be?
Israel is much more than a rational presence and an example of the possibility of a free society in the midst of regressive, violent regimes in the Middle East. They are not the problem. Their existence is. Israel is a mirror of the failure of other Middle East regimes whose citizens are in stark contrast to Jews in Tel Aviv, Haifa, Jerusalem, and other areas enjoying a much better quality of life. It has been a catalyst for change – Egypt and Jordan are much better places to live because of the Israeli effect. Palestinians who lived in Israel lived better – by their own admission – than they would have in the West Bank. Where in the Middle East or any Muslim dominated society can you find Israelis in government office? Yet Arabs were members of the Knesset. Every day Israel stands as a model for what many Middle East countries can become and resemble what they once were: places of science, literature, mathematics and civility. Instead, today most Arab nations are poor, their people are illiterate, or clearly less educated than comparable Western or Israel or Indian or Chinese contemporaries, literate only on that which their religious leaders indoctrinate, and/or live within repressive, or regressive regimes.
Let’s be clear – the Hamas-backed Palestinians in Gaza brought the Israeli Air Force attack on themselves. Period. There was a truce. Amazingly it was occasionally being honored (the amazement of course was that the “Hamas-cide” folks in Gaza and the West Bank were honoring it) if you ignore the intermittent attacks. Then, just in time for the Hanukkah and the Christmas Holidays, the Palestinians in Gaza start attacking Israel and raining rockets on civilian Jews. Perhaps it was a slow news cycle. Predictably and necessarily so, the Israelis said “no – enough is enough” to the schoolyard bullies and sent a bit of rain back to Gaza. But in the process, Hamas wins again – in the hearts and minds of people who can be reasoned with – non murderous and rationale people. The leaders of Hamas are brilliant tacticians – while instigating the bloodthirsty they are capitalizing on the decency of the non bloodthirsty that see images of destruction
The folks who think we can all sing Kumbaya and share a Red Bull are much like the frog who lets the scorpion sit on its back while crossing a deep puddle. The scorpion asks the frog for a ride and promises not to sting him. The kind and well meaning (gullible?) frog – thinking from his perspective and not that of the scorpion, believes and agrees. As they reach the other side of the water, the scorpion stings the frog. Shocked beyond belief, the frog asks “why did you bite me after you promised not to?” Scorpion replies, “It’s my nature.”
According to the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs, over 8,300 people have been wounded from Palestinian and Hamas-backed homicide bombings, rocket and mortar attacks, with an additional 1176 killed since 2000. This doesn’t include the December death and injury toll racked up when Hamas in Gaza decided to break the truce.
Hamas, like the scorpion, cannot be trusted to keep its word – it is their nature to attack Jews. In spite of this, Israel supplies Gaza with electricity, food and medical care. Israel is a trade partner with the limited goods produced there. Speak about righteousness in the face of evil!
When folks are raining rockets down upon you, what approach is right? Fight, or run? The Jimmy Carter “let’s talk and try to understand what they want” approach? Let’s try to empathize? How’s that been working? We’ve seen the success in global peace the former president has accomplished.
The Israelis want to go about their business of inventing gene based cures, developing new technologies and leading normal lives. The Hamas-cidal Palestinians – hmmm, I’ll get back to you what other industry or pursuits they do besides Jihad, protesting in the streets, bomb making or attending educational facilities where courses such as “murder 101” “homicide bombing 102” and “media manipulation 103” are taught.
The Israelis have been long suffering and patient. They have given up land for peace, their treasure for peace, their children for peace -no matter what they offer to an inhuman adversary, still no lasting peace. It is clear that Israel represents a different form of human existence than the murderers on the other side. This is not the Allies versus the Germans in WWI or WWII when Christmas Eve truces occurred. Among both sides there was a common humanity clearly NOT shared in this conflict.
Israel has the right to survive. They again are forced to go to battle. When will the world worry, from a humanitarian perspective, the threats to this tiny country? And what does it say about us as well as the world, sitting on the sidelines as the Hamas rockets flew, the peace was broken, and Iran set the forces for war in motion? When Israel wins, at what price and for how long? When will the UN step up and do the right thing? How the UN handles the aftermath should instruct Obama how to treat this institution. And will the President-elect and man of “change” and “hope” have the courage to support Israel in the face of overwhelming global and domestic extremist Muslim forces?
FamilySecurityMatters.org Contributing Editor Dr. Robin McFee is a physician and medical toxicologist. An expert in WMD preparedness, she is a consultant to government agencies, corporations and the media. Dr. McFee is a member of the Global Terrorism, Political Instability and International Crime Council of ASIS International. She has authored numerous articles on terrorism, health care and preparedness, and coauthored two books: Toxico-Terrorism by McGraw Hill and The Handbook of Nuclear, Chemical and Biological Agents, published by Informa/CRC Press.
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