printBarely a Blog’s guest today is Retired Ambassador, Yoram Ettinger. He puts paid to the totemic–and fanciful–notion that pacifying the Palestinians will bring peace to the world. To complement what is Mr. Ettinger’s first installment in a series, do read Greg Richards’ “Primer on Islamic Imperialism.” —ILANA
ROOT CAUSES OF ANTI-US ISLAMIC TERRORISM by Yoram Ettinger
Tony Blair’s, Baker’s and Scowcroft’s contention that the Palestinian issue is the core of anti-Western Islamic terrorism and Mideast violence reflects miscomprehension of Mideast reality.
Prime Minister Tony Blair, Jim Baker and Brent Scowcroft have developed an intriguing theory: The core of the 13-century-old Islamic terrorism and Middle East violence is the less-than-a-century-old Palestinian issue. They have introduced a cost-effective tactic in combating terrorism: Rather than flex a muscle against Iran and other rogue regimes, instead of challenging the Palestinian Terror Authority and Hamas, one should suspend disbelief, shrink the Jewish State back to the 1949 Lines and establish a Palestinian State. Such a contriving approach would, supposedly, mollify the unprecedented wave of anti-US Islamic terrorism. Really?!
1. 9/11 was planned while Clinton’s USA and Barak’s Israel were appeasing the Palestinians and the Arabs, proposing a total Israeli withdrawal, including the re-partitioning of Jerusalem and the giveaway of the Golan Heights.
2. The October 12, 2000 Islamic terrorist attack on the USS Cole (17 sailors murdered) occurred when Israel was willing to give away the store, while the US pressured Israel to absorb and compensate Palestinian refugees.
3. The August 27, 1998 Islamic terrorist assault of the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania took place (257 murdered and over 4,000 injured) while President Clinton was brutally pressuring Prime Minister Netanyahu for sweeping concessions to the Palestinians and to Syria.
4. The 1995/6 Riyadh and Khobar Towers, Dhahran Islamic terror attacks (19 murdered) were carried out while Israel implemented unprecedented concessions, in spite of Palestinian hate-education, systematic violation of all commitments made by the PA and unprecedented Palestinian terrorism.
5. The February 1993 Twin Towers bombing (6 murdered and over 1,000 injured) transpired while Israel conducted the pre-Oslo talks with the PLO, snatching the PLO from the jaws of oblivion in terrorist camps in Yemen, Iraq, Sudan and Tunisia and making unprecedented concessions.
6. The December 21, 1988 PanAm-103 (270 murdered) terrorism took place a few months following the groundbreaking initiation of direct talks between the US and the PLO, while the US attempted to initiate a direct Israel-PLO dialogue.
7. The June 1985 TWA 847 hijacking to Beirut (1 US Navy Seabee diver murdered) took place when the US was backing Iraq in Baghdad’s war against Iran, irrespective of the Palestinian issue.
8. The April/October 1983 bombings of the US Embassy and Marines and French military headquarters—by Syria and PLO-supported Islamic terrorists (300 Americans and 58 French murdered)—occurred while the US military confronted Israeli tanks in Lebanon and the US Administration blasted Israel horrifically for its was against the PLO.
Tony Blair’s, Baker’s and Scowcroft’s contention that the Palestinian issue is the core of anti-Western Islamic terrorism and Mideast violence reflects miscomprehension of Mideast reality. It diverts attention and resources away from The Core Cause: a 13 century old hate-education and terrorism, which has characterized inter-Muslim politics, domestically and externally (to be continued).
ALLOW THE KURDS TO ATTACK IRAN. THAT’S HOW YOU END SOME TERROR.
Ilana-
The US State Department records 17 military campaigns in the Middle East. In the 1990s alone, Iraq, Sudan, and Afghanistan were under US attack.
Appeasment of and negotiating with these people is a joke. They want to kill us. We can’t figure out or accept that people hate us since we are so warm and wonderful, but they do. We can’t appease/please them enough to leave us alone. The empty suits and gutless ninnies who run the governments, academia and the various media outlets of the US and Western
Europe just don’t get it. The wolves of the third world see us for the weaklings we have become and are closing in for the kill. It does no good to have these space age, star wars armies and bazillion dollar aircraft carrier task forces when our civilian leadership is basically a bunch of pink pantied cowards afraid more of an ACLU lawyer or a New York times editorial writer than a billion Muslims who want to blow us up. Aside from the Muslims, don’t forget the Latin Americans, North Koreans and all the rest. I’ll wager that if the Eskimos talked mean to us we would send Jimmy Carter to the arctic to beg them to take a few million dollars and a ship load of blubber if they promise to stop being unpleasant.
If you look like dinner you will be eaten. We look like dinner.
Alan defender-of-the-rich-and-guilty Dershowitz, in his book Why Terrorism Works, assembled a long and comprehensive list in two columns, with concessions in one column and number and scope of terrorist attacks in the other.
The conclusion is inescapable, every concession, without exception, was followed by more and larger attacks.
Nonetheless, I think there is a case for Palestinian statehood. When they are a state, terrorism is then unequivocally an act of war and Israel and any other country attacked can respond accordingly.
Quoted for hilarity:
“The wolves of the third world see us for the weaklings we have become and are closing in for the kill”
“Wolves of the third world”?
Please.