Middle East Reality

© David Burton 2008

     In 2005, I asked the question: “Do the Arabs really want peace with Israel?” (Ref. 1)

Today, the answer has become increasingly clear. NO!

     The situation in Israel, and for that matter in the civilized world’s dealings with radical Muslims and Arabs, needs to be addressed in the light of reality and not with the mind-set of the blind, peace at all costs, idealists who urge the world to come to a giant peace rally, sing Kumbaya, hold hands, kiss each other on the cheek and stop the fighting and genocides that are going on in the world. IT AIN’T GOING TO HAPPEN! Not in my lifetime, and realistically, never.

     Some of the saner people of the world have begun to understand that peace negotiations with radical Arabs and fundamentalist Muslims is an oxymoron. After some 40 years, some have begun to open their eyes and come to this conclusion about the state of affairs that exists between the Arabs and Israel and between fundamentalist Islam and the Christian West.

     What many in Israel and the West have ignored in their fantasies about negotiating with the Islamic Radical madmen is that negotiations with them is impossible. The Utopian view that these fanatics have the same morality, principles, and humanity that exist in the West and among the peoples that have evolved in the Judeao-Christian tradition has been proven utterly false during the past half century. The Islamic radicals have demonstrated time and time again that their mission in life is terror, revenge, and the destruction of everything that does not conform to their warped (from a non-Islamic perspective) sense of human existence. To them, lying, murdering, destroying, is perfectly acceptable and justified. Western attempts to deal with them in the context of Western and Judeao-Christian morality is futile. The egg-heads and bleeding hearts among us have failed to comprehend this truth and they will likely never throw off their blinders to these unpleasant realities. The realists among us may yet have a chance to reverse the damage done by these soft-hearted liberals. It’s time to face up to the menace of the radical Islamists and to fight them on their terms. Bluntly, this means their destruction. It means the end of negotiating with them and the end of concessions to them. They have declared unconditional war on everyone opposed to them. They have no humanistic rules in this war. The Geneva Convention has no meaning to them. These are their rules. Its time we stopped trying to get them to play by our rules and, instead, we need to carry the fight to them on their terms. It is a fight to the death - theirs or ours. There can be no mercy.

     ”Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them: When ye pass over the Jordan into the land of Canaan, then ye shall drive out all the inhabitants of the land, and dwell therein”. (Ref. 2)

     ”But if ye will not drive out the inhabitants of the land from before you, then shall those that ye let remain of them be as thorns in your eyes, and as pricks in your sides, and they shall harass you in the land wherein ye dwell”. (Ref. 3)

     We are being played for suckers. We want to delude ourselves instead of admitting the obvious truths. We do everything to avoid facing the facts and their realities. Open your eyes - see the obvious! Open your ears - hear the truth! Open your mind - make the hard but necessary decisions! Open your hearts - to the victims and not to the murderous Islamo-facist Arab perpetrators.

     “Israel has made many goodwill gestures, and after each one, Israel has become more vulnerable. How about a goodwill gesture from the Palestinian side, such as foreswearing violence and living up to their promises?
     ”What is wrong with Israel’s leadership, and much of the leadership in the West, that it believes peace is only a matter of finding the right formula to satisfy the Palestinian side and the Arab states that seek Israel’s destruction? Israel’s enemies (who are mostly America’s enemies, too) want a one state solution, which is the replacement of Israel with a Palestinian state.
     “Can anyone credibly argue otherwise?”(Ref. 4)

     “Things have rapidly gone from bad to worse in the hell-hole that is now the Gaza strip. Once the civilized world waited and hoped that Hamas guerillas would capitalize on their political victory and become something other than the terrorists they are. How hopeless and naïve of us all.” (Ref. 5)

     The true nature of the Arab and Muslim terrorists who masquerade as the liberators of the “Palestinians” or as the liberators of Iraq should be obvious to all (unfortunately, there are far too many who are blind the realities of life or are closet anti-Semites). In Iraq, Muslims murder Muslims. In Gaza, Hamas continues to lay it waste and while “overrunning two of Fatah’s most important security installations and slaughtering its occupants after ordering them into the street. Not content with murdering fellow Palestinians as witnesses begged for their lives, Hamas thugs then fired on the Fatah-allied Voice of Palestine Radio." (Ref. 5)

     ”. . . Hamas and al-Qaeda are - ideologically - connected at the hip. Both are terrorist groups. Both are in the business of waging what they believe will be the final war against the infidels.
     “There is one distinction: Whereas al Qaeda will fight anywhere it thinks it can defeat ‘crusaders and Zionists,’ Hamas’ goal is more modest: to wipe only Israel off the map. Al-Qaeda thinks globally, Hamas acts locally.” (Ref. 6)

     While Gaza-based Hamas has once again demonstrated the total inhumanity and viciousness of the Arab extremist by launching rocket and mortar attacks on the civilian population of Israel and by murdering unarmed co-religionist members of the opposition Fatah party, the bleeding hearts of the West have turned a blind eye, while continuing to blame Israel for Arab stupidity and Muslim fanatic blind hatred. “The ‘human-rights community’ is not much interested in any violence carried out in the name of Islam, except to the extent it can be blamed on the United States/or Israel.” (Ref. 6)

     ”From the U.S. point of view, the Palestinians never miss an opportunity. Maybe they just don’t want what we’re selling?
     “For example, in 2005, Israel simply gave Gaza to the Palestinians. According to the international community, a peaceful society should have sprouted. Instead, the Palestinians voted for Islamic fanatics dedicated to the destruction of Israel. But the diplomacy-uber-alles crowd has long been immune to contrary evidence. Remember when Arafat fanned the second intifada in response to an unprecedented offer. The Nobel committee openly talked about revoking the peace prize - from Peres.
     “Now, President Bush, the leaders of the EU and the New York Times all say this is the moment for Israel to offer more concessions to Arafat’s successor, Mahmoud Abbas . . .
     "Margaret Beckett, the British foreign secretary, lamented, ‘Once again, extremists carrying guns have prevented progress against the wishes of the majority who seek a peaceful two-state solution.’ But how do you equate this with the fact that Hamas, the party promising the destruction of Israel, won the Palestinian elections in 2005? Meanwhile, the leaders of Fatah - the ‘moderates’ - had not long ago set the standard for Israel-hate themselves.
     “The great irony is that Hamas now labels members of Fatah as Jewish ‘collaborators,’ a designation that apparently justifies even the execution of wounded Fatah prisoners in hospitals.
     “The German foreign minister went so far as to suggest that Hamas’ triumph necessitates increasing aid to Gaza because of the hardships Hamas rule will cause. It seems that if you choose terrorism, the Europeans will be there to pay for the mess.
     “But there’s another lesson to be drawn from the Hamas ascendancy. The Bush administration pushed for democracy in the Palestinian territories and got what it wished for. The assumption behind the push for democracy in Gaza . . . is that Arabs can be trusted to handle political freedom.
     “For disciples of the ‘international peace process,’ it’s a matter of faith that the Palestinians just have to want peace, because how else can you have a peace process? . . . But what if these are just Western fictions? {emphasis mine}” (Ref. 7)

     ”The Bush administration’s announced goal for Israel and the ‘Palestinian people’ has been two states, living side by side in peace. The administration is two-thirds there. There are now two states - - one in Gaza, headed by the militant Hamas organization, which shot its way to power; and another in the West Bank headed by accused Holocaust denier Mahmoud Abbas. Unfortunately for Israel, there is no peace, which should not surprise those who have been predicting exactly what is now coming to pass.
     “Whatever their names, be they groups like Hamas, Fatah, Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad and al-Qaeda, or states like Saudi Arabia, Syria, and Iran, their objectives are identical: the annihilation of the democratic Jewish State and the elimination of all Jews, either by death or displacement, from the land. To argue otherwise and to continue believing the fiction that ‘infidel’ diplomats for the State Department or European Union can magically transform people commanded to hate Jews and Israel based on a twisted mandate from their corrupt notion of God, is to be in extreme denial.
     “Each time Israel gives up something necessary for its security, it receives in return more war, more terror and more insecurity.
     “The intentions of Hamas and other terrorist groups are not hidden. They proclaim what they intend to do and then they do it. Osama bin Laden said five years before Sept. 11, 2001, that he planned to attack the United States. Few took his statement seriously enough to eliminate him when they had the chance.” (Ref. 8)

     Rudy Giuliani, running for President of the United States has found the courage to face the reality of what is needed to deal with the Arab / Muslim peoples. In an article in Foreign Affairs magazine, he writes, ”Too much emphasis has been placed on brokering negotiations between the Israelis and the Palestinians - negotiations that bring up the same issues again and again. It is not in the interest of the United States, at a time when it is being threatened by Islamist Terrorists, to assist the creation of another state that will support terrorism. Palestinian statehood will have to be earned through sustained good governance, a clear commitment to fighting terrorism, and a willingness to live in peace with Israel.”

     Mr Giuliani concluded with, “We must base our trust on the actions, rather than the words, of others. {emphasis mine}” (Ref. 9.)

     ”There are no safe places in the real world. For two thousand years Jews ran - from east to west and west to east, from Christian nations to Muslim nations and from Muslim nations to Christian nations and back again. Actually, the lucky ones ran. The unlucky ones died, hacked to pieces, burned at the stake, beaten and beheaded, hanged and pierced with swords, forcibly converted to foreign faiths, persecuted until they assimilated and perished.
     “After two thousand years, the Jews returned to their own land to make their stand. Under-equipped militia forces with old, surplus Czech weapons faced down the armies of five Arab nations, including Jordan’s British trained Arab Legion, and more than held its own. And then did it again and again. The price was heavy enough to break the heart but the point had been made. The Jewish people could live free from persecution in their own land - if they were willing to fight for it.
     “With the ‘Peace Process’, Israel instead embraced withdrawal. Politicians preached that running away would bring Israelis to a ‘safe place’ in the ‘New Middle East’ that would surely materialize once Israel gave its enemies almost everything they wanted.
     “Israel kept retreating and the enemy kept advancing. It advanced into the roads and towns along the frontier and into Jerusalem and Tel Aviv and Haifa. Rockets fell, buses exploded, and cafes blew apart with the blasts of suicide bombers. At each new stage of withdrawal, there was ample warning that the very idea of withdrawal had already failed.
     "There was no ‘safe place’ that could be created by retreating farther back, and magical lines on maps do not protect you from harm.
“The second Lebanon War was brought about not by Ehud Olmert but by Ehud Barak, who believed that Israel could give up its security zone in Lebanon and still be safe. The first installment of the price of that withdrawal came when Hezbollah used the border to attack Israel and shell Israeli towns and cities all the way into Haifa. So too the ongoing shelling of Israeli towns from Gaza is the product of the withdrawal from Gaza.
     “Retreat in the face of an enemy advances his position and reduces your own. Israel’s limited territory insured that the retreats of the past decade and a half have put its cities back on the firing line. By neglecting and dismantling the frontier, the way is opened to the cities the frontier is meant to guard.” (Ref. 10)

     With Arab and Muslim extremists, ”security is never achieved by withdrawal, and in the aftermath of withdrawal war inevitably follows” {emphasis mine} (Ref. 10)

     The lessons that are becoming all too clear in Israel have meaning here in America, in England, in Spain, in Bali, in the Philippines and elsewhere in the world. It reflects the civilized world’s ongoing war with fundamentalist Islam. In Iraq and Afghanistan, running away from the “war on terrorism” means surrender - “not only to the al Qaeda enemy in Iraq, but to al Qaeda and its allies.
     “Seeing the increased carnage in Iraq, people committed to defeating the Islamo-facist terrorists and protecting our homeland from these enemies should unequivocally determine to fight the enemy harder on this central front.
     “It is an absolute fact that we can fight them there or fight them here. The fact that most of the terrorist violence is taking place in Iraq should suggest that our strategy to make America safer is working. No major terrorist attacks here, while the body count rises in Iraq.
     “My point here is that leaving Iraq means waving the white flag to the people who attacked the U.S. on Sept. 11. We are fighting al Qaeda in Iraq today.” (Ref. 11)

     For real peace, there has to be an end to the hypocrisy of Arab leaders and instead meaningful actions supporting the concepts of real peace in a civilized world. On March 2, 2008, Israel finally responded to the continuing rocket and mortar attacks on Israeli territory from the Arab run Gaza, by attacking the launching sites of these Hamas organized atrocities. The Arab attacks on Israel have indiscriminately been against civilians in the south of Israel. Residents of southern Israel “have faced repeated rocket attacks since 2001. Rocket crews fired more than 25 rockets at southern Israel (on 2 March 2008) . . . scoring direct hits on houses in the city of Ashkelon and the town of Sderot. Nine Israelis were injured . . .” (Ref. 12) Note that the targets that were hit in Israel were civilian houses in civilian areas with no military value and no military presence. In contrast, the Israeli response in Gaza was against the terrorists and their rocket launching sites.

     In response to the Israeli attempts to destroy the rocket launching sites and to kill the Arab terrorists that were targeting Israeli noncombatants, the so-called moderate "Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas suspended peace talks.”(Ref. 12), displaying the two-faced hypocrisy of "Arab moderates". Abbas remained silent for years while his Arab countrymen fired rockets and mortars on unarmed Israeli civilians, but he “suspended peace talks” when Israel responded in self-defense. This action belies the supposed intent of working out a peace agreement with Israel. Abbas has no such intent. What he truly wants is the destruction of Israel and the elimination of all Jews in the Mid-east. Palestinian leaders had the gall to call the killings of Arabs in Gaza as the result of the Israeli responses to the continuing terror attacks “genocide” and a “holocaust”.

     While the leader of Fatah suspended peace talks because of Israel’s actions in self defense, the rival Hamas factions had earlier rejected America’s call for peace negotiations. “Palestinian leaders . . . roundly rejected a US proposal that aims to foster peace . . . Leaders of the ruling Palestinian Islamist movement, Hamas, ruled out any further discussion of it. 'The American plan is rejected, and we will work to make it fail by any means.’ Said a Hamas spokesman." (Ref. 13) Do the Palestinian Arabs really want peace with Israel? Let’s stop fantasizing - of course not!

     Instead of peace, “Hamas threatened . . . to launch a new uprising against Israel as hundreds of thousands of Islamist supporters rallied in Gaza City to mark the groups. 20th anniversary . . . the group has a charter that calls for the elimination of the Jewish state.” (Ref. 14)

     ENOUGH - these animals have no right to complain. What they are receiving is the result of the atrocities they have continually committed and until they own up to their despicable actions and those of their co-religionists and take concrete steps to stop these actions, they deserve no sympathy, no support and certainly no concessions from Israel or the civilized world in the search for peace. Peace has no meaning to them. The word is simply something to be used in their pursuit of the destruction of Israel and the elimination of everything and everyone that does not conform to their definition of Islam.

     While the attempts by President Bush and Secretary of State Rice to encourage a peace agreement between Palestinian Arabs and Israel is laudable, it is an exercise in futility. For peace to be a reality, both sides must want peace. While Israel certainly does and has demonstrated its willingness to make concessions in the pursuit of peace by withdrawing from Lebanon and Gaza, the other side has done nothing in return except to attack Israel and to fire rockets and mortars from Gaza into Israel. President Bush and Secretary Rice should face up to reality. The Arabs and Muslims with whom they are dealing are liars and hypocrites who do not want a peace with Israel. They want the eradication of Israel and all non-Muslims, Jews and Christians alike. Worse still, they even want the eradication of their own co-religionists if these co-religionists do not follow the brand of Islam that they are espousing. They will lie, cheat, murder, and commit suicide in the hope of achieving their goals. No peace agreement has any real meaning to them. They may say they want a “peace agreement” but they will break it as soon as it is convenient. Example: “land-for-peace” - Israel has given land in the hope of achieving peace, e.g., Lebanon and Gaza. The Arabs have given Israel rocket and mortar attacks in return. “Land-for-more-attacks-on-Jews” is a better characterization of the peace process to date.

     Can President Bush and Secretary Rice change the facts above? I think not. Theirs is a well-intentioned but futile attempt. “Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas rebuffed the Bush Administration’s request to quickly end his walkout from peace talks over Israel’s military response to Hamas rocket attacks.” Abbas “pulled out of talks . . . to protest Israel’s sweep . . . which began after months of daily Hamas rocket barrages on Israeli towns . . .” (Ref. 15) By so doing, Abbas continues to encourage the Arab terrorists in their hope that they will ultimately drive all the Jews into the Mediterranean Sea.

     While continuing to push for a meaningless peace agreement with Palestinian Arabs who have continually shown that their word means nothing, Secretary Rice realizes the legitimacy of the Israeli position and “defended Israel’s right to seek out terrorists who use the tiny Hamas-held territory as a launching pad for increasing numbers of rockets targeting civilians in southern Israel.” (Ref. 15)

     Previously, Secretary Rice had said that, “militant Palestinians, not Israel, are to blame for deteriorating conditions in the sealed-off Gaza Strip.”

     She further stated that, “The responsibility for what is happening in Gaza should be put directly on the shoulders of Hamas.
     “It is the policies of Hamas that have led to its own isolation and by implication Gaza as well,” Rice said.(Ref. 16)

      President Bush has exhibited great determination in combating the threat posed by Islamic radicals - in Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia, and in the Arab-Israel situation. But his efforts in solving the Arab-Israel impasse have had little to no success and there is little to no hope that they will in the foreseeable future. This past year, President Bush visited Israel to push for a revival of the “peace process”. “As the president’s visit neared, one might have expected the Palestinians, were they interested in peace, to at least tone down anti-Israel rants. . . . the (Palestinian) government-controlled television instead ‘intensified its rhetoric calling for the destruction of Israel’
         - - -
     “Amidst all of this, Bush suggested more Israeli concessions to the Palestinians might have to be part of a peace agreement . . . while promising a monitoring process that supposedly would police any agreement. The fallacy of such a monitoring process can be seen in previous agreements, which required the Palestinian side to cease terror, stop using television to incite violence against Jews, reform textbooks that teach hatred of Jews and Christians and respect a ceiling in the number of armed Palestinian police.
     “The Palestinian government has failed to comply with a single agreement. {emphasis mine}
     “If, after all of Israel’s concessions, her enemies have failed to take a single step toward peace, what makes anyone think that more concessions will turn a one-way street into a two-lane thorough fare?
     “Even if a deal is concluded, the best that be expected from the Palestinian side is a temporary lull in the violence followed by the creation of a pretext for more violence and demands for new concessions.
     “This latest Bush push for peace can only bring more war and less stability for America’s ‘friend’.” (Ref. 17)

      At the same time, Abbas refuses to recognize Israel’s right to defend itself and encourages the Hamas-led terrorists with rhetoric such as “I call on the Israel government to halt its aggression so the necessary environment can be created to make negotiations succeed, for us and for them to reach the shores of peace in 2008.” (Ref. 15)

     Translation: It’s OK for my fellow Arabs to kill, maim and murder civilians in Israel but if Israel responds militarily against my fellow terrorists, that’s aggression and not to be allowed. If Israel wants peace, the Israelis need to create the ‘necessary environment’ by allowing us to continue attacking them and driving them to the shores of the Mediterranean where we can kill them or drive them into the sea.

     The Arab fanatics and their Muslim fundamentalist co-terrorists do not play by the rules of the rest of the civilized world. It’s time to stop fantasizing that they do. They only understand power and punishment. There is no such thing as the “carrot and the stick”. The “stick” is all that they understand.

     Consider the following and ask yourself, “Are these civilized human beings or are they some alien life form?” “Is the only problem in the Mid East that of the Arabs and Israel?”

     ”Italian police arrested three Moroccans yesterday - an imam and two aides - accusing them of belonging to a militant cell that allegedly used a mosque in central Italy as a terror training camp.” (Ref. 18) So much for the sanctity of religion and religious institutions.

     ”The Dutch government - afraid of a violent Islamic reaction to the release of a controversial new documentary - raised its threat level yesterday.” “. . . Dutch anti-Islamic activists have been threatened, and one filmmaker Theo Van Gogh, was stabbed to death three years ago.” (Ref. 19) So much for tolerance and free speech.

     ”The tiny Christian community of Gaza is keeping a low profile this Christmas, traumatized by the killing of a prominent Christian after Hamas’ violent takeover of the coastal region.” (Ref. 20) So much for the lie that the problem is only between Arabs and Jews.

     ”The Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) said . . . that it thwarted a double suicide attack set for Tel Aviv and Netanya . . ., orchestrated by Islamic Jihad and meant to be carried out by two Palestinian women, one of them pregnant.
     “One of the women, Fatma Zak, 39, a mother of eight (was) in her ninth month of pregnancy.
     “The two women admitted the plot and confessed to being Islamic Jihad operatives. They said they had used Israel’s humanitarian policy to acquire entrance permits on a false medical pretext.” (Ref. 21) So much for respecting the sanctity of women and motherhood, and reciprocating for Israel’s giving medical assistance to pregnant Arab women.

     ”Eight people were blasted to death after a gunman walked into the library of a rabbinical seminary and sprayed bullets into a crowded nighttime study session.
     “Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip praised the attack in a statement, and thousands of Palestinians took to the streets of Gaza to celebrate.
     “President George W. Bush condemned the attack, saying, ‘this barbaric and vicious attack on innocent civilians deserves the condemnation of every nation.’
     “An Israeli government spokesman also condemned the massacre, telling the Associated Press, ‘It is clear that those people celebrating this bloodshed have shown themselves to be not only the enemies of Israel but of all humanity.” (Ref. 22) People who celebrate the murder of innocent civilians engaged in religious study cannot be dignified by being called human beings. They have no humanity and as such are outlaws from the human race.

     Enough of the charade that peace can be negotiated with Arab and Islamic terrorists. The civilized world needs to stop pressuring Israel to negotiate with these murderers. These so-called peace negotiations “never bring peace between Israel and the Palestinians. That’s because only one side wants peace. The other wants pieces of Israel, chipping away at its borders until it can gobble up what remains of the country.
     “The so-called Palestinian side brings nothing to the table. It has yet to fulfill a major pledge made at previous summit meetings.
     {What could possibly persuade any rational human being that} “the Palestinian side is serious about making war no more and living in peaceful coexistence with Israel? Certainly not their actions, or their Holocaust denial, textbook and media slander of Jews and repeated assertions that Israel must be destroyed.
     “There are 22 Arab states. Will a 23rd bring stability to the region? There is no evidence - none - that the establishment of a Palestinian state will end the violence. On the contrary, it will signal the end of Israel, because it will show to Israel’s enemies that the perpetrators of violence and the breakers of promises are never held accountable.
     “It is Israel - and Israel alone - that receives pressure to make concessions. The only pressure on the Palestinian side is to show up at these road shows in order to be handed another pound of Israeli flesh. It isn’t a piece of land that the Palestinians want. It is all the land. They say so. Through six wars and numerous intifadas and other terrorist attacks, the Palestinian Charter, sermons, newspaper editorials and many other outlets, the message is clear: Israel . . . must be evicted by any means necessary.” (Ref. 23)

     Here is my solution. First, let’s stop playing the “land for peace fantasy”. Instead let’s get really tough. Next, let’s start applying the stick. Every time a rocket or mortar falls on Sderot from Gaza, Israel should permanently annex a piece of Gaza and send the Arab occupants of the annexed land into the remaining Hamas controlled portion of Gaza. For every terrorist attack on Israel, let the United States and other like-minded countries provide Israel with additional aid for defense, or maybe give Israel a modern tank or fighter airplane each time there is a terrorist attack.

     There can be no negotiation or peace with Arab and Muslim fanatics. They, like a cancer, must be exorcised from the human race. For Israel, the solution should be the annexation of all of former Palestine, giving its residents the option of becoming full citizens of Israel with all the rights that have always been guaranteed to every Israeli citizen, Jew or non-Jew, or of leaving and going to an Arab/Muslim country of their choice where they will be welcomed by their Arab/Muslim brethren, just as Israel has welcomed all of its Jewish brethren. For those “Palestinians” who refuse these two options and who wish to continue their efforts to eliminate the State of Israel and exterminate all the infidels of the world, they can suffer the consequences of being killed for their efforts to sow death and destruction, or, they should be forcibly deported to some refugee camp in a place like the Arabian desert or the Sinai desert where, again, they can be cared for by their Arab/Muslim brothers, in the same fashion that their co-religionists have taken care of the “Palestinian refugees” for the past 40 years.

     The state motto of New Hampshire is Live Free or Die. The motto of the Palestinian Arabs should be, (a) Live Free and Prosper in Israel or (b) Die or (c) Live in Poverty and Misery in an Arab Country.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
References