It's a World War

Jerusalem Post ^ | March 14, 2003 | Anonymous

[Piranha]

From Bali, Casablanca, and Manhattan to Moscow, New Delhi, and Madrid, the evidence is too vast, clear, and appalling to ignore: The world is at war.

Having been in the thick of this mayhem longer than others, Israel is routinely asked by states victimized by terrorism to help in a variety of aspects, from intelligence gathering and targeted killings to bomb detection and corpse identification. The victims are, of course, doing well to seek such assistance in Israel, and Israel is right in offering it. However, besides such technical aid there is a mental syndrome that frequently afflicts new terrorism targets, and which Israel can help combat: it's called denial.

The haste with which Spanish officials blamed Thursday's atrocities on an organization that insisted it did not perpetrate them, ETA, while stubbornly denying reports that the ones responsible for the Madrid Massacre are those who indeed soon assumed responsibility for it – al-Qaida – reflected a mental refusal to join the list of the fundamentalist scourge's victims.

We in Israel have undergone three different stages of denial before finally realizing that, whether or not we like it, we have got business with the Islamist beast, and that dealing with it must involve less talk and more action.

Some of us may still recall how in the mid-'90s cops, politicians, and the press reflexively attributed several terrorist attacks to regular rather than politically motivated criminals, or how Yitzhak Rabin himself – after the first bus bombings – still insisted that terrorism did not pose a strategic threat. That stage of denial ended as the frequency and magnitude of the terrorist attacks left no room for doubts concerning their origins, resources, and determination.

The next stage of denial was about the cause. For a while, many here thought the terrorists could be either manipulated by Western negotiators or persuaded by Arab leaders to lay down their arms, provided their grievances were heard and some of their demands heeded.

Israel has since learned that terrorism cannot be beaten by satisfying "grievances." America, which until 9/11 was also plagued by the denial syndrome, has since launched a global war on fundamentalist terrorism and Middle East autocracy. Europe, however, has not joined America's ideological cause, and that goes even for Britain, which is Washington's closest EU ally.

Now, some Spaniards can be expected to blame themselves for their own victimization. If Spain had not joined the war on Iraq, they will say, it would not have been attacked. We cannot but implore Spain to avoid that kind of thinking; we've been through all that and can now confidently say that Spain was targeted not for anything it did or failed to do, but for what it is, namely a country that embraces and offers all the freedoms that Muslim fundamentalism detests.

Lastly, even when it finally understands its situation, Spain might still resort to denial when it will come to identifying its enemies. Israel, and the US, initially assumed that most Middle East governments are their partners in the war on terrorism. That was the rationale behind Bill Clinton's gathering of the Sharm e-Sheikh summit in the spring of '96. Sadly, as violence accelerated it emerged that most Middle East regimes are not prepared to actively fight terrorism, and that some are not only not prepared to be part of terrorism's solution but are actually part of its problem.

Spain has been a close friend of most Arab regimes since the days of Franco's rule. While the country's subsequent transition to democracy has fortunately generated formal and healthy ties with Israel, Madrid remained a pillar of Western acquiescence with Arab dictatorship. Last week's carnage should change this.

Spain and the rest of Europe must understand that, just like last century's threat to their future was fascism, this century it is the militant form of Islam, and that just like Nazism's in its time, the jihad's excuses for its mass-murders are not even worth a hearing. Europe must concede it is at war, and has no choice but to fight it until it is won.

The jihadis see Europe and America as a common enemy against which they hope to play divide and conquer. The longer Europe waits to join with America in common cause, the more the war will escalate and spread, including within Europe. The sooner Europe joins the fight, the sooner these massacres will end and the cause of freedom and human rights will prosper.

[American in Israel]

Sirhans family is all Moslem, his being a murderer is against the teachings of Christ. The chances of him realy being a Christian is about .00000001%

[Neophyte]

what are the options for countrymen of the dead who have been brutally slaughtered at Russian hands?

Well, it didn't begin like that. Chechens, as well as Albanians, for centuries have been involved in looting and killing under the green banner of Islam. Both peoples were a favourite recruitment pool for the Ottoman crack troops.

This said, the so called second stage of the Chechen war was initiated by Putin couple of months before his first election.

He was a virtual unknown back then, with about 2% support in the polls.

Apartment blocks began to explode in Russian cities, and Putin announced the Chechens were behind the terror.

He launched a genocidal attack against Grozny... and won the election by landslide (but not the war).

Al-Qa'eda are criminals, but they're not idiots: they seized the opportunity to hijack the Chechens' cause, whatever it was.

[Piranha]

Do you have source material on this? Everything that I read said that he is Christian and that his family comes from a Christian village called Taibeh. He is not related to the Muslim Sirhan Sirhan who came from the Tulkarm "refugee" camp and killed five innocent Israelis, including a mother and her two small sons in November 2002. Initial reports by the IDF stated that the two Sirhans were related, but this was corrected later on.

[Piranha]

I am not interested in turning this thread into yet another Mel Gibson thread, but I should add that I do know (both directly and through other friends and acquaintances) many religious Jews who were concerned -- based upon press accounts before the movie was released -- that the movie was anti-Jewish. In my opinion, they underestimated the good will of the religious Christian community in the US, although it is not yet known how the movie will be perceived in Europe and other non-American and/or non-Christian areas of the world.

It's not just godless communists who were nervous.

Rabbi Dennis Prager wrote a nice article about how the movie is perceived differently by Jews and Christians, all of whom come to it with the best of intentions.

[watchin]

Thanks for that.

[texasflower]

Excellent points, simply made for the reason we had to go to Iraq.

It's too bad this is so hard for some people to understand.

It really is that simple.

[hershey]

That pretty much puts things in perspective! Thanks.

[American in Israel]

Perhaps that is where I heard it from the pre-corrected account. But to say you are a Christian and then kill people for politics is like saying you are a man trapped in a womans body. It's BS.

[SJackson]

If you'd like to be on or off this middle east/political ping list, please FR mail me.

[SJackson]

I've read in a number of sources that Sirhan was Christian

[Radix]

"...the jihad's excuses for its mass-murders are not even worth a hearing....

Such an obvious truth, and yet, the media never seems to comment on that. It is always about "the Peace process." Militant Islamics have declared war against civilization. The media has been largely remiss in reporting objectively and accurately events in this war.

In my view, that makes them complicit, and abettors to the insane fanatics who indeed are not worthy of any Hearing.

[Piranha]

Take a look at a posting I just made about a report from Sylvia Poggioli of NPR. She said that it has long been a "dirty little secret" that terrorists essentially were granted free passage throughout Europe so long as they attacked elsewhere.

I wonder whether she, or any other journalists, knew that dirty little secret. If so, they are complicit, just as Eason Jordan of CNN was, when he didn't report on Saddam's tortures and murders in order to maintain CNN's bureaus in Iraq.

[Valin]

You know what gets me? Some people STILL don't seem to realize that we ARE at war. And make no mistake it's a real war.

[Valin]

ISLAM needs to be ERADICATED from the face of the Earth

And how do you purpose to do this?

[Aeronaut]

Presumptive Democrat nominee John F. Kerry.

Preposterous Democrat nominee John F. Kerry.

[metesky]

bttt

[Neophyte]

Just one more remark - and it's not on Mel Gibson.

There is nothing wrong with different perception of one and the same work of art by different groups. What I absolutely don't accept, is when someone is concerned by it as a result of second hand information (as you put it, based upon press accounts before the movie was released) and even joines boycotts and signs open letters.

It was a vogue in the former Soviet Union to publish "letters of toiling masses" outraged by some imperialistic novel or movie (like say Doctor Zhivago) which was never in the bookstores or on the screens.

[Piranha]

I didn't see "Piss Christ" or the Madonna with elephant dung on her breasts, but I sure was appalled at the ideas of those so-called works of art. I assume you were, too.

I didn't join any boycotts or sign any open letters, but I don't deny people the right to have opinions -- even strong ones -- without firsthand information.

Now the movie has been released, and any concerned American (it hasn't been released overseas yet) has the opportunity to form his own opinion based upon primary material. Before it came out, any opinion -- positive OR negative, necessarily was based on hearsay.

[Howie66]

"And how do you purpose to do this?"

I'm assuming that you mean "propose", don'tcha?

By whatever means necessary, of course. Islam has demonstrated itself to be a cancer on humanity. You deal with cancer by eliminating it.

[Valin]

By whatever means necessary, of course. Islam has demonstrated itself to be a cancer on humanity.

Details please.

"Anybody can become angry, that is easy; but to be angry with the right person, and to the right degree, and at the right time, and for the right purpose, and in the right way, that is not within everybody's power, that is not easy."
Aristotle