Category Archives: Israeli-Palestinian Conflict

Arab Universalism?

Islam, Israel, Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, Terrorism

The Boston Globe assures readers that “in the Arab world, Zarqawi tactics bred disgust.”

“If you are fighting foreigners, how come you kill 5,000 [Iraqi goons have killed multitudes more than that] or other innocent civilians and only a few Americans?” asks Bashar al-Akhras, whose “father was killed in the November 2005 suicide bombings of three Amman hotels, claimed by Zarqawi as retribution for Jordan’s support of US policy in the region.”

“His extended family,” Akhras relates, “consists of hard-working Palestinians who live across the Arab world and are bystanders in the war between Al Qaeda and the United States.”

So Akhras disagrees with the Mayor of London’s favorite “progressive” theologian, Yusuf al-Qaradawi. Qaradawi draws a sharp “moral distinction” between suicide bombings against ordinary Londoners (not good) and those against ordinary Israelis (perfectly good). He is not alone among Muslim ulama (scholars).

I’m eager to hear this lad extend his indignation and disgust to the slaughter by terrorists of all civilians—Jordanian, Iraqi, American, and Israeli.

It would be good too if the press avoided sweeping, unsubstantiated and unqualified generalizations.

Men & Women Who Hothouse Hamasniks & Those Who Love Them

Israel, Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, Terrorism, The Zeitgeist

Believe it or not, there are a couple of *creeps and kooks on the Internet who find nothing creepy or kooky about how Palestinians cultivate kids into killers.

By the looks of it (take a look), this “educational” effort is a real communal affair, involving immediate and extended family, grandmothers too. Nothing cute about them or their offspring. Yet some find them sympathetic, certainly tragic, even endearing. Fail to finesse this ugly and evil specter and Friends of the Palestinian Authority and Enemies of Everything Israel accuse you of bias.

You must understand, after all, that the tinfoil faithful usually read from a script every bit as binding as the Quran. They parrot their lines like any good madrasa student regurgitates The Hadith and Sunnah. And in particular, our automatons shun the concepts of free will or personal responsibility when it comes to the Palestinians, and blame Israel for causing Palestinians to raise children to die as “martyrs.”

What do you know? A Jewish mother prays for a lawyer or a doctor; her Palestinian neighbor prefers a cold-blooded killer. All out of necessity, you see. For, as her defenders preach, under the skin, all mothers are equal in their love for their offspring. Including those who partake in “sex-selective infanticide in several of the world’s cultures.” Ultimately, behind every fine female who kills her kid or raises him to kill lurks a man, often an Israeli.

Yes, it’s Israel’s doing.

If not for the Israelis, a veritable economic oasis and a culture of life would flourish where a black hole now threatens to collapse on itself. And the evidence for this putative Palestinian revival, whence does it come? Why, from the Islamic world, at large. Oh, you mean to say the Ummah is not exactly in the grips of a Renaissance? Well, then, let me tell you about those crusaders.

And so the blame game goes.

* The link to the suicide slideshow promo originated at the little green footballs, was picked up by Michelle Malkin, and was lovingly redeemed and reinterpreted (minus soft focus, though) by libertarian exculpators of evil, where yours truly found it. (What’s up with the popular affectation of giving credit to the finder of a link, by the way? It’s not as if he or she is a real secondary source.)
†Recommended reading: “Coddling Killers: The Liberal Root-Causes Racket”, The American Spectator.

Men & Women Who Hothouse Hamasniks & Those Who Love Them

Israel, Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, Terrorism, The Zeitgeist

Believe it or not, there are a couple of *creeps and kooks on the Internet who find nothing creepy or kooky about how Palestinians cultivate kids into killers.

By the looks of it (take a look), this “educational” effort is a real communal affair, involving immediate and extended family, grandmothers too. Nothing cute about them or their offspring. Yet some find them sympathetic, certainly tragic, even endearing. Fail to finesse this ugly and evil specter and Friends of the Palestinian Authority and Enemies of Everything Israel accuse you of bias.

You must understand, after all, that the tinfoil faithful usually read from a script every bit as binding as the Quran. They parrot their lines like any good madrasa student regurgitates The Hadith and Sunnah. And in particular, our automatons shun the concepts of free will or personal responsibility when it comes to the Palestinians, and blame Israel for causing Palestinians to raise children to die as “martyrs.”

What do you know? A Jewish mother prays for a lawyer or a doctor; her Palestinian neighbor prefers a cold-blooded killer. All out of necessity, you see. For, as her defenders preach, under the skin, all mothers are equal in their love for their offspring. Including those who partake in “sex-selective infanticide in several of the world’s cultures.” Ultimately, behind every fine female who kills her kid or raises him to kill lurks a man, often an Israeli.

Yes, it’s Israel’s doing.

If not for the Israelis, a veritable economic oasis and a culture of life would flourish where a black hole now threatens to collapse on itself. And the evidence for this putative Palestinian revival, whence does it come? Why, from the Islamic world, at large. Oh, you mean to say the Ummah is not exactly in the grips of a Renaissance? Well, then, let me tell you about those crusaders.

And so the blame game goes.

* The link to the suicide slideshow promo originated at the little green footballs, was picked up by Michelle Malkin, and was lovingly redeemed and reinterpreted (minus soft focus, though) by libertarian exculpators of evil, where yours truly found it. (What’s up with the popular affectation of giving credit to the finder of a link, by the way? It’s not as if he or she is a real secondary source.)
†Recommended reading: “Coddling Killers: The Liberal Root-Causes Racket”, The American Spectator.

Savage Society

Israel, Israeli-Palestinian Conflict

Members of Hamas and Abbas’ terrorist militia are duking it out on the streets of Gaza. The latest casualty of these contemptible criminal gangs is the Jordanian ambassador’s driver—he was killed in an exchange. DEBKAfile reports that at least eight others died in the street fights: “The feuding sides also engaged in sniping, kidnapping and planting bomb devices at the homes of rivals.”

Mainstream Media, which in every other instance adheres to the “if it bleeds it leads” axiom, has been unsurprisingly silent on the perpetual civil war in the Palestinian territories. To read the BBC’s dispatches, you’d think that the chaos is 1) recent 2) part of the rough-and-tumble of a fledgling democracy—the warring gangsters they call “security forces”; the urban warfare these ruffians wage nothing but the odd, boisterous “clash.”

The submerged story is the story of Palestinian-on-Palestinian violence—it “saturates the territories,” writes Stephanie Gutmann. Do read her outstanding book, “The Other War: Israelis, Palestinians and the Struggle for Media Supremacy.” For a second opinion consult Fred Reed. (Incidentally, Reed describes his column about the press’s scandalous coverage of Israel as “A Nonconforming View.” For once a writer who doesn’t fob off the manufactured, mob consensus on all things Israel as gritty, independent thinking.)

According to Gutmann, Khaled Abu Toameh of the Jerusalem Post is one of the few reporters who has not capitulated to the PA’s campaign of intimidation against anyone who tells the truth about what goes on in that hell on earth:

“The dead formed an endless daily procession in his stories. They were members of feuding Arab tribes, rival factions and warring families. They were wives deemed immodest, girlfriends deemed treacherous, daughters deemed disobedient, and always, always there were those executed in gruesome ways for having collaborated, in some loosely defined way, with Israel.”

I can confirm this blood-drenched reality. I grew up not far from what is called the Triangle: Tira, Tulkarem, and Jenin. My stepfather was a dedicated Israeli government doctor who worked in these villages. One of the activities he undertook (but didn’t have to) was to surgically stitch up the hymens of young girls so as to prevent their barbaric mothers and fathers from slaying them. He was always very sad when his secret patchwork failed to convince the clan, and the girl was found the next day with the customary axe in her spine. Sometimes a virgin was slaughtered if she didn’t bleed “sufficiently” on her wedding night. As the chief medical man in the region, my stepfather was at the interface of this “violence-saturated society.”