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Mirror, Mirror, on the Wall: Who is the Greatest Poison of Them All?
April 26, 2004
By Robbie Friedmann
Bay City, Michigan has discovered it has vociferous hate in its midst. Not just
the kind that vilifies but the kind that actively calls to kill Jews (“Antisemitic
Preacher Gets Attention, Fear: Many in Bay City area worry about his impact,”
Marsha Low, Detroit Free Press, 12 April 2004). The Detroit Press
followed with an editorial that could have been stronger. It lacked an
unequivocal posture of not tolerating hate but at least it suggested the hate
mongers “deserve no audience.” Not strong enough, but better than silence (“Let
the Message be Clear: Racists are not welcome,” Editorial, Detroit Free
Press, 19 April 2004).
Yet a week earlier the very same paper published an op-ed piece by a local
Islamist cleric who wholeheartedly supported the terrorism of Hamas, portraying
it as “peace seeking” and displaying Israel as “committing war-crimes.”
Obviously the paper is very selective in applying the term “hate-monger” and if
a writer does not outright say “kill Jews” he is welcome at this paper, even if
a cursory reading suggests he is supporting genocide. After all, his use of the
term “justice” means exactly that (“Faith
and Policy: Peace still possible despite sheik’s killing,” Imam Mohammad Ali
Elahi, Special to The Detroit News, 10 April 2004).
To a large extent the support for terrorism is not always coming from Islamist
sources in Western countries, but often from government officials as high as the
British Foreign Minister, who express moral indignation at the elimination of
Hamas leaders but almost in the same breath celebrated the killing of Saddam’s
two sons. That hypocrisy was not left unnoticed by some observers (“Spare
Us the Righteous Tears at the Death of Another Monster,” Barbara Amiel,
Daily Telegraph, 19 April 2004).
Another observer carries his own personal indignation even further by
criticizing a world that is insensitive to act in accordance with the very
institutions it has built (“People
are Beautiful, the World Stinks,” Dennis Prager, Townhall.com, 20 April
2004): “I feel that I am living in a world that is morally sick. Good is called
bad and bad is called ‘militant’, ‘victimized’, ‘misunderstood’ and ‘the product
of hopelessness’, but rarely bad. Only those who fight the bad are called bad.”
Respectable newspapers (including the Boston Globe) have recently carried
a cartoon implying that Jews control the White House. To suggest it is not
factual gives too much credibility to such a charge, yet the absurdity of such
blatant vilifications does need to be pointed out. It is no less offensive to
the President than to Jews and Israel, but obviously there is no hesitation in
using it (Don
Wright’s cartoon, Palm Beach Post).
Terrorism is not only perpetrated and supported financially and through terror
networks. It is supported through a set of claims, charges, grievances and myths
that have been effectively perpetrated through the years using the technique of
the ‘Big Lie’ to promote ‘realities’ that are unfounded. Much of this has to do
with the myth of Arab “disaster inflicted by Jews” (the 1948
nakba) - when they perpetrated it
themselves. The refugee problem - which they created and maintained, the
mal-ascription of traits and intent to the ‘enemy’ that actually fit them far
better are all part of Arab myth-making tactics. Therefore any efforts to
separate myth from facts and expose lies where they are is worth paying
attention to (“The
Arab Lie Whose Time Has Come,” David Gutmann, FrontPageMagazine.com, 21
April 2004).
Focus is advisable because what started in 1948 (actually years before that)
continues to spread. Now Palestinian children are indoctrinated to a new canard
that not only do Jews ‘need’ the blood of Christian and Muslim children for
Passover but Jews also committed genocide against Palestinian children in a
holocaust type fashion (“PA Children’s Play: The Jews burned Palestinians in
ovens,” Itamar Marcus, Palestinian Media
Watch, 19 April 2004).
Not only does this technique of the Big Lie work well on young Palestinians, it
is perpetrated continually by official government sources in the Arab world. The
latest such propaganda is a new/old antisemitic canard that blames Jews for all
the ‘evils’ of the world (“Leading
Egyptian Journalist: The Jews are Behind Every Disaster or Terrorist Act,”
MEMRI, Special Dispatch - Egypt/Arab Antisemitism Documentation Project, 23
April 2004, No. 700).
One has to actually read this venom in order to believe that an intelligent
human being is capable of writing such trumpery: “If you want to know the real
perpetrator of every disaster or every act of terrorism, look for the Zionist
Jews. They are behind all the violent and terror operations that have occurred
everywhere in the world. [They do this] first of all in order to slap [the label
of the attacks] on the Arabs and Muslims, and second to harm them, distort their
image and represent them to the world as terrorists who endanger innocents. What
is even more dangerous is that after every terror operation they perpetrate,
they leave a sign, clue or traces meant to show that the perpetrators are Arab
Muslims.”
Despite official criticism from Europe, England, Russia, the U.N. and a
‘balanced’ statement from the U.S. that Israel has the right to defend itself
but needs to “consider the consequences,” an inescapable fact remains: Hamas is
targeting the U.S. as well and hence Israel has done the U.S. (and itself) a
favor by beginning to eliminate its leaders (“Hamas
vs. America,” Erick Stakelbeck, New York Post, 21 April 2004):
“High-ranking Hamas officials have already managed to infiltrate America, the
most notorious example being Musa Abu Marzook, a senior Hamas leader now based
in Syria. Marzook, who had been living in northern Virginia, was detained by
U.S. authorities for 22 months and deported to Jordan in 1997. Following
Yassin’s death, Marzook warned his former host country that ‘currently the U.S.
is not a target [of Hamas], but in the future, only God knows’.”
The hate that is seething in the Gaza strip is a frenzy that feeds itself with
constant burning of Israeli and American symbols, and by issuing ongoing threats
(“Youths
on Gaza Frontline Keep Hatred Alive: Fighting or waiting to fight, boys bear the
brunt of the Israeli incursion,” Ewen MacAskill, The Guardian, 23
April 2004).
Many simply prefer not to understand, recognize or even see it for what it is,
namely that terrorism prevails not by the use of force, but by its victims
weakness (“The
Hard Lessons of Terror,” Melanie Phillips, London Daily Mail, 22
April 2004): “In reality, Israel is fighting a war for its own survival that has
now gone on for more than fifty years. The Palestinians have repeatedly stated
their aim remains the eradication of Israel altogether. Why is Israel alone
deemed not entitled to defend itself? And here, the warning for Britain and
Europe too could not be starker. For like Israel, we are facing the same
‘asymmetric warfare’, in which conventional military might becomes worthless if
countries are not prepared to use it against those who are willing to turn even
children into human bombs...The danger lies in not recognizing that terrorism is
encouraged by weakness, not strength.”
Indeed, experts who understand terrorism suggest viewing it as an epidemic (“Post-Modern
Terrorism: suicide strikes,” Amnon Barzilai, Ha’aretz, 20 April
2004): “Fighting against suicide bombers, you have to follow the assumptions
that modern society uses when confronting viral epidemics...The confrontation
with terror wrought by suicide strikers is like the fight against viruses in
terms of the inability to seize the [terror] leaders and the visibility of the
suicide assailants. The remedy in the fight against terror can be compared to
medicine against viruses.”
The reasons there has not yet been a concerted global effort to defeat suicide
terrorists suggest: “a failure to understand that the suicide terrorists have
effectively disarmed armies; a problem fighting an enemy who believes that any
means can be used to attain its goals; the prevalence of financial and moral
support for the Palestinians, even though they utilize suicide terror; and there
is European hesitation.” But even the U.S. could do more than it does in terms
of “grabbing the reins in the global struggle against terror.”
Aiding and abetting terror seems to be rein-free in the West. Despite efforts to
curb financial support to terrorist organizations, it appears that freezing
terrorist funds is not an easy task and in a typical British understatement the
Director of the Charity Commission Legal Services Department admitted that (“Giving
Alms or Arms?” Sharon Sadeh, Ha’aretz, 19 April 2004): “There is a
possibility that money that was raised in the U.K. has been used for terrorism.”
Even more serious a problem than not being able to stop the funneling of
‘charity’ funds to support terrorism is the sense of defeatism, finger-pointing
and what one observer calls “whimpering” that shackles the likelihood of
fighting terrorism and winning it (“Stop
Whimpering, We’re in a Battle,” Mark Steyn, Daily Telegraph, 20 April
2004): “... the whimperers are only a minority of the American people, but they
are even more plugged in – in the media, in politics, in the academy. The only
relevant Vietnamese comparison is this: then as now, for America it is a choice
between victory or self-defeat.”
Indeed, following the distinction U.S. President George W. Bush made between
good and evil some suggest - erroneously and maliciously - that the U.S. is too
closely bonding itself with Israel. Last week the U.N. envoy to Iraq, Lakhdar
Brahimi, ‘revealed’ that the “biggest obstacle” to peace in Iraq, indeed the
“great poison,” is not al-Qaeda, not Iran, not Syria, not terrorists, not
Islamists but it is nothing less than Israel and her policies (“Brahimi’s
Israel Comments Draw Annan, Israeli Ire,” Ha’aretz Service and
Agencies, 24 April 2004). Public officials (elected or appointed) in the U.S.
have been demoted or fired for comments far less vitriolic than this one (a
Senate Majority leader, a
football commentator)
and it remains to be seen how President Bush will handle this latest
embarrassment handed him by the U.N.
The U.N. tried to control the damage by suggestion these were “private views”
not reflective of U.N. However, a look at the man who made the comment raises
serious doubts as to his ‘objectivity’ and ability to hand the world a peaceful
Iraq (“How Bush’s Iraq Man Betrayed the Lebanese to Syrian Regime: Brahimi this
Week Called Israel’s Policies ‘The Great Poison in the Region’,” Eli Lake,
The New York Sun, 23 April 2004). He is ‘credited’ with helping install
Syria to occupy Lebanon and as a former official of the Arab league he cannot
brag of excessive fairness to things not Arab/Muslim. Two or three decades ago
it was seen as an ‘internal Arab affair’ but his positions provide a valuable
context to the damage that he currently brings forth and not only to Israel.
Yet neither the Secretary General of the U.N. nor the dubious body itself has
any grounds to provide plausible deniability on their negative attitudes towards
Israel. Indeed Brahimi reflects in a Hi Fidelity format his compliance with a
string of U.N. negative decisions and hostile climate against Israel that cannot
be interpreted as anything other than racist and antisemitic (“U.N. vs. Israel:
Telling Standards,” Anne Bayefsky, National Review, 20 April 2004):
“Sooner or later one can only hope a light will go on. Whatever superficial lip
service is paid to the contrary, according to the U.N., Israel has no right of
self-defense. Everything the U.N. does in the context of the Arab-Israeli
conflict -- whether it be calls for the return to 1967’s indefensible borders,
declarations that Jerusalem is occupied territory, demands for the return of
Palestinian refugees ending the Jewishness of the state, or efforts to isolate
and demonize Israel as the worst human-rights violator in the world today --
emanates from the standpoint that the Jewish side is not entitled to fight
back.”
Not surprisingly some supporters of Israel attempted to intercept/avoid such
‘criticism’ by promoting the distancing of Israel from the U.S. as also serving
‘Israeli interests’. Observers examining this point suggest it is no longer
valid for the U.S. and the West to make it and it certainly is no longer valid
for Israel to do so either. By making a clear distinction between good and evil
those who are on the side of good and are under the threat of evil should stand
together un-apologetically and offer each other unwavering support (“A
Clear Divide Between Good and Evil,” Stuart Cohen, Ha’aretz, 19 April
2004).
For years, cynical commentators have jabbed the Palestinians with the famous
adage coined by former Israeli foreign minister Abba Eban that they “never miss
an opportunity to miss an opportunity.” In a sense this is a condescending
approach that considers the Palestinians as lost souls who cannot find their way
in the modern political labyrinth. Rather, they purposefully miss the
opportunities because they want to. Because they do not see the opportunities
the same way others do. When they talk about peace they do not mean it (as was
proven by the Oslo Accords which their
leaders later defined as a “Trojan Horse against Israel”) and when they threaten
violence they know exactly why they are doing it - to gain additional territory
by force (“Realities
Palestinians Don’t Want to Face,” Cragg Hines, Houston Chronicle, 17
April 2004). To wit: when a Hamas leader declares that “We will have no
cease-fire and we will not put our gun aside until the liberation of Palestine,
with its capital Al-Quds Ash-Shareef, holy Jerusalem. This is our legitimate
right. Palestine from the river to the sea, that is our legitimate right in this
homeland,” leaves Israel with very few opportunities to survive as a free
country in that territorial space.
Little wonder that Israel finds itself now in a jam when just between Holocaust
Memorial Day and Memorial Day for its fallen soldiers and victims of terror, a
traitor completed his 18 years in prison for revealing Israel’s nuclear secrets
and the first thing he did out of prison was to have a celebrity press
conference declaring his hate for the country and its very existence. It may be
convenient for the Anglican Church to adopt him and for Western media to present
him as a “whistleblower” but that is like saying a vicious serial murderer is
actually providing the community with the (legal and legitimized) service of
euthanasia..... (“The Vanunu
Myths and Israeli Deterrence Policy,” Gerald M. Steinberg, Jerusalem Issue
Brief, Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, Vol. 3, No. 22 – 19 April 2004).
This war is as much about words and terms of reference as it is about military
tactics. Perhaps even more so. The frame of reference the terrorists use should
not be allowed to penetrate and control us. America is learning a hard lesson in
Iraq as Israel is learning a hard lesson in the disputed territories and inside
the country. These remain the only two countries that are committed to fighting
terrorism at its roots. Could they be doing a better job? Of course, but no one
else comes even close and indeed with the passing of time the members of the
Coalition seem to want to have their commitment to fighting terrorism annulled.
The sooner the terrorists stop receiving financial support, a supportive social
climate and be stripped from imposing their terms of reference - the sooner they
will crumble. The U.S. could make a quantum leap in the fight against terrorism
by demanding the removal of Brahimi as the U.N. envoy to Iraq. Should the U.N.
not comply, it should be next on the list because that is really where much
poison lies.