Posted on 12/26/2003 5:54:32 AM PST by SJackson
How Shall I Make the Blind See? - Part I
Okay, sometimes I do get frustrated. I spend all my time and energy bringing out the truth about the harsh realities facing Israel and the Jewish people. Many good people, like the readers of IsraelNationalNews</> and , understand my feeling of despair at our total lack of influence in centers of power in Israel. We are searching for a new course of action that is more effective. Short of a miracle, I don't know what to do.
For the sake of history, this editorial will review the relevant facts. It is my fond hope and prayer that someone in Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s office will read and understand our message.
The Harsh Realities
We all want peace. We pray for peace in our Sabbath services every Friday night. After thousands of years, being victims of persecution, expulsion, extermination, and discrimination, it is natural that we yearn for peace with every ounce of our bodies and souls.
It is because our hunger for peace is so strong that we must be doubly cautious not to fall for a pseudo-peace, which is really the wolf of war wrapped in sheep's clothing. Today, none of us believe Chamberlain really negotiated "peace in our time" with Hitler. Why do some Jews believe that Shimon Peres and Yitzhak Rabin really negotiated peace with Yasser Arafat, one of today's Hitlers?
Israelis my age have fought in five wars and I understand their desire to be free of constant conflict. Unfortunately, there is no magic cure. I wish I could write more optimistic words. Beyond the neighboring states that Israel is negotiating with now lies another ring of unmitigated hostility, led by Islamic fundamentalists like those in Iran.
As Jews, we are all involved in this historic struggle to survive. It is not our fate or that of the Israelis that we should retire from this struggle. The only peace the Arabs are prepared to give us is the peace of the grave.
In blood and fire was Israel born and on a hot anvil was she forged. The brave young soldiers of Israel must take a quick glance back to the crematoria of Auschwitz and then go forth to face the enemy knowing that there is still no alternative (ein briera).
Self-Delusion
Just as bigots obscure reality about certain groups in an evil way, reality can be obscured by the seemingly well-meaning who are deluded. This self-delusion, or self-deception, can sometimes have tragic consequences. Unfortunately, Jews throughout history have deluded themselves about their position in society. They pursue utopian solutions to complex political problems and disputes.
Jews rejoiced as the enlightenment spread across Europe in the 18th and 19th centuries. Many were eager to give up their Jewishness and become German, French, Italian, and English. In the final analysis, those societies viewed them as Jews. Self-delusion came into collision with reality and left us with the stench of burning flesh from the ovens of Auschwitz. Many Russian Jews eagerly supported the communist idea of a worker's utopia with no nationalities and no religion. Reality taught them that their neighbors still considered them Jews.
The left-wing in Israel suffers from gross delusions about Arabs. In the face of all empirical evidence to the contrary, they believe peace is possible. In the book Self Portrait Of A Hero: The Letters of Jonathan Netanyahu (1963-1976), Jonathan Netanyahu, the fallen hero of Entebbe and brother of Benjamin, said it best:
"I see with sorrow and great anger how a part of the people still clings to hopes of reaching a peaceful settlement with the Arabs. Common sense tells them, too, that the Arabs haven't abandoned their basic aim of destroying the State; but the self-delusion and self-deception that have always plagued the Jews are at work again. It's our great misfortune. They want to believe, so they believe. They want not to see, so they shut their eyes. They want not to learn from thousands of years of history, so they distort it. They want to bring about a sacrifice, and they do indeed. It would be comic, if it wasn't so tragic. What a saddening and irritating lot this Jewish people is!"
I wish someone would explain to me why any intelligent Israeli would believe the nonsense (Oslo, Road Map, Geneva) its leaders are expounding. Professor Mark Steinberger (Department of Math and Statistics, State University of New York in Albany, New York) supplied the best answer I have ever heard:
"I would say that leftists must inhabit an alternate universe, except that we wind up having to pay the consequences for their detachment from reality. But while we do live in the same objective world, their vision of it seems to have nothing in common with ours. They do not comprehend reality as we see it, and when challenged with evidence that would seem to buttress our view, they seem either to dismiss it for a theoretical reason or ignore it completely. One can list various dangers in the agreement, and give objective evidence that Palestinians have no desire for peace, but still want to drive our people into the sea. What is the reaction? They will tell you that self-determination and prosperity will change the Palestinians' outlook and behavior. On what do they base this? Not on evidence from Arab societies. Rather, it is based on theory.
"To me, this looks like an unwillingness to deal with reality, and it echoes the unwillingness of the Jewish community of the thirties to recognize the threat posed by the Nazis. Indeed, it seems we have learned nothing at all from our experience with Nazism. The Holocaust has become little more than a tale to frighten children: demons in a morality play. They have turned the Holocaust into an image divorced from real world happenings. Millions more Jews could die in Israel, but they refuse to even imagine the possibility. They will not allow reality to interfere with their myths."
Is Peace Possible Between Israel and the Arab World?
The answer is yes, but only after mind-boggling changes in the Arab world. True peace can only be made after the Arab world undergoes democratization. Simply put, democracies rarely go to war with one another. All our major wars of the last two hundred years have been between dictators or between democracies defending themselves from dictators. When a ruler is elected by the people, he has a natural restraint preventing him from sending their sons and daughters into combat in an aggressive war. No such restraint exists anywhere in the Arab world.
Islam and Jihad
The second major change required of the Arab/Moslem world is to create secular states not subservient to the rule of Islam. The problem for Israel with the rise of Islamic fundamentalism is the very hostile attitude that Islam has toward Jews and any non-Islamic person. Islam is all encompassing and guides behavior, law, religion and attitudes and relations with non-Moslems. Islam perceives the world as two separate parts:
1.The first is Dar el-Islam or the World of Islam; and
2. All the rest is Dar el-Harb or the world of the sword or the world of war – that is, those non-Muslim nations that have yet to be conquered.
The concept of Jihad, or Holy War, has been understood by most of us, but there is another concept in the Koran with which few of us are familiar. But it is essential to understand this concept when relating to Moslems. That is the law learned from the Hudaibiya treaty, which dates back to Muhammad and states clearly that Muslims are permitted to lie and break agreements with non-Muslims. Would a peace treaty be worth much if the other party is Moslem?
Islam divides the world between Believers and Infidels. Jews and Christians are relegated to the status of Dhimmi, or second class citizens. The Koran clearly calls on Moslems to degrade and humiliate both groups.
The Arab/Moslem world will have to develop a tradition of respect for women, minorities, and human rights in general before they will be ready for peace with Israel. It seems a bit odd that our State Department is pushing democracy and human rights from one end of the globe to the other – with the remarkable exception of the Middle East. Why are the Arabs insulated from pressure to democratize their societies?
It is obvious that no peace agreement would be worth anything with people believing in the above Islamic tenets, failing to practice democracy or show respect for minorities and human rights.
War and Peace
Great issues of war and peace as related to Israel are being debated by Jews in Israel and America. There are strong opinions on both sides of the Atlantic, as well as both sides of the major issues. Professor Paul Eidelberg of Bar-Ilan University, reviews the historical facts: "Between 1945 and 1978 the longest time without a war going on someplace was a mere 26 days. On an average day there are 12 wars being fought somewhere on earth. The consensus of scholars has been that the norm of international relations is not peace, but war." As Eidelberg reports, "Indeed, the occurrence of 1,000 wars during the last 2,500 years indicates that ‘peace’ is little more than a preparation for war. Which means that peace treaties are worthless, to say the least."
Eidelberg then quotes from a book by Lawrence Beilenson, entitled The Treaty Trap, saying, "After studying every peace treaty going back to early Roman times, Beilenson concludes that treaties are made to be broken. In fact, he shows that treaties for guaranteeing the territorial integrity of a nation are useless to the guaranteed nation, and worse than useless insofar as they engender a false sense of security. Such treaties can only benefit nations governed by rulers intending to violate them whenever expedient." [This also goes for the recent Oslo and Geneva agreements.]
The Nature of Peace
Midge Decter on "peace": "What I want to say is something that virtually the whole history of the 20th century teaches us and yet something we refuse to learn. And that is, when applied to the affairs of nations, peace is an evil word. Yes I said evil. And the idea of peace as we know it is an evil idea. From the peace of Versailles to ‘peace in our time’ at Munich... each declaration of peace or expressions of longing for peace ended in slaughter. Not necessarily immediately and not necessarily directly, but slaughter all the same....
"For there is no such thing as making peace. Nations who are friendly do not need to do so, and nations or people who are hostile cannot do so. To cry peace, peace when there is no peace, the prophet Jeremiah taught us long a go, is not the expression of hope, not even superstition, but a reckless toying with the minds and hearts of people whose very future depends on their capacity to rise every day to the harsh morning light of the truth."
The Covenant With Abraham
The Land of Israel was given to Abraham for the Jewish People in perpetuity. David Ben Gurion, Israel's first prime minister and founder of the Labor Party, said the following about the Jewish People's connection to Israel: "No Jew has the right to relinquish the right of the Jewish People over the whole Land of Israel. No Jewish body has such authority, not even the whole Jewish People has the authority to waive the right (to the Land of Israel) for future generations for all time."
A Time for Peace and a Time for War
We find all the expressions of horror at the recent rabbis' ruling concerning a soldier's obligation to avoid abandoning army bases and settlements to terrorists, to be hypocritical, self-serving, and unfortunate. The Israeli government is in rebellion against everything that Israel, Zionism, and Judaism are all about. They are the ones causing the rift in the body politic and they will be totally responsible for any resulting violence.
When will the nationalist camp realize that we are "at war already" with the left-wing tyranny that rules Israel [though seemingly not the ruling party]? At what point will Israelis realize that the civil war they fear is already taking place, and that they are losing? The monopoly on power must be broken, or there is no hope.
History is usually written by the victors, but truly, there are seldom universally accepted moral standards. We can say with absolute certainty, however, that the Jewish return to Zion and our struggle today for Eretz Yisrael are more righteous than any other struggle for national liberation in the history of the world.
Correct links
1.The first is Dar el-Islam or the World of Islam; and
2. All the rest is Dar el-Harb or the world of the sword or the world of war – that is, those non-Muslim nations that have yet to be conquered.
Islam is the world's most dangerous influence to-date.
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