Zion. An island of sanity in an ocean of savagery.
Thursday, August 26, 2004
Arabs are worried Israel is not Iran's only target
The Indispensable MEMRI (and I use the capital "I" deliberately) has the following translation of an article from an Arab newspaper in London. The jist of it is that the countries neighbouring Iran should be at least as if not more worried than Israel about the increase in both scope and speed of the development of both conventional weapons and WMD.
"All of the countries in the region make use of Israel as a pretext, and there is a grain of truth in [their claims]. Yet the truth is that the annals of the wars and conflicts [in the region] do not back up the claims of self-defense against Israeli attack or confrontation with Israel.
"What interests us is not what has been said but rather what has happened and is happening. Regrettably, all of Iran's confrontations have been with Saudi Arabia - [in the form of] air and land battles, with The [United Arab] Emirates, and most recently with Qatar - when [Iran] detained a [Qatari] gunship. Iran's conflicts have extended also to Taliban-era Afghanistan before the events of 9/11 as well as clashes with Azerbaijan, and of course with Iraq."
'The Only Possibility is that the Artillery is that it is the Neighboring Countries that are the Intended Target'
"Among all of the confrontations in which Iran has been involved over the course of a quarter of a century, there has not been a single direct confrontation with Israel. This fact causes Iran's neighbors to be worried - more than Israel is worried - by the accelerated development of Iran's 'quality' artillery and the quantity of [both] conventional weapons and weapons of mass destruction.
MEMRI calls the writer a "progressive columnist". I can see why, as there are nearly no accusations or recriminations against Israel, and this in itself is rare, even spectacular.
But I think the article should be taken at face value. The concern is real, and probably justified. Iran is ruled by religious fanatics, maniacs in fact, insane but not stupid. They have no ethics or morals as sane people know them.
I believe the destruction of Israel IS indeed a first priority for the Mad Mullahs. But after that? Shia Muslim domination for the region? The world even? It's already started in Iraq. Obviously their schemes and ambitions are greater than their abilities. But the Mad Mullahs are not restrained by such details as a sense of reality, or care for their people. So the concern of the author is not for Israel, but for what comes after Israel is disposed off.
Well, to Professor Paul Eidelberg anyway. And to me as well.
In fact, when Eidelberg writes Dwelling in Denial, it should become painfully clear that everyone who matters, everyone involved in making policy in Israel, really DOES fully appreciate the situation Israel (and the Jews in general) is in.
[Ariel Sharon and his colleagues] refuse to take the murderous tyranny of the Arab world seriously, a world steeped in hatred of Jews and Israel. Devoid of Jewish pride, they long to "negotiate" with a tyranny called the "Palestinian Authority", which uses Arab children as human bombs to kill Jews.
The denial in which Israel's political and intellectual elites dwell is pathological. This pathology is fostered by the moral neutrality of contemporary education. Politicians like Ariel Sharon and Shimon Peres persist in the mindless policy of surrendering Jewish land to Arab terrorists primarily because Israeli universities are silent about the monstrous evil that animates the Arab world.
But there's more than just blindness going on here. I think people like Sharon may actually be aware of the right course to take. But he feels restrained by the US, and to a lesser degree the EU and UN. Wrongly, I believe. NOTHING is to be gained in the long term by abiding by what America wants from Israel. And a slow tortuous death seems inevitable to me when that course is taken.
We look in vain for a political leader with courage enough to say that signing agreements with Arabs may be "politically correct", but it is hardly conducive to peace. Does not Egypt, in violation of its peace treaty with Israel, supply arms to terrorists in Gaza, while its government-controlled media spew Nazi-inspired hatred of Jews and thus prepare Arabs for the final war against the Jewish state? Even Israel's peace treaty with Jordan has not prevented the "moderate" King Abdullah from stoking the fires of the intifada, thereby encouraging Arabs to hasten Israel's politicide.
Dwelling in denial, silent about the evil permeating Islam, Israel's ruling elites undermine the moral sensibilities and vigilance of Jews on the one hand, and incite Arab contempt and murder on the other. This denial, this silence, is sanctioned by Israeli law. Two decades ago, a Labor-Likud government enacted legislation that prohibits Jews from telling the truth about the Arab ethos. Hence, no one should expect the government to declare: "Israel's Arab enemies, like the Assassins of a thousand years ago, are unrivaled in racism, hatred and murder. When these Arabs kill Jews, they feel they are killing not human beings, but noxious insects. Israel is confronted by unmitigated evil." Such a statement, however, would make utter nonsense of Sharon's policy of self-restraint toward Arab terrorism.
And so, Israel's ruling elites continue to dwell in denial, refusing to take the "culture of hate" seriously. While they dither about "disengagement", Arabs accumulate more and deadlier weapons to kill more and more Jews.
Yes. We need a real leader. I think Israel will follow a leader who will bring shortterm hardship, if longterm peace and security are finally achieved.
The intellectual father of French Revolution, Voltaire, wrote of the Children of Abraham: "They are, all of them, born with raging fanaticism in their hearts, just as the Bretons and Germans are born with blond hair. I would not be in the least surprised if these people would not some day become deadly to the human race." This observation came at a time when European Jews cowered in ghettos.
Anticipating the Holocaust, 19th century French socialist Pierre-Joseph Proudhon had his own solution to the Jewish problem – "either sending back the Jews to Asia or exterminating them."
I didn't know about Voltaire. But then, in the case of the Jews, even an exception to the rule is too much to expect.
This heading of an article by WorldNetDaily, in which is described how Israeli helicopters drop leafleats over Gaza warning inhabitants not to cooperate with terrorists. Hamas in turn circulates its own leaflets calling on inhabitants to fight the Israelis in all possible ways.
But what struck me about the piece was the last part, an addendum of sorts:
Hamas announced last month it is manufacturing a new kind of rocket, the Nasser 3, the most powerful and furthest reaching rocket produced yet in the Palestinian territories. The rocket carries a five-kilogram warhead to a range of nine kilometers and has a standard explosive warhead combined with metal fragments and a standard fuse.
Previously, the Palestinians had been using Qassam 2 rockets, which used improvised fuses and warheads that didn't always explode upon impact. The Nasser 3 is built to guarantee an explosion.
The wishy-washy approach of the IDF in dealing with these maniacs is repulsive. A few Jews get injured or killed, they do likewise to the Arabs. It is a perverted way of doing business, even to the Arabs. They too die in numbers far greater than would happen if the IDF acted in a decisive manner, which would leave no doubt about what would happen if the maniacs did it again.
And with decisive, I mean decisive as in "Hiroshima", albeit on an appropriate scale. Actions like shelling from Gaza under the protection of uninvolved Arab lives and international public opinion should become prohibitively expensive. It already is (and has been for far too long) for the Jews.
This link thru LGF. An article by Max Singer leaving no stone unturned, demonstrating why abandoning Gaza is wrong and all arguments to do so are false and/or misleading.
Prime Minister Sharon recently summed up the reasons for his Gaza withdrawal program as follows: "Whoever thinks that it is possible to continue supporting both Netzarim and Maale Adumim will find themselves with neither Netzarim nor Maale Adumim, and that is not my intention. Whoever thinks that it is possible today to settle in all parts of the Land of Israel while at the same time maintaining a Jewish and democratic state, may find themselves without any settlements, without a democracy, and without a Jewish state."
Yet the problem is not whether Israel wants to be relieved of Gaza but how it can do so in a way that doesn't worsen its own situation. The fact that the current situation is painful and dangerous doesn't mean that any change will be for the better. Oslo was a bold try to get out of what was perceived to be an unacceptable situation, but on balance it pushed off the possibility of peace and led to many Israeli and Palestinian casualties. Thus, even if unilateral separation and getting out of Gaza are in principle desirable objectives, Israel has to ask whether withdrawal from Gaza at this time will help or hurt its security and the prospects for peace.
We search the purses of little old ladies so that recent immigrants from Saudi Arabia named "Mohammed" wearing massive backpacks don't get singled out.
