Posted on 06/28/2002 11:19:48 PM PDT by eclectic
Israeli Defense Minister and Labor Party Chairman Ben Eliezer recently interviewed two failed suicide bombers, concluding that they needed “hope” for their own state, reported Ha’aretz. It wasn’t an original observation. In fact, “hope” is the new buzzword. Giving Palestinians “hope” is the new cure-all, the new snake oil. Israelis are charged with dashing that “hope” by settling the very lands Palestinians want and driving them to murder and mayhem. Never mind that Palestinians have repeatedly turned down that land, most recently at Camp David. Many in the world are assuring Israel that offering that land to them AGAIN will provide the necessary “hope” to halt the terror. This time.
What Ben Eliezer overlooked in his pat assessment is that these bombers are not suffering from anything that having their own state would cure. One is a foolish impetuous young woman who decided on the spur of the moment to become a bomber and four days later found herself wearing a bomb belt and being hustled to a crowd of Jews, and the other was a fragile personality molded for years by his religious institution. Impetuousness and weakness are personal issues with which individuals must learn to cope without murdering others, whether or not one has one’s own state. And as for the society, if impetuousness and weakness in individuals is used by a society to create mass murderers, one must question the legitimacy of that society. I’m sure Hell’s Angels, a unique ‘people’, would love autonomy too (apologies to Hell’s Angels for the comparison since their code of ethics do NOT condone mass murders of random individuals based on race, creed, or religion, and I only mention them as an example of a group that would have an awfully tough time convincing anyone to give them a state).
The question that must be asked of those ethnocentrically proposing that “hope” of statehood will exorcise the mass murder demon from Palestinians, is, why did eight years of Oslo not exorcise it, but indeed make it worse? After eight years of Palestinian autonomy and billions of dollars granted their economy, Israel was rudely awakened from its Oslo-fornia dreaming to find Palestinian youth radicalized to such a degree that immediately after being offered everything at Camp David they began excitedly mass murdering those whom they hoped were Jews (they didn’t always guess correctly) as if ALL of Israel were their personal shooting gallery. Twelve here, fourteen there, another three, another ten, until the ever spiraling total this hour stands at 558 murdered and 4150 wounded. These were civilians of a democracy, murdered as they shopped, ate, and drove to work. And there are tens of thousands of secondary victims whose lives have been altered by the loss, or caring for the injured. And, the tertiary victim is the society itself – who knows what the murdered might yet have achieved in their lives? Not to mention a shattered economy, fearful citizens … the list is endless.
Obviously Oslo’s eight year granting of “hope” topped off by its fulfillment merely ignited their “hope” of gaining ALL of Israel. Ever hear of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs? As soon as one is fulfilled one yearns for the next thing up. What ultimately is it that they want? Autonomy? They had more than any Basque or Catalonian. Self rule? They had more than any Kurd or Copt. Religious freedom? They had more than any Christian Saudi Arabian. Intellectual freedom? They had more than any Columbian . Freedom of speech? They had more than any Iranian. Freedom to leave the country? They had more than any Cuban. Freedom to enter the country? They had more than any Jew to Saudi Arabia . Guns? They had more than any Jew in a European ghetto. Billions of dollars in aid? They had more than any IRA terrorists. Friends in high places? Good press? US, England, the Pope, all welcomed Arafat. Right of return? They have right of return to Jordan. Countries where theirs is the dominant culture? They enjoy 5,414,000 square miles in 22 countries from which to choose, all Islamic, all Arab. Which is a whopping twenty two times more in numbers of countries alone than any Jew has.
These recipients had it all, essentially the most the world has to offer in terms of opportunity. And what can one expect but opportunity? Even the American constitution does not promise the right to happiness, but only the right to pursue happiness. Palestinians have had all those rights all along. They could have had the world by the tail by now. Instead this is the happiness they pursued: they stockpiled weapons. They smuggled arms. They trained their children to hate Jews enough to want to kill ANY of them, ANY OF THEM AT ALL at random, sight unseen, in any way that they could. They trained them to be able to walk right up to a grandmother and a toddler eating an ice cream cone and kill them. They trained them to walk right into a home and shoot a mother, her teenage son protecting her, her terrified crying 5 year old, and another child, dead. They trained them to point a gun at a baby cradled in its father arms, and shoot it in the head. That’s no easy task for a human to accomplish. Most of humanity simply would not be capable of killing unarmed children at random like that. The Palestinians must have worked very hard to train their young to hate enough in order to do it. And more. They perverted sexual and ego acclamation desires, brainwashing their young to yearn for suicide, just so they would mass murder Jews in the process. So for eight years they had complete freedom to pursue their hopes, and only one hope emerged: the hope of killing Jews and destroying Israel. With single-minded determination, they have spent all their resources on it, trained their young for it, and their mothers are now maniacally, smilingly, sending their children off to commit suicide for it. Yet oddly, whenever statehood was offered they turned it down: 1937, 1947, 1993, 2000.
These people are suffering from nothing having their own state would cure. What they ARE suffering from is a virulent case of Hatred Against Jews. Force-fed the notion that the “Zionist entity” has stolen “their” country, given their own state they will inevitably continue the misguided task of “liberating ALL their lands”. Giving Palestinians “hope” has never reversed that; it has exacerbated it.
American Cleric Kenneth W. Rawson says that, in fact, this very “hope” is the root cause of the bloodshed: “The Palestinian rewrite of history kills. The West Bank and Gaza are NOT occupied territories. Palestinians do not live under foreign occupation. This Arab oil financed revisionism must be refuted. Land revisionism is the cause of terrorism. So-called freedom fighters are raised on these lies of hate.” Jews are the indigenous people of the Holy Land with a 3,600 year history there, he notes, citing Arab historian Khaldun’s findings. “It is established fact that Arabs only began immigrating to the region after the Jews had created the opportunity for a better life there. Bartley Crum, a U.S. observer noted in 1946 that tens of thousands of Arabs were entering Palestine “because of this better life – and they were still coming.” Some writers claim that over 75% of today’s Arab population are either immigrants or descendants of immigrants into the Holy Land after 1882.” Rawson states that the West Bank and Gaza belong to Israel, and that it was wholly Israel’s choice to cede large areas for Arab autonomy in return for peace: however these areas of Arab autonomy became bases of relentless terrorism.
“Peace falsely premised on historic Palestinian rights to the West Bank and Gaza will inevitably lead to a future war. Why? If so-called Palestinians have a historic right to the West Bank and Gaza, they also have that right to Israel proper. Beware of this long-pursued, two-stage strategy. All Palestinian maps of the Middle East have the name ‘Palestine’ instead of ‘Israel’ covering the area that is now Israel.”
He further states that “worldwide anti-Semitism is being inflamed by the false concept that Palestinians are being denied basic historic land rights. Until this revisionism is demolished, Middle East peace is doomed to failure and world Jewry is doomed to increased anti-Semitism.”
If there is ever to be peace in the Middle East and for Jews the world over it must be made clear to all that Israel has every historical, legal, and moral right to settle its lands as it sees fit. These are not ´occupied territories´ just because Arabs and their supporters wish they were. Or because they have terrorists.
As long as the Arabs long to overwhelm Israel by demographics, terrorism, or war, giving them “hope” will predictably NOT bring peace to the Middle East, only more of the same cesspool of lawless violence, subterfuge, and deception we have been witnessing, and helping them cover up, since the first time they refused statehood in 1937.
---------------------------------------------------- Charlotte West is an Arizona-based columnist. She can be reached at snoozalarm@hotmail.com
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