Resisting Israeli Brutality

"If we do not reform ourselves, we will become extinct. Nations which stick to principles that are at odds with the progress of civilization will come to an end. Such nations will not survive. Any attempt to justify or to legitimize terrorism is a terrorist idea; the idea and the act are equally dangerous."
Professor Ibtihal Al-Khatib, Kuwait University

Islam's glory days are long centuries gone. That time when Islamic ventures into cerebral pursuits of philosophy, medicine, astronomy, mathematics, invention, trade and other voyages of discoveries of the mind saw an urgently progressive tide of human excellence striving for ambitious knowledge. It was also a time of subtle and persistently pervasive discrimination against non-Muslims, yet recognized in today's climate as being acceptably tolerant.

Had the Nobel prizes been available in those golden years of Islam perhaps they would have been awarded generously to Muslims whose outstanding work made them notable in their era.That time has long lapsed. Islam has folded back into itself. There have been no discoveries that might benefit human existence since those long-gone centuries. Islam has regressed, as it has become more self-repressed it has become insular and resistant to any absolute other than to advance Islamic supremacy.

While Judaism and its practise never seemed to place constraints on Jewish cerebral functioning. Jews have steadily  won Nobel Prizes in all spheres of the arts and sciences since the Nobel committee began its work of identifying those whose actions and professions led them to excel, advancing human societies in the process.

The present situation in the Middle East with the never-ending war between Jews and Muslims is a reflection of the ancient animosities of tribe, clan, ethnic groups and religions that prevailed throughout history. We are, supposedly, living in a more civil, accommodating era in human history, or so we comfort ourselves, overlooking the mass atrocities and genocidal conflicts that have blemished more recent history.

The world looks askance at the implacable, incessant conflicts that erupt between Palestinian Arabs and Israeli Jews, the Jews insistent that they have a deserved and needed place in the Middle East, and the Arabs denying Jewish heritage and traditions ever existed in the Middle East; that Israel represents an alien foreign invasion whose presence has upset the balance of moderate tolerance of existence in the geography.

In a sense, Israel exists as a symbol of Western values, while the values of the Middle East are expressed through the monopolistic presence of Islam, a religion whose origins were taken from the Judaic tradition arising out of the Middle East, but patently interpreted to express the values of domination and conquest in reflection of a religion geared to appeal to implacably warring Bedouin tribes, challenging one another for the scarce resources of a desert environment.

The creation of the State of Israel was a logical outcome of aeons of brutal repression, rejection and oppression by successive rulers and nations who thought of Jews as interlopers and dangerous schemers culminating in the anti-Semitism of Europe leading Nazi Germany to near-success in exterminating the entire Jewish population of the continent. Israel, an ancient land reborn, was meant to exist as a last refuge for the world's Jewish diaspora. A Jewish homeland where security could be found.

Instead, the inhabitants of the newly-declared nation found themselves in scarce security as collected armies of the Muslim Arab nations marched to disperse the new state into oblivion, to restore to the land once dedicated to Islam its honour, disgraced at the presence of a non-Muslim state. The spectacular failure of assembled armies in their numbers prepared to annihilate the untrained militias of the fledgling state of Israel is legendary.

What established national agendas could not succeed with, non-state militias have since attempted to do.

Palestinian terrorism resulted, militias backed by the surrounding Arab countries. From the 1970s on terrorism took first place in global news as The PLO under Yasser Arafat exploited every opportunity they could to visit terror on Israel and on the Jewish presence internationally. From the 1972 Lod Airport attack to the Munich Olympics slaughter of Israeli athletes in 1972, to murdered Israeli children in Maalot  in 1974, and two years later a hijacked Air France plane where Jewish passengers were singled out for murder. There were more; there were always more.

From the massacre of Israelis in a bus on Israel's Coastal Road in 1978 to the 1985 Achille Lauro hijacking, to suicide bombings targeting civilian Israelis in buses, cafes, hotels, kindergartens, shopping centres and discotheques, leading to the two Intifadas and the current craze among young Palestinians to mount knife and car attacks on Jews walking in the streets of their country, driving in their cars, worshipping at their synagogues.

The international community reads skewed reports of Palestinians dying in the commission of these attacks; the attacked dead or injured secondary.

It is hardly surprising that young Palestinians aspire to mount these attacks. When one grows up with expectations of their future behaviours, the tendency is to live up to those expectations. And from the time Palestinian children are young they overhear discourse on the wrongdoing of Jews against Arabs. When they begin to attend school the books they study contain references to Jews' wrongs against Palestinians; maps they are given omit the presence of Israel. Television programs are geared to supporting the urgency of Arab children growing up to be defenders of the 'resistance'.

The 'occupation' of land that Palestinians feel should be theirs, includes the very land that Israel sits upon, not merely those areas that the Palestinian Authority claims for the consumption of international media is rightfully theirs. Israel expanded the territory it claims as its own when it successfully fought off a series of combined Arab attacks meant to expunge it entirely from the Middle East. This includes Jerusalem, its historical capital, illegally administered by Jordan before 1967.

Palestinian children are taught to view Israel and Jews as evil and as enemies of the Palestinians. Those children are inculcated with the vision of themselves and their communities as victims of Jewish aggression. Only the deliberately astute might ask themselves why any country that is incessantly attacked would not have to protect itself from unexpected assaults by military means. Tribalism in Africa where children are given Kalashnikov assault rifles and taught the mechanics of conflict, is reflected in the Palestinian Authority.

During the Iran/Iraq war the Grand Ayatollah ordered Iranian teenagers be sent into mine-saturated territory in front of the armed Iranian military to clear the way before battles with the Iraqi military. The Iranian teens, dispensable in their hundreds of thousands, were armed with "Keys to Paradise" while they dismantled the bombs leaving the way clear for the armed soldiers. Those keys were guaranteed to give them access straight to Paradise once they were blown to smithereens.

And so it is with Palestinian children, taught to be martyrs, that their sublime sacrifice of self would be rewarded.



Palestinian children watch the Islamic State videos, exalting the ISIL fighters as warriors of Islam. Beheadings, crucifixions are, after all, forms of capital punishment used by the state itself for crimes such as apostasy, in countries like Pakistan, Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia. Slitting the throats of their enemies becomes a natural outcome of what these children are exposed to in defense of their religion, their society, their aspirations. 

Muslims like to point out that Islam forbids that women, children and the aged be killed, but there are fatwas that absolve the attackers from censure in Islam, as long as their victims are Jews of any age, since "Tomorrow they will be soldiers". The Muslim Brotherhood has been responsible for breeding an assortment of death-dealing militias from Hamas to Palestinian Islamic Jihad and ISIS, Black September and many other radical terrorist groups.

What is good enough for Islamic State in slicing off heads is good enough for Palestinians.

The Palestinian youth are secure in the knowledge that they are held up as heroes when they attempt to kill a Jew. If they are themselves killed while they act they know they will rise immediately to Paradise where all their wishes will be fulfilled, while down on Earth their families will receive monetary compensation, their names will become hallowed, and public places named in their honour.

As for the Palestinian Authority; in these young sacrifices they find another weapon against Israel, informing the international community that Israel has "executed" young Palestinians.