© David Burton 2012

     There is the feeling among many well-intentioned (and some not so well-intentioned) individuals in the United States and around the world, that peace can be achieved between the State of Israel and the Arabs, the so-called "Palestinians”, and Muslims if only Israel would just give a little more. These individuals feel, fantasize, believe, or hope that all parties are rational and ultimately desire to live in peace and harmony. These dreamers also believe that radical Islam and the rest of the non-Muslim world can peacefully co-exist. These feelings, wishes and dreams are a Middle East Fantasy! The unpleasant truth is that these individuals are a) living in a dream world filled with fantasies, b) have never bothered to listen to words spoken by the leaders of these Arabs, Palestinians, and Muslims, c) have never bothered to read the historical facts, or d) are just plain old closet anti-Semites who hope that Jews and Israel would simply disappear. If this wish were to come true, they would well rue the day. In a famous statement attributed to pastor Martin Niemöller about the inactivity of German intellectuals following the Nazi rise to power and the purging of their chosen targets, group after group, he said:

"First they came for the Jews and I did not speak out because I was not a Jew. Then they came for the Communists and I did not speak out because I was not a Communist. Then they came for the trade unionists and I did not speak out because I was not a trade unionist. Then they came for me and there was no one left to speak out for me." (Ref. 1) Guess who would come next if there were no Jews and no Israel to serve as scapegoats in the fourteen hundred year worldwide conflict with radical Islam! Remember, the fundamental imperative to convert the entire world to Islam, subjugate any non-believers or kill any opponents began shortly after 600 AD, well before there was any Israel. This imperative remains at the core of the Middle-east conflict and the worldwide conflict with fundamental Islam.

     These wishful individuals focus on the irrelevant. They blame Israel and the Jews for the plight of the downtrodden Arabs and Palestinians. They never place the blame where it belongs. They address the trivial and ignore the major problems and the real causes of the problems because the real problems and real causes of the problems are the Arabs, the Palestinians, and the Muslims themselves. These individuals don’t want to discuss the real issues and they certainly don’t want to hear from the Israeli side or from the supporters of Israel.

     Consider this example. At Boston University, two Israeli soldiers, one female and one male, came to speak and answer questions about the IDF and relations with Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza. They described how Israeli “soldiers and officers {are} assisting Palestinian day-to-day operations, bring in food, supplies and medical supplies. … Hamas is our enemy; the Palestinian people are not.” Some of those with whom they must deal do not have any qualms about committing any atrocity or of violating any norm of the civilized world. The female soldier told of the “pregnant Palestinian woman in an ambulance, in labor on the way to a hospital.” The soldier wanted to let the ambulance through without delay, but knew she had to stop the ambulance and inspect it – “As it turned out the ambulance was carrying explosives.” She appropriately explained that, “I can’t apologize for protecting my country.” (Ref. 2)

     And what about the audience that came to hear these two IDF members speak? About half the people in the audience got up, sealed duct tape over their mouths, stood silently for about 30 seconds and then walked out before they even heard the soldiers speak and without engaging in dialogue with the two, as they were invited to do. Never mind the rockets and mortars fired into Israel from Gaza; never mind the Israeli civilians murdered by Arab infiltrators from Egypt; never mind the 3 three-year old Jewish children murdered in France; never mind the 2,000 victims of Islamic terrorists on 9-11. None of these protesters wanted to face the real issues – they are more concerned about protesting the way they perceive Palestinians to be treated by Israel than in the really significant issues of murder, attacks on innocent civilians, kidnapping, and of the repeatedly stated objective of destroying the State of Israel and killing all the Jews that live there. To the protesters’ way of thinking, murder, kidnappings, and terrorism are to be ignored. Their perceived inequality in the treatment Israeli Arabs and "Palestinians" trumps the issues of terror, murder and destruction. The analogy of rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic while it was about to sink beneath the waves comes to mind.


OPEN YOUR EYES – SEE WHAT THEY ARE DOING!

     The Arab mindset is one of self-destruction and self-pity. “When James Wolfensohn and Mort Zuckerman raised $14 million to buy the Gush Katif hothouses from Israeli farmers to give to the Palestinians, many people were surprised. ‘We thought it was a chance to show the Palestinians that there were more benefits from cooperation than confrontation,’ Zuckerman explained.
     “Zuckerman’s New York Daily News reported on September 22 that ‘a week after, they {the Palestinians} descended like locusts on the greenhouses. . .looters continue to pillage what should be a prize asset for a fledgling Palestinian state.’
     “Later in the same article, 29-year-old Samir Al-Najar explained why he and eight of his men destroyed a half-acre greenhouse at the Neveh Dekalim settlement. He would probably rebuild the greenhouses he said, ‘but I want the greenhouses to be our own, not Jewish ones.’
     “Al-Najar’s rejection of the Jewish hothouses reflected the same sentiment expressed to Ben-Gurion by a leading Arab intellectual in the 1960’s. The Arab leader acknowledged the achievements of the Jews in Israel, but they were irrelevant to him. He wanted the land to remain desolate until the Arabs themselves were capable of achieving these same feats. Even if this would take a hundred years, he was prepared to wait.
     “The destruction of the hothouses and of the synagogues in Gush Katif raises fundamental questions about the nature of Israel’s ‘peace partners.’ What type of people delights in destroying synagogues, continues to live in squalor out of a sense of pride, yet takes handouts from the UN, and when given a thriving business opportunity levels the site because they want to build their own someday?
     “The British, the U.S., the European Union and Israel have enabled Arab leaders to engage in this self-destructive behavior for decades by giving in to their endless and unjustified demands, providing them with money that is rarely used for the welfare of their people, and refusing to hold them accountable to agreements they make.
     “As long as the West and Israel continue this pathological response, the Arabs will wallow in their own self-pity, glory in their victimhood, and focus their energy on ways to destroy Israel and the West." (Ref. 3)

     Today, unemployment in the Hamas controlled Gaza Strip runs around 50% and there are no major industries there. Greater than 50% of the Arabs that do find work in the Gaza Strip are employed by either the government (Hamas) or UNRWA, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees, which, since 1948, has been in the business of keeping Arab refugees confined in refugee camps. What could the Arabs in the Gaza Strip have accomplished had they used the greenhouses left to them and utilized the results from the Israeli Negev Region Agricultural Research Center which is located just 3 miles away and which offers the results of its cutting-edge research free to anyone engaged in agriculture?


OPEN YOUR EARS – HEAR WHAT THEY ARE SAYING!

     The position of the Arabs/Muslims/Palestinians was stated in the Khartoum Resolution passed by the Arab League in the wake of the 1967 war and is famous for the "Three No’s" contained therein. No matter what any Arab, Muslim or Palestinian may say, the position of the Arab/Muslim/Palestinian extremists remains unchanged to this day.

     In part, paragraph 3 of the Khartoum Resolution reads as follows: “Arab Heads of State have agreed {that there will be} no peace with Israel, no recognition of Israel, no negotiations with it”. (Ref. 4) Isn’t this clear enough? Maybe some want to believe that the Arabs don’t mean what they say, but believe me, they do! To this day, the extremist Arab/Muslim/Palestinians of the region have shown over and over again that they mean what is said in the Khartoum Resolution. They may deny it when it is convenient to do so, but, in the end, they always revert to actions that clearly demonstrate that these three no’s are their end objectives.

     “The Islamist frenzy that swept the Arab world during the ‘Arab Spring’ saw the elevation of the terrorist group, Hamas, to a recognized player in the Palestinian and international arena. When the Hamas Prime Minister made a tour of a number of Arab and Islamic countries, he was received as a hero and with chants of ‘Death to Jews!’” (Ref. 5) He was received as the "Palestinian Prime Minister." The leaders of these countries went out of their way to treat him as if he were a legendary Muslim warrior who has declared jihad on the infidels. Remember, it was Hamas that seized control over the Gaza Strip from the Palestinian Authority (PA) in a violent coup in 2007 and it is Hamas that is responsible for the firing of thousands of rockets into southern Israel. When the Arab masses shout Death to Jews! they mean what they say. The thousands of Jews murdered in the Holy Land by Arab mobs, marauders, Jihadists and terrorists over the past 130 or more years all attest to the truth of this statement.


OPEN YOUR MIND – SEE WHAT THEY HAVE DONE!

     Arab terrorists murder Israeli families or Hamas-backed Palestinians in Gaza fire salvos of rockets into the civilian centers of Be’er Sheva or Sderot. Israel responds with air strikes against the missile launching sites in Gaza or the IDF hunts down and kills the terrorist murderers. Anti-Semites around the world are outraged by the disproportionate Israeli response. A refutation of these unfounded charges is contained in the following paragraphs, which are abstracted and annotated from the writings of the international legal scholar, Louis René Beres.

     “International law is not a suicide pact. Every country on earth has {a} legal right to ‘self-defense.’ Although this right can never absolve any state of the obligation to fight both enemy states and terrorists with a diligent respect for civilian populations, it is also true that both enemy armies and insurgent forces must comply with these same rules of armed conflict.” Arab/Islamic/Palestinian terrorists have never complied with these rules!

     In Israel’s wars on terror, there has always been much talk about “proportionality.” Proportionality means that every resort to armed force must be limited to what is needed for operational success.

     “In the frequently interrelated cases of Hamas/Islamic Jihad/Fata terrorists in Gaza, and the Hezbollah terrorists in Lebanon, ample evidence exists that all of these belligerents have been guilty of repeated ‘perfidy.’”

     “The Hague Regulations expressly disallow any placement of military assets or military personnel in heavily populated civilian areas.” This has never stopped the Arab terrorists from doing so!

     “Perfidy represents an especially serious violation of the law of war. … The historic … effect of perfidy committed by Palestinian or Hezbollah terrorists, especially their recurrent resort to ‘human shields,’ has been to immunize Israel from any legal responsibility for inadvertent counter-terrorist civilian harms.”

     “All combatants, including all insurgents in Gaza and Lebanon, are required to comply with the law of armed conflict. … For those who are unfamiliar with international law, or who intentionally seek to distort that law for narrowly propagandistic benefit, it is easy to tar Israel with contrived charges of ‘disproportionality.’”

     “International law is not a suicide pact. In the case of Israel, allegedly disproportionate resorts to force in Gaza and Lebanon theatres by the Israel Defense Forces have routinely represented the permissible outcome of antecedent Arab perfidy. Were it not for these egregious violations of the law of war by its terrorist adversaries, Israel would never have been obliged to wage its wars in a fashion that could create civilian harms.”

     “Faced with multiple and sometimes cooperating enemies on several fronts who often make no secret of their genocidal intentions, Israel has still managed to display admirable respect for the law of armed conflict. Indeed, in starkly marked contrast to the conscious indiscriminacy of its myriad terrorist foes in both Gaza and Lebanon, Jerusalem has actually been able to stay true to this law.
     “The core legal issue in endless Middle East conflict is not about Israeli ‘disproportionality.’ It is, rather, about a persistent and relentless enemy inclination to terrorism and perfidy. … Israel’s basic right to stay alive must include utterly indispensable resorts to military self-help.”

     “International law is not a suicide pact.” (Ref. 6)

     While Arab apologists continually complain about the “disproportional” response of Israel to terrorist attacks, what is really disproportional is the lack of outrage at Arab and Muslim atrocities while protestors rail against Israel's perceived insulting behavior toward Palestinians. In Syria, Bashar al Assad murders 9,000 of his citizens (Ref. 7) and there is only hand-wringing and grand statements, but the killing goes on and there is no grand demonstration in opposition. Meanwhile, activists planned a “global march to Jerusalem” to protest Israeli incivilities toward Palestinians.

     “It was anticipated that as many as two million Arabs and foreign pro-Palestinian activists would storm Israel's borders from all sides and infiltrate Jerusalem in order to protest the ‘Judaization’ of the city. … But in the end, the Global March to Jerusalem was a dud.”

     “The most notable of the protests outside Israel's borders happened in neighboring Jordan, but only because those few Jews who had chosen to side with their nation's enemies were nevertheless attacked by local Muslims.” [emphasis mine] It seems that militant Arabs hate all Jews, even those that side with them!

     “In Lebanon no more than 7,000 gathered at the Beaufort Crusader fortress near Israel's northern border to hear fiery speeches by Hizballah, Hamas and Palestinian Authority officials.
     “The turnout in war-torn Syria was negligible, with just a few hundred gathering in Damascus to chant anti-Israel slogans.
     “The situation was a bit more tense in Gaza and the Palestinian-controlled parts of Judea and Samaria.
     “In Gaza, thousands of Arab protesters attempted to approach the security fence separating the Hamas-ruled coastal strip from southern Israel. At least 29 people were wounded and one man was killed in clashes with Israeli soldiers stationed along the security fence.
     “In the so-called "West Bank," a handful of protesters were wounded, and Israeli forces arrested 34 violent activists. The most intense action occurred at the Kalandiya checkpoint north of Jerusalem, where demonstrators hurled stones and firebombs at Israeli soldiers, who responded with a variety of crowd control weapons, including tear gas, sound blasts and foul-smelling water.”

     “Despite the low casualty rate and the meager turnout for the ‘Land Day’ events, Amnesty International still felt the need to issue a public condemnation over what it called Israel's use of ‘excessive force’ against the demonstrators.” (Ref. 8) Once again, we hear the canard that Israel’s response was “disproportionate”! Assad kills thousands and Israel uses “a variety of crowd control weapons, including tear gas, sound blasts and foul-smelling water,” but Amnesty International issues a public condemnation of Israel!

     While critics of Israel complain about the disproportionality of Israel’s responses to acts of terrorism, others tell Israel to have compassion on those poor oppressed murderers of innocent civilians. Consider this position in the light of America’s responses to the Islamic terrorist attack of 9-11 – we attacked and destroyed the Al Queda bases in Afghanistan; we killed as many of these terrorists as possible, and we hunted down and executed the Al Queda leader, Osama bin Laden. Were these actions disproportionate?

     From what planet do those who advocate compassion for murderers of innocent civilians come from? Would any sane person consider a mass murderer and convicted terrorist to be a “moderate?” Would any rational person urge the release of such an unremorseful criminal from prison? Yet the United States has done just that!

     “Fatah leader Marwan Barghouti was sentenced to five life sentences for as many terror related murders in Israel, and who security services say is responsible for at least 21 other murders, was taken into custody by Israel in 2002 and convicted in 2004.” Yet, “In December 2012, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu pointedly refused a request from US officials that he release the 52-year old Barghouti.
     “Just months before, even the suggestion that Barghouti might be released as a part of a deal to free 1,027 terrorists in exchange for kidnapped soldier Gilad Shalit created a firestorm of outrage in the Jewish state.”

     In spite of this, “Officials in Washington maintain {that} Barghouti, called the ‘Prince of Resistance’ by his fellow terrorists, represents a moderate stream in PA politics” (Ref. 9) and urged Israel to release him from prison. Can you believe this?


STOP FANTASIZING – SEE AND HEAR WHAT THEY REALLY WANT!

     Human sacrifice and child immolation are abhorred and prohibited by all civilized peoples. But Arab, Muslim and Palestinian fanatics still practice the human sacrifice of their children. Human sacrifice in the form of suicide bombers is glorified and encouraged. Arab children are taught to be suicide bombers and offered up for death by their own parents. “In Gaza’s Bourrej refugee camp, Jamal al Dura showed off his newborn son, Mohammed, named after Dura’s 12-year-old boy who was killed on the second day of the Palestinian uprising {Intifada}. Dura said he felt blessed by his newborn son, but he would sacrifice more of his children to fight Israel.” Dura said. “We’re ready to give more of our children.” (Ref. 10) Even most animals do not kill their own young!

     Palestinian incitement against the Jewish people is not new. On the NGO Palestinian Media Watch (PMW), a celebration in a refugee camp in Lebanon was shown in which Fatah proclaimed that the Palestinian children were created so that their blood would be “fertilizer” to saturate the land, thus emphasizing that dying for the sake of “Palestine” was an ideal for Palestinian children and youth. The clear message here is that Israel is the eternal enemy and Palestinian children are produced to be cannon fodder in the war this eternal enemy. So much for the Palestinian Authority being “moderate!”

     Appearing in Ramallah on the Palestinian Authority’s Shaheed (martyr) Day, Israeli Parliament member, Ahmed Tibi, proclaimed that “nobody is more admirable than the shaheed, the ultimate source of pride, the symbol of the homeland, who blazes the trail for us and paves the path to liberty with his blood.” By the way, did you notice that Tibi, a Muslim-Israeli-Arab, is a member of the Israeli Parliament? What Arab country would allow a Jew to be a member of their parliament, if they even had one?

     In everyday Arabic, suicide bombers and perpetrators of any bloodcurdling atrocity in Allah’s name are popularly dubbed shaheeds. The Palestinian Authority’s media, schools and mosques – all under professed moderate Mahmoud Abbas’s control – glorify shaheeds as models of emulation for all, from pint-sized preschoolers onward.

     Tibi isn’t alone. Jerusalem-based Muhammad Hussein, the PA’s mufti (appointed by the PA’s Abu Abbas) declared at the Fatah faction’s 47th anniversary rally in Jerusalem that religious salvation is impossible without first eliminating the Jews with the logical conclusion that killing Jews is a hallowed religious commandment.

     Islamic terrorists consider the murder of innocent civilians as justified by their interpretation of the Koran and they glorify martyrdom for that purpose. We here in the West view such actions as despicable acts of uncivilized murder. “They {suicide bombers} are not martyrs. They are killers. Both Christians and Jews know that a martyr is someone who dies for his faith, not someone who kills for his faith.“ (Ref. 11)

     For centuries, all civilized nations have recognized that foreign embassies are inviolable and are considered to be the native soil of the country possessing the embassy. Arab and Muslim fundamentalists do not adhere to any such concepts. The Iranian Islamic fundamentalists that invaded the American embassy in 1979 and held the Americans there hostage for well over a year clearly demonstrated this total disregard for basic rules of conduct in the civilized world. As Muslims, they did not consider that the rules of the civilized world applied to them – in other words, die-hard Muslims have no respect for any laws or rules of behavior other than their own interpretation of the rules of behavior defined in the Koran.

     The goals and intent of radical Muslims are clear – kill or subjugate everyone who will not submit to their concept of Islam. There are those in the West who tell us that all we have to do is deal with the moderate Muslims and they will help turn the fanatic Islamic radicals into peace-loving moderates. I have seen no evidence to get me to accept this wishful thinking –have you? Let’s stop living in this world of fantasy – let the moderate Muslims and Arabs show us with some real deeds. Let these moderate Muslims stand up to the radicals; let them speak out against the radical Muslims’ messages of hate and intolerance; let these moderate Muslims and Arabs help the civilized world in exterminating these murderers and terrorists; let these so-called moderate Muslims and Arabs show us with actions and not just platitudes that they and we can live together in a real peace. Until then, let’s face reality and recognize that we can’t believe anything said by these Arab/Muslim/Palestinian fundamentalists and there is no way to come to any agreement with them – they feel no compunction about breaking any agreement which they have made whenever they feel the time is right.

     Let’s stop fantasizing and see radical Islam for what it really is. Let’s recognize that we cannot negotiate with these people. For them, there is only their way and their way is the destruction of western civilization and the subjugation of every living being to their will. Consider the following excerpts taken from Reference 12.

     In today’s Islamic world, “Women are stoned to death and undergo clitorectomies. Gays hang from the gallows under the approving eyes of the proponents of Shariah, the legal code of Islam. Sunni and Shia massacre each other daily {throughout the Muslim world}. Palestinian mothers teach 3-year-old boys and girls the ideal of martyrdom. … The main ideological root of {radical} Islamism has a name--Salafism, or Salafi Islam, a violent, ultra-conservative version of the religion.
     “It is vital to grasp that traditional and even mainstream Islamic teaching accepts and promotes violence. Shariah, for example, allows apostates to be killed, permits beating women to discipline them, seeks to subjugate non-Muslims to Islam as dhimmis and justifies declaring war to do so. It exhorts good Muslims to exterminate the Jews before the ‘end of days.’ The near deafening silence of the Muslim majority against these barbaric practices is evidence enough that there is something fundamentally wrong.”
     “It is ironic and discouraging that many non-Muslim, Western intellectuals--who unceasingly claim to support human rights--have become obstacles to reforming Islam. Political correctness among Westerners obstructs unambiguous criticism of Shariah's inhumanity. They find socioeconomic or political excuses for Islamist terrorism such as poverty, colonialism, discrimination or the existence of Israel. What incentive is there for Muslims to demand reform when Western ‘progressives’ pave the way for Islamist barbarity?”
     “Politicians and scholars in the West have taken up the chant that Islamic extremism is caused by the Arab-Israeli conflict. This analysis cannot convince any rational person that the Islamist murder of over 150,000 innocent people in Algeria--which happened in the last few decades--or their slaying of hundreds of Buddhists in Thailand, or the brutal violence between Sunni and Shia in Iraq could have anything to do with the Arab-Israeli conflict.” (Ref. 12) Still, the myth is constantly repeated that if only Israel will acquiesce to the demands of the “moderate Palestinians”, then all the world’s problems with Arab, Muslim an Palestinian extremists would go away. Pardon my French, but this is total bullshit! The Arab-Israeli conflict is not the issue nor is it at the core of the problem. It is nothing but a smoke screen for the real objective of all Islamic fundamentalists and that objective is the conversion (peacefully or by force) of the entire world to Islam, as they and they alone define Islam! Those politicians, so called scholars, and the sheep that blindly follow them are blind to reality, stupid, or simply closet anti-Semites.

     “Western feminists duly fight in their home countries for equal pay and opportunity, but seemingly ignore, under a façade of cultural relativism, that large numbers of women in the Islamic world live under threat of beating, execution and genital mutilation, or cannot vote, drive cars and dress as they please.
     “The tendency of many Westerners to restrict themselves to self-criticism further obstructs reformation in Islam. Americans demonstrate against the war in Iraq, yet decline to demonstrate against the terrorists who kidnap innocent people and behead them. Similarly, after the Madrid train bombings, millions of Spanish citizens demonstrated against their separatist organization, ETA. But once the demonstrators realized that Muslims were behind the terror attacks they suspended the demonstrations. This example sent a message to radical Islamists to continue their violent methods.
     “Western appeasement of their Muslim communities has exacerbated the problem. During the four-month period after the publication of the Muhammad cartoons in a Danish magazine, there were comparatively few violent demonstrations by Muslims. Within a few days of the Danish magazine's formal apology, riots erupted throughout the world. The apology had been perceived by Islamists as weakness and concession. … When Westerners make politically-correct excuses for radical Islam, it actually endangers the lives of reformers and in many cases has the effect of suppressing their voices.” (Ref. 12) The fact remains that the Arab and Muslim cultures only respect and respond to strength. Perceived weakness is only an encouragement to greater intransigence and more violence.

     Israel continues to experience the problem that has faced the Jewish people for hundreds if not thousands of years. This is the phenomenon of “blaming the victim”. Historically Jews, and now Jews and Israel have been the eternal scapegoats. Russian czars blamed the Jews for the poverty of their serfs and encouraged pogroms against them. Hitler rose to power by blaming the Jews for every ill that faced the German nation after World War I. The Arabs blame Israel and the Jews for the misery of the Palestinians and Arab refugees in the Mid-east that they themselves have caused and foster to this day. Consider the following about Palestinians in the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip.

     “The Gaza Strip’s sole electricity station has become inoperative because Egypt has begun to crack down on fuel smuggling activities through their shared border.” {emphasis mine}

     A Gaza Energy Authority official “held Israel responsible for the crisis.” {emphasis mine} …
     “For nearly two weeks, Gaza has been undergoing a worsening fuel crisis caused by a halt in supplies smuggled through underground tunnels traversing its border with Egypt. The conundrum has rendered 90 percent of local oil stations idle.
     “Israel supplies Gaza with about 120 megawatts of electricity a day, while the strip’s only power plant produces 60 megawatts.
     “While limited amounts of gas, mainly used by individual households, are purchased from Israeli suppliers and permitted to enter the besieged strip through the Kerem Shalom crossing, most of Gaza's energy is brought unofficially from Egypt using underground tunnels.” …
     “Israel is providing exactly the same amount of electricity to Gaza it always has. … ‘Palestinians’ instructed the Israelis not to provide the Strip with heavy-duty diesel because they could get the fuel - reportedly cheaper - from Egypt.” …
     “Assuming that the money for the fuel could be found, the question that must be asked is - why no calls to buy fuel from Israeli suppliers? Why are people's lives being put at risk unnecessarily? Why are we seeing headlines about an energy crisis in Gaza when the solution is so simple?” …
     “The decision to buy heavy-duty diesel from Egypt and not Israel was made by Hamas. Over the last year, the government in Gaza has gradually stopped buying diesel from Israel and increased its purchases from Egypt. This is also the source of the recent power problems in the Strip, including the local power plant shutting down.” … Added Comment: “Hatred of Israel is a greater priority for the Hamas leaders than bettering the lives of their own people. Again, it’s immaterial that Arabs suffer so long as it hurts the Jews.” (Ref. 13)

     So, let me see if I have this straight. Israel has supplied 65% of the electrical power used in the Gaza Strip and has continued to do so to this day, even while Palestinian terrorists were launching thousands of rocket into southern Israel from Gaza. Egyptian supplied natural gas has been stopped because of the unrest in Egypt. Similarly, supplies of smuggled gasoline, diesel fuel and oil from Egypt have been sharply reduced because of the ongoing Egyptian unrest, while, at the same time, Hamas has ordered the reduction or stoppage of the importation of petroleum supplies from Israel, which Israel had been supplying in the past and which Israeli companies are still willing to supply.

     In spite of all these facts, an official in Gaza has the chutzpah to blame Israel for the energy shortage in Gaza. But he is not alone, how many times do we hear the hue and cry that Israel is keeping goods and services from entering Gaza and it’s Israel that is the cause of all the misery in that wretched strip of land. It’s the same old story – Haman did it more than 2,000 years ago, Hitler did it 80 years ago, anti-Semites have done it throughout history and throughout the world, and they continue to do it today! Blame Israel and the Jews for the plight of the Arabs in Gaza and not Hamas and their terrorist brethren – blame the victim and not the perpetrator!

     On March 9, 2012, “Terrorist groups in Gaza launched a barrage of rockets at Israel.” …
     “The People’s Assembly in Egypt responded with fury to Israel’s retaliatory strikes against the Gaza rocket campaign, unanimously approving a resolution demanding the expulsion of Israel’s ambassador, Yaakov Amitai, and the halting of gas exports to Israel.
     “The resolution declared, ‘Egypt after the revolution will never be a friend of the Zionist entity, the number one enemy of Egypt and the Arab nation.’ It also urged the Egyptian government to reconsider ‘its relations and accords with that enemy,’ supported Palestinian resistance ‘in all its kinds and forms,’ and called for implementation of the Arab boycott of Israel.” (Ref. 14) Putting the vote in plain English, what the Egyptian Parliament said was the following:

• Egypt should stop shipping gas to Israel in violation of the Egypt–Israel peace treaty of 1979. In this treaty, Israel returned the entire Sinai Peninsula to Egypt and in return, Egypt agreed to supply Israel with gas from the Sinai gas fields. However, the newly installed People’s Assembly in Egypt believes that agreements with infidels can be broken whenever it is convenient.
• Egypt will always treat Israel as its enemy.
• Egypt should consider unilateral abrogation of the Egypt–Israel peace treaty of 1979. Agreements with infidels are only made to be broken whenever it is convenient.
• Egypt should support Palestinian terrorist attacks on Israel.
• Egypt should join in the Arab boycott of Israel in violation of the Egypt–Israel peace treaty of 1979. Agreements with infidels are only made to be broken whenever it is convenient.
• Israel has no right to self defense - no right to strike back against rocket and mortar attacks from Gaza.

1. Martin Niemöller , Associated Press, Wikiquote; http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Martin_Niem%C3%B6ller; {Accessed 9 April 2012}.
2. IDF soldiers want talk, but BU protesters walk, Leah Burros, The Jewish Advocate, Pages 1 and 31, 23 March 2012.
3. Can’t Buy Me Love , Dr. Alex Grobman, The Jewish Press , Page 6, 21 October 2005.
4. Khartoum Resolution (League of Arab States, 1 September 1967), Council on Foreign Relations; http://www.cfr.org/international-peace-and-security/khartoum-resolution/p14841 {accessed 27 March 2012}.
5. The Rise of Hamas; "Death to the Jews!", Khaled Abu Toameh, Gatestone Institute; International Policy Council; http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/2746/rise-of-hamas, 10 January 2012, {accessed 27 March 2012}.
6. Truth-Telling in the Middle East: Perfidy, Counterterrorism, and the Law of War , Louis René Beres, Crimes of War; crimesofwar.org, http://www.crimesofwar.org/commentary/truth-telling-in-the-middle-east-perfidy-counterterrorism-and-the-law-of-war/, 5 September 150, {Accessed 28 March 2012}.
7. Death toll in Syrian conflict rises to more than 9,000, UN coordinator says , Associated Press, FoxNews.com; http://www.foxnews.com/world/2012/03/27/death-toll-in-syrian-conflict-rises-to-more-than-000-un-coordinator-says/; 27 March 2012 {Accessed 2 April 2012}.
8. Global March to Jerusalem is a dud , Ryan Jones, Israel today Magazine; http://www.israeltoday.co.il/; Page 9, 2 April 2012 {Accessed 2 April 2012}.
9. Barghouti: No Peace Until Israel Leaves Judea and Samaria, Gavriel Queenann, Arutz 7; www.IsraelNationalNews.com, 25 January 2012.
10. Article by Nicole Winfield, Boston Sunday Globe, 1 December 2002.
11. Wiesel recalls hate propaganda in BU Talk, Mark I. Levenstein, The Jewish Advocate, Page 3, 4 November 2005.
12. Victims on the road to ‘peace’, Jeff Jacoby, Boston Sunday Globe, Page C10, 5 September 2010.
13. Gaza blackouts intensify - so they blame Israel , Louis René Beres, ELDER OF ZIYON; http://elderofziyon.blogspot.com/2012/02/gaza-blackouts-intensify-so-they-blame.html,14 February 2012, {Accessed 3 April 2012}.
14. Egypt Parliament Votes to Expel Israeli Ambassador, Rafi Harkham, The Jewish Press, Page 2, 16 March 2012.
15. After Rocket Attacks And Counterstrikes, A Cease-Fire Apparently Takes Hold, Marcy Oster, The Jewish Press, Pages 1 and 3, 16 March 2012.
16. Violence from Gaza; Where is the Outrage, Steve K. Walz, The Jewish Press, Page 9, 16 March 2012.