Category Archives: Israeli-Palestinian Conflict

Savage Society

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.”

Terror Under Hamas Vs. Under Abbas

Israel, Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, Terrorism

The cameras don’t often linger at the site of a suicide bombing in Israel. Most reporters prefer the “territories,” where they can set up shop and await a staged stone-throwing. The Palestinian Authority is the journalist’s one-stop shop for all the fake David vs. Goliath images his heart desires. Simple metaphors for simple, bigoted minds, which is the stuff he traffics in. The Associated Press, ABC, or the Canadian CBC prefer to peddle this phony illusion.

CNN is careful to count the terrorist among the dead. If you tune into that network, take care to subtract one or two (depending on the trash implicated) to arrive at the number of human beings who died.

The latest scene of carnage was “a falafel restaurant in a gritty, working-class section of Tel Aviv,” as The New York Times reported. It was carried out by Islamic Jihad, which hasn’t yet been invited to join the Palestinian government, but enjoys Hamas’ firm support.

The blast killed nine people and wounded 60. There’s something else the networks rarely mention: the injuries caused by these demonic devices. As I have written:

the task facing Israeli medics has become a routine. Surgeons must slice open the victims of these fiendish devices, picking from the flesh and burrowing in the bone for embedded shards of shrapnel, ball bearings and nails. The rat poison is a diabolic touch, intended to intensify internal bleeding. If they survive, victims are left maimed and wracked by life-long disfigurement and pain.

Another little-mentioned fact has to do with the Israeli barrier; it is the reason there haven’t been attacks for so long. The wall that makes liberals, libertarians, and plain old bigots like Bob Novak shriek like stuck pigs has cut by 80 percent the deaths by suicide bombers in Israel proper.

What has changed since the Hamas hit men usurped Mahmoud Abbas’ al Aqsa Brigades in the gangland that is the Palestinian Authority? Not much:

Hamas applauded the attack, calling the April 17 bombing “a legitimate response to Israeli ‘aggression'”; Abbas applauded the attack, stating that “these kinds of attacks harm the Palestinian interest, and we as an authority and government must move to stop it.”

Contrary to MSM prattle, the blast has not exposed a rift among Palestinian leaders; it has exposed a difference in style. Abbas and his goons are of the Arafat school of Taqiyya: they lie in order to make The Community and the Quran look good. Hamasniks don’t beat around the bush. They expect to be loved just the way they are.

Buchanan of Arabia

Islam, Israel, Israeli-Palestinian Conflict

The following is an excerpt from my new column, Buchanan of Arabia. I’m sure readers will have plenty to say in response.

After conflating the Danes with the most off-putting exemplars of free expression—Larry Flynt the pornographer, the Nazis of Skokie, and the late Robert Mapplethorpe of the bullwhip-bedecked behind—Buchanan allows that we are all entitled to be contemptuous of “the beliefs and values the Islamic faith holds dear, and for the prophet.” “But if we wish to exercise our right to air [these views] in print or broadcast, we should expect to reap what we have sown.”
With these obligatory lines, Mr. Buchanan discharges his duty to the West and its puny freedoms. What follows is an ode to Islam. Buchanan’s paean to this faith’s brute force is crucial in divining why he demands the West’s capitulation, following the cartoon Jihad.

Christian Butterbach quotes my description of Israel in the column as:

…the Middle East’s only true democracy—a small spot of sanity in a sea of savagery, where enlightened Western law prevails, and where Christians, Jews and their holy places are safe.

He then adds the following important quip:

Are Muslim holy places in Israel not safe???

My response:

Muslims are always safe in liberal countries. You know that; look around. It’s inherent in the definition of “liberal.” Countries with a liberal tradition make it safe for all people to worship openly. Arabs living in Israel proper are as safe as you and I are in our neighborhoods and places of worship. And very active on Israeli campuses—alongside their fellow Jewish, radical-leftists—in anti-Zionist causes. No different to an American campus, really. It would have been a redundancy on my part to add “Muslims,” when it is Jews and Christians who are imperiled in Muslims countries.

In fact, some of the angry letter writers (I don’t mean Chris) should visit Israel (and I don’t mean rush to the PA and hire a “guide” to show them a staged stone throwing). Visit the suicidally liberal schools and homes of real Israelis. I actually grew up in Israel, and went to school with Israeli-Muslims. Yeah, visit Israel, won’t you, instead of writing propaganda, the only verification for which is Mr. Buchanan and other dedicated saboteurs.

Surprised By Hamas' Victory?

Israel, Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, Media, The Zeitgeist

A consensus has emerged according to which no one predicted that the “Palestinian People” would elect Hamas as their representatives—democratically.
It shows you what little attention I pay to the talking titmice out there, because I thought that when I called the elections, I was merely stating the obvious. I believed that a consensus existed according to which there would be no other outcome.
I foresaw both the victory in the municipal elections of 2005 and in the general elections of 2006. On January the 7th this year, I called Hamas “the Palestinians’ unofficial representative,â€? and spoke of a shoo-in for the terrorist organization. Apparently the precious few who read the forecast viewed it as comic relief. What are you going to do!
Isaiah Berlin said that an ideologue is someone who is prepared to suppress what he suspects to be true. Those who fetishize the Palestinians are ideologues who’ll put a spin on reality so that it’ll comport with their ideology.
To foresee the results of the recent elections in the Palestinian Authority, all that was required was a commitment to “unvarnished objective reality.” But no one wants to take an honest, hard look at the cruel complexion of Palestinian society—unless, of course, it is to blame the liberal, orderly commonwealth adjacent to it: Israel.