It's time to snap out of Arab fantasy land {Steyn}

National Post ^ | April 19 2002 | Mark Steyn

[Clara Lou]

Steyn has such clear vision and such a great ability to present it. I'm wondering how the "Euroninnies" react to him? He's so logical that it must be frightening for them. (Oriana Fallaci was great this week, too.)

[jpl]

Mark Steyn understands history like few other writers today. He is a gem.

[Paradox]

For all the tedious bleating of the Euroninnies

Heh, a bit more respectful than our "Euroweenies", but still good!

Another Steyn masterpiece.

[SuziQ]

But, in the Middle East, no matter how often the Arabs attack Israel and lose, their claims to their lost territory manage to be both inviolable but endlessly transferable.

I happened to catch Ashleigh Banfield on pmsNBC the other night. She actually talked about the Israeli 'occupation' of the Gaza Strip and the West Bank without EVER mentioning that the wars in which these two pieces of land were acquired by Israel were BOTH begun by the Arabs! Never mentioned it ONCE! I guess I shouldn't be surprised. Why lets the FACTS get in the way of a good story!

I'm convinced that the Arabs are pushing for sovreignty for the the Palestinians so that when the Palestinian STATE attacks Israel and Israel responds, all the other Arab countries who have signed 'treaties' with the Palestinian state will then have the 'right' to come in and fight with Israel on the side of the Palesinians.

[dighton]

"The Jews are a peculiar people: things permitted to other nations are forbidden to the Jews," wrote America's great longshoreman philosopher Eric Hoffer after the 1967 war. "Other nations drive out thousands, even millions of people and there is no refugee problem ... But everyone insists that Israel must take back every single Arab ... Other nations when victorious on the battlefield dictate peace terms. But when Israel is victorious it must sue for peace. Everyone expects the Jews to be the only real Christians in this world."

[besieged]

I'm convinced that the Arabs are pushing for sovreignty for the the Palestinians so that when the Palestinian STATE attacks Israel and Israel responds, all the other Arab countries who have signed 'treaties' with the Palestinian state will then have the 'right' to come in and fight with Israel on the side of the Palesinians.

Highly unlikely. The Arabs have shown time and again their willingness to try to destroy Israel with no provocation nor any "international" law. When they felt like it, they have attacked.

In 1967 and 1973 wars, after nearly getting wiped off the face of Arabia by the IDF, their tactics changed. They switched to using Goebells (sp?) type of propaganda to twist the world opinion as to what they are doing. They also started to use their advantage of barbarism over Israel's civility. This is what brings us here.

At this time, if the Arab nations had the stomach for war with Israel, we would be in the middle of it already. They are waiting for the kangaroo court of the UN to complete it's destabilization and disarming of Israel before they will finally commit their military.

As despicable as I find this, I have to agree that it is their only viable strategy in achieving their goal - the destruction of Israel. I am waiting with baited breath to see when the world will admit that the UN, EU, pan-Arabs are emperors with no clothes.

[anapikoros]

Oriana Fallaci on Arafat - rest here

I find it shameful that many Italians and many Europeans have chosen as their standard-bearer the gentleman (or so it is polite to say) Arafat. This nonentity who thanks to the money of the Saudi Royal Family plays the Mussolini ad perpetuum and in his megalomania believes he will pass into History as the George Washington of Palestine. This ungrammatical wretch who when I interviewed him was unable even to put together a complete sentence, to make articulate conversation. So that to put it all together, write it, publish it, cost me a tremendous effort and I concluded that compared to him even Ghaddafi sounds like Leonardo da Vinci. This false warrior who always goes around in uniform like Pinochet, never putting on civilian garb, and yet despite this has never participated in a battle. War is something he sends, has always sent, others to do for him. That is, the poor souls who believe in him. This pompous incompetent who playing the part of Head of State caused the failure of the Camp David negotiations, Clinton’s mediation. No-no-I-want-Jerusalem-all-to-myself. This eternal liar who has a flash of sincerity only when (in private) he denies Israel’s right to exist, and who as I say in my book contradicts himself every five minutes. He always plays the double-cross, lies even if you ask him what time it is, so that you can never trust him. Never! With him you will always wind up systematically betrayed. This eternal terrorist who knows only how to be a terrorist (while keeping himself safe) and who during the Seventies, that is when I interviewed him, even trained the terrorists of Baader-Meinhof. With them, children ten years of age. Poor children. (Now he trains them to become suicide bombers. A hundred baby suicide bombers are in the works: a hundred!). This weathercock who keeps his wife at Paris, served and revered like a queen, and keeps his people down in the shit. He takes them out of the shit only to send them to die, to kill and to die, like the eighteen year old girls who in order to earn equality with men have to strap on explosives and disintegrate with their victims. And yet many Italians love him, yes. Just like they loved Mussolini. And many other Europeans do the same.

No, she didn't put in any paragraph breaks

[texasbluebell]

(Oriana Fallaci was great this week, too.)

Yes, she was, simply great. Here's a link to her column, in case anyone wants to read it.

On Jew-Hatred in Europe

[anapikoros]

The above is translated from the Italian.

[anapikoros]

Mark Steyn ping.

[anapikoros]

Hah - beat you by 3 minutes. (grin)

[My Identity]

Oriana Fallaci was great this week, too

"But this thing won’t end, won’t die out with the death of Osama Bin Laden. Because there are tens of thousands of Osama Bin Ladens by now, and they’re not only in Afghanistan or in other Arabic countries. They’re everywhere, and the most hardened ones are right in the Western world. In our cities, on our roads, in our universities, in the ganglions of technology. That technology that any dolt can handle. The Crusade has been in progress for some time. It works like a Swiss watch, sustained by a faith and a malice comparable only to the faith and malice of Torquemada when he led the Inquisition. The fact is that dealing with them is impossible. Reasoning, unthinkable. Treating them with indulgence, tolerance or hope, suicide. Whoever thinks differently is deluded."

Anger and Pride
by Oriana Fallaci

[Lent]

BTTTTTTTTTTT

[dennisw]

ping!

[Gritty]

More sense from Steyn!

[texasbluebell]

Ya beat me! :0)

Takes me so long to post!

[Stand Watch Listen]

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[Pokey78]

Ping for the MSPL.

[Dog Gone]

I disagree with Steyn in part. It is not a viable solution to leave the West Bank as a non-nation in perpetuity. There is no other place on the planet that is home to millions of people that is not a nation.

Jordan doesn't want it. Israel would take it, but it doesn't want the population there. Exterminating them is not an option. Neither is shipping them to another country. Nobody wants them, and I'm sure not going to volunteer making them US citizens and bringing them here.

The only long term solution is to confer nationhood on them, with some sort of security relationship with Jordan and Egypt, so that they are demilitarized.

Nothing else will work. Steyn's solution only guarantees more of the same, until such time as the Palestinians get their hands on a WMD.