Is Peace Possible in the Middle East?
The Middle East “peace process,” as in Macbeth’s great soliloquy, “creeps on this petty pace from day to day,” depleting its innumerable tomorrows and leading to nothing but misery and despair. It has only “lighted fools/The way to dusty death” and to failure after failure, being quite definitely “a tale/Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,/Signifying nothing.” Of course, the bitter and mephitic Scots laird is speaking of the futility of life while we, on the other hand, are considering the total senselessness of a quixotic and fugitive political enterprise that is heading nowhere except endless stalemate or renewed conflict.
Surely, it has become obvious by this time, after sixty-plus years of tractionless discussions and bloody confrontations, that the current negotiating paradigm of Israeli concessions for Palestinian recalcitrance, that is, land for no peace and a raft of further demands, is simply not working, nor is it going to work. Why the Israeli leadership ever embarked on so fruitless a project is beyond rational explanation. In matters of life and death, unanchored hope is no substitute for hard-headed assaying and a grounding in history. For peace to have even an unhouseled ghost of a chance, several correlative concessions on the part of the Palestinians would be absolutely mandatory. For example:
- The Palestinians would have to agree that a Palestinian state would be no more Judenrein than Israel would be, let’s say, Muslimrein; there are one and half million Arabs resident in Israel, most of whom will not surrender their Israeli citizenship. Why then should 300,000 Jews living in Judea and Samaria be evicted from their homes?
- The Palestinians would have to realize that their insistence on the “right of return” to Israel of seven million so-called “refugees” is a complete nonstarter, and must be dropped from their negotiating position. Israel is not about to commit demographic suicide.
- They will be required to recognize Israel as a Jewish state.
- They will have to accept Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and Ramallah as the capital of Palestine.
- They will need to be reminded that the “green line” is not an officially ratified international border but merely a temporary armistice line, allowing for adjustments that ensure Israel’s retention of strategic depth. For the Palestinian Authority to assume that its proposed or unilaterally declared state would abut the pre-1967 borders is a violation of UN Resolution 242. Moreover, Clause 5(2) of the Rhodes Armistice Agreement of 1949 stipulates that “In no sense are the ceasefire lines to be interpreted as political or territorial borders” and that they do not affect “the final disposition of the Palestine question.”
- They will consent to cease promulgating anti-Jewish hatred in media and mosque and to erase anti-Israeli incitement from textbook and classroom.
- Given Israel’s meager territorial scale and the volatility and inherent violence in the region, especially the aggressive meddling of Iran in local affairs, the smuggling of rockets and other armaments threatening Israel, and the inroads made by al-Qaeda and its offshoots, the Palestinian Authority will be compelled to permit a defensive Israeli presence in the adjacent hill country.
The likelihood of the Palestinian Authority agreeing to even one of these conditions is virtually nil. But in order for a viable peace to take root, all of these conditions would need to be implemented. Further, none of the desiderata I have listed resolves the dilemma of a Hamas terrorist government solidly entrenched in the Gaza Strip and committed to the destruction of Israel. Neither do these terms take into account a bellicose Hezbollah, equipped with 40,000 Iranian and Syrian supplied rockets, camped on Israel’s northern border. The creation of a Palestinian state would do nothing to defuse the tensions in the area and would conceivably only serve to exacerbate them. For even should the above provisions be settled upon, there is no guarantee that the new Palestine would not join the Islamic axis. Ultimately, as Jonathan Spyer cogently argues in The Transforming Fire, the conflict is not really about borders per se. It is simply one aspect of a world-historical clash between a Hydra-headed Islamic collective and a half-dormant Western world, with Israel in the immediate firing line.
Whither, then, peace? A realistic assessment of the situation would indicate that peace, a harmonious resolution of competing agendas, will always recede the closer we seem to be approaching it via road maps, Quartets, direct or indirect negotiations, interim agreements, or any of the diplomatic sedatives currently on offer. According to recent polls, the bottom-up approach adopted by the Israeli government, stoking the Palestinian economy and building its productive base, has not materially altered the fierce anti-Israeli consensus among the populace. As Jonathan Rosenblum writes, “There can be no peace at present — and perhaps ever — because the Palestinians have pursued not a two-state solution, but a two-stage solution, of which the second stage is inevitably the establishment of a unitary Palestinian rule from the Mediterranean Sea to the Jordan River. Even those Palestinians who profess to support a two-state solution, make clear to pollsters that they do not see it as a final solution, but merely as a stage to a takeover of the Jewish state, which they will never, in any event, recognize as such.”
Peace in the Middle East is, in any sober analysis, probably and at the very least generations away from accomplishment. Peace may emerge after another thirty or fifty years of grinding exhaustion or a major outbreak of hostilities that leaves the belligerents incapable of pursuing so debilitating a struggle. And this is a best case scenario.
But there is another possibility, which is to give up entirely on a “peace process” that, thanks to Palestinian intransigence and Islamic Jew-hatred, is doomed to bankruptcy. An unsentimental view of life would conclude that there are some problems in this world for which there are no good solutions, only modes of containment. Iran is a problem with a solution; Israel/Palestine is not. The modus operandi in the Holy Land, such as it is, involves accepting the necessity of an armed truce, punctuated by occasional pre-emptive strikes and local flare-ups, on the model of managing an incurable disease. For if a disease is incurable, it is utter folly to imagine that it can be made to disappear courtesy of some miraculous cure. And the Middle East disease is, frankly, incurable.
As I wrote in The Big Lie, what I am suggesting is, after all, not something that we regard as unacceptable or morally objectionable in everyday life. We understand that it would be perilous to succumb to unfounded aspirations and pious notions by dismissing facts and embracing unrealistic choices. If we discover that we are suffering from diabetes, there is no point in believing that the disease can be made to reconsider. Rather, we must rely on daily treatment, however irksome it may be.
Put simply, we often have to do what we would prefer not having to do. In private life, such constraints may be financial or medical, but the ultimate purpose is survival — just as it is in the realm of national existence, even if this means having to stay on a permanent war footing. If you have to take insulin, then you have to take insulin, or die. If you have to pay down a mortgage, then you have to pay down a mortgage, or lose your house. And if you are dealing with an enemy that has a 1400 year history of conquest and spoliation, and which is committed to your annihilation, then you must remain in a state of perennial military readiness and be prepared to defend yourself in perpetuity. Clearly, this is not a pleasant option but, unfortunately, there is no other feasible alternative. What is true for people is also true for a people. I, for one, cannot see the value in pretending otherwise.
Israel cannot afford to capitulate, not only to its self-declared enemies but to its own passionate yearning for peace. Falling backwards over the possibility of peace is a bungled negotiating paradigm, as Oslo made painfully clear. Any Israeli politician still hooked on Oslo represents a threat to his country. The same applies to the Israeli left — Kadima, Labor, Meretz, Haaretz, the peace constituencies, a treasonable professoriate and many NGOs — who are essentially a pack of useful jewdiots, victims-in-waiting of their own self-immolating policies.
Similarly, any Western diplomat addicted to untenable proposals and implausible assumptions about the achievement of a stable and long-lasting peace in the Middle East represents a threat to Israel as well, and, indeed, to the entire region. When EU foreign policy chief and resident gargoyle Catherine Ashton asserts that there is “no alternative to a negotiated deal,” she displays only ignorance and bad faith, weeds which spring from the mounting dung heap of EU policy-making and British anti-Semitism. Ashton is not referring specifically to Mahmoud Abbas’ threat to declare statehood unilaterally, which would make a modicum of sense if she were. Like her blinkered counterparts — Tony Blair, Hillary Clinton, Dennis Ross, Tzipi Livni, Ehud Barak and others — she is insisting on a wider program that envisages what is both counter-productive and impossible.
In the international theater, it is fair to assume that the United States will never form a friendly alliance with Russia or China but must stay alert and maintain a credible deterrent capability, regardless of commercial exchanges and temporary reciprocities. On the level of the individual, as I have argued, one does not resist the need for medication or medical procedures if one desires to prolong one’s life. It is no different in the Middle East, in particular with respect to the survival of the Jewish state.
Is peace possible in the Middle East? Will Israel manage to arrive at an entente cordiale with its implacable Muslim enemies, whether on its own initiative or with the coercive “assistance” of the West? The answer is no. Or not in the foreseeable future. Militant Islam is not about to go away anytime soon, and neither is Palestinian faux-irredentism, anti-Semitism, or anti-Zionism. “Radical Islam,” writes British historian Andrew Roberts, “is never going to accept the concept of an Israeli state, so the struggle is likely to continue for another sixty years.”
Israel does not have the luxury of losing a war, any more than it does of achieving a false peace. It is not — or no longer — in a position to rely on a slip-now grip-later political system, but needs to react with strength, intelligence, and dispatch. It cannot accede to the Olmertian velleity of being “tired of winning.” It cannot trust the security guarantees of its ostensible Western allies or the United Nations, which are not worth the paper they’re scribbled on. It must, to quote Melanie Phillips, “stop conniving with the premise of their enemies that the Middle East impasse would be solved by establishing a state of Palestine to which the settlements — and thus by extension Israel — are the obstacle.” This is a false narrative that needs to be decisively countered. Israel must also parry the subtle blandishments of the “normalcy tilt,” that is, once memories of terrorist atrocities begin to fade, that life will continue in the cafés and on the beaches of Tel Aviv as per usual. For Israel, with its precarious foothold at the very epicenter of the Dar al-Harb, or Islamic House of War, is not a “normal nation” nor will it ever be.
It is the destiny of the Jewish nation to be constantly in danger of sedition from within and aggression from without. Apart from incendiary violence, it must confront a world-wide disinformation campaign pivoting on what David Harris calls the two “maladies,” namely, the “confirmation bias” (valorizing information unfavorable to Israel, irrespective of its untruth) and “reverse causality” (switching cause and effect, so that Israel is made responsible for the actions of its enemies). Such meretricious impulses or tropisms appeal to both anti-Semites and anti-Zionists and have become the common property of both Jew and Gentile, some Israelis and many non-Israelis, alike.
It is an open question who is more contemptible, the Jew who lights the fire under the cauldron or the cannibal who throws him into it — all, of course, under the sign of “peace,” which is only a synonym for eventual eclipse. It needs to be candidly said. The enemy is threefold: an Islamic aggressor who will not relent, of whom the Palestinians are the advance column; the reptilian Jew who contrives against his own people; and their Western enablers, primarily in Europe and the current American administration. For each of these, peace is only subversion by another name and war by other means.
Israel’s survival, however, is indeed possible, even if peace is not. But it should begin to act in certain demonstrable ways. It must demobilize its homegrown Quislings and intellectual vandals, with argument, reason or, if need be, the application of legal force where appropriate. There is no excuse for hostile NGOs spreading harmful propaganda on the European dime. There is no justification for state-supported leftist professors brazenly undermining the very country that pays their salaries. It serves no purpose to cosset Muslim groups and firebrands who seek to bring down the state, or to turn the other cheek when rockets fall on its civilian communities. In addition, Israel must take control of the explanatory narrative, or, in a current slang expression, “change the diskette.” And the debacle of military unpreparedness and poor leadership, as during the 2006 Lebanon War, must be avoided at all costs.
Forget peace. It’s not going to happen. And it is not a risk worth taking since unchecked sentimentality is the most ruthless of serial killers. Camp David is the inevitable precursor of the Intifada. The situation is admittedly distressing but it is by no means unrelievedly desolate. For Israel will prevail if it succeeds in preserving a reasonable degree of internal unity, and remains confident, steadfast, realistic, and, above all, vigilant.
I think the middle east peace process has a bright future ahead of it. I don’t think it’ll end any time soon.
I agree, as soon as Iran gets a couple of nukes the middle east will become very, very bright.
I see the aussie has an opinion on this one too; a troll is a troll is a troll.
But on a serious note, given that Hussein O’Bambo has now six more years to go, things don’t look bright for Israel. And the more I think about it, and the more I see how is this Tucson event playing out in the “media” (here and abroad) the more I’m convinced it was a set job (and I’m no fan of Palin).
America is now an Indonesia-like country in many respects, one of them being it’s political structure. It resembles somewhat that of a soft muslim dictatorship of the late Suharto years. The press is just as unbiased and informative as the Suharto press. Not an unrelated event that BHO spent time there. By the time he is through with his two terms, America might be resembling an oversized Kenya.
If Isreal is still looking to America for a “friend,” they’re in for some deep disappointment.
I see the aussie has an opinion on this one too; a troll is a troll is a troll.
And you?
But on a serious note, given that Hussein O’Bambo has now six more years to go, things don’t look bright for Israel.
Nonsense. They’ll still have a perfectly functioning peace process in 6 years.
And the more I think about it, and the more I see how is this Tucson event playing out in the “media” (here and abroad) the more I’m convinced it was a set job (and I’m no fan of Palin).
Now THAT’S awesome. Do tell … who was jared working for when he pulled that trigger? Hmm.?
Hello? WO? Who set up jared?
No Mathew you are completely wrong there is absolutely no chance at all of peace in the Holy Land. The Muslims do not want peace they want the destruction of Israel and the death of the Jews. Its not about land it has never been about land . The Muslims who are ARAB INVADERS already have over 80% of what was the original Mandate of Palestine and two states Syria and Jordan and Egypt OCCUPIES the Sinai. So why do Muslims need ANOTHER state and that carved out of the less than 20% Israel has. Will Muslims accept a peace deal well maybe but ONLY as a stepping stone to MORE demands and Muslims will muddy the waters calling it a “HUDNA” a TEMPORARY Islamic truce which Muslims make when weak and can beak at will. You need to read more Muslim books and thoughts Mathew.
I’m a bit depressed that none of you detected the irony in my response. It wasn’t subtle.
Please, don’t make me explain it. It would be national disgrace. Just read what I posted and think about it.
One side is willing. The other side is mired in bloodthirsty savage ignorance.
So, no.
The US is now a fully owned subsidiary of the Middle East arab money, bankrolled by the Chinese commies.
Isreal is now on the other side of where the US stands.
A piece of advice for the Isrealis: try to find some real friends, and forget those Jews here in the US who are managers of that arab petrodollar. They’re your enemies, too.
Thank you. I only wish I would see this published in the Israeli media.
Mr Solway, might I suggest to you that you take some time & write a few talkbacks in Israeli English-language newspapers like YNET?
Totally. How about publishing this article in the NY Times? As if.
Jay Shapiro’s excellent radio show on A7 last weekend drives home the very relevant point that it would take at least 15 years, at least one generation, for anything to improve if it would happen at all. No point in even talking about a solution until then. I recommend we all listen to this…
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Radio/News.aspx/2811
Thoughts become words, words manifest as deeds, deeds become habit and habit hardens into character. The poison in which the islamists’ minds have been marinating for so long has become who they are, how they define themselves.
This is the most powerful statement of the political situation on Israel and the mideast that I have ever come across and that even includes the outstanding writings of Carolyn Glick and Barry Rubin, two of the most knowledgeable and inciteful current mideast political analysts appearing today. The writing was clear, elegant and always to the point and the logic was absolutely compelling. For me, it has crystallized the opinions and perspective I have been grappling with the last few months.
Robert, you got it right.
By the way, as someone deeply enmeshed (in more ways than one)with events on the ground in Israel, I can assure the readers of one thing-peace, the catch all phrase for all that ails the Middle East, is about as close to fruition as pigs flying.
Simply put, since one side views peace in the western lexicon-the laying down of arms and living as good neighbors,and the other side views peace as the road to future conquest-the twain shall NEVER meet.
The most realistic outcome is that of a tamping down of war, the likes of which can ONLY be accomplished through the Arab realization that Israel IS the stronger horse.
Robert, I’m sure you mean insightful…
Probably.
Yet both are true.
Everything spot on but, as one who lives in Shiloh, a “disputed territory” location, the lack of reference to actual superior rights from a legal, historical, cultural and religious perspective, as well as the moral and justice quotient, is to be regretted. I have a right to reside in Shiloh not as a “settler” but as a revenant, as someone who has returned to an ancestral heritage home. That right was accepted by European antisemites for centuries who told their Jewish populace to “get to Palestine!” (note: ” Hep! was the cry of the Crusaders as they swept through Europe, annihilating one Jewish community after another; it stood for Hierosolyma est perdita [Jerusalem is destroyed], and was taken up again by anti-Jewish rioters in Germany beginning in 1819). It was accepted by philo-semites who sought for centuries to assist the reconstitution (the term used in the League of Nations decision to grant Gt. Britain the Mandate) of the Jewish National Home. Claims of “illegality” are propaganda. This too plays a role in the ability and willingness of the Arab side to achieve the necessary concessions you note.
We have MORE right/title to Judea and Samaria (and some might argue Gaza)than ANY people have to their land that they now occupy.
In a purely historical and legal sense our title is rock solid. The biblical connection is beyond dispute, even rabid anti-semites know this to be true.
In effect, title to our heartland/Jerusalem is what gives us the right to live in Tel Aviv et al,NOT the other way around.Facts, they are stubborn….
The only “rights” you two have are the ones purchased by a gun. Were the guns of the Arabs bigger they would enforce their “rights”.
International law is only applicable by force when there is a power vacuum where a dictator or such can be plucked out by outside forces; this is rare.
“Might Makes Right” is reality and I would say to keep your powder dry. The entirety of the United States was co-opted by force and not by rule of law. Laws regarding this act were made up as needed and if you weren’t part of the pack then you were out of luck.
The rights of the inhabitants of Tenochtitlan and Constantinople are nowhere to be found. With Israel’s nuclear weapons, no army in the middle east will risk their capitals for the Palestinian Arabs. Even if Iran had nuclear weapons, why would they risk a nuclear exchange that would profit them nothing and cost them everything? Iran can’t even be confident their delivery systems haven’t been compromised so that their own rockets wouldn’t in fact target Tehran.
This summary of the state of play of the Middle East is quite correct. The Europeans would be much relieved if the Jews were just annihilated once and for all. All of there game playing is a fig leaf. As for the Arabs, show me a ‘moderate’ Arab leader who espouses peaceful rapprochement with the Israelis, and I’ll show you a dead Arab. It is, indeed, a tale told by an idiot.
It is always refreshing to read a realistic perspective on Israel and the Middle East. Good luck to Israel on ridding itself of it’s “homegrown Quislings and intellectual vandals”. We haven’t had much success with that here in the States.
For two generations US policy has been handicapped by left-wing agents who have no interest in US or Israeli security, much less a lasting peace in general-anywhere.
And that’s the shame. We know who these people are and what they really want. Yet somehow, we don’t seem able to pin them down and throw them out. So thousands die each year, not with a bang, but a whimper.
There never will be any peace in that part of the world. Never. We are fools to keep trying. So long as you have the Palestinians embracing terrorist organizations like Hamas and, especially, Hezbollah that are dedicated to the destruction of Israel, you’re not going anywhere with any “peace process.” I don’t even know why we bother anymore. Even Bill Clinton, who was the American president who came the closest to some sort of an agreement, found out to his dismay that the Palestinians were never actually going to agree to anything. It must be clear to anyone that the Palestinians simply want Israel to disappear and to turn the clock back to 1945. Well, it ain’t going to happen and as long as they keep clinging to that stupid belief, there will never be any “peace.” Never.
No it is not possible, nor will it ever be possible. They have been fighting since the beginning of time, and will fight until the end of the world. There is nothing we can do to stop them.
We need to bring our troops home for good and close many of our bases across the world.
Amen and amen. We are killing ourselves with these ‘adventures’.
This is almost the best assessment of the Mid East situation that I have read. Please, please, spread it far and wide!
However there is one point that is incomplete and I would take further.
When you say with reference to the EU’s appointed ‘foreign minister’ Caroline Ashton:
“Like her blinkered counterparts — Tony Blair, Hillary Clinton, Dennis Ross, Tzipi Livni, Ehud Barak and others — she is insisting on a wider program that envisages what is both counter-productive and impossible.”
I would say, all these people are highly intelligent and tough or they would never have been able to climb the slippery political power heap, and survive, and so they are not blinkered. They must, by definition, know exactly what they are doing.
So can one possibly try and discover what is their true agenda?
But there is another possibility, which is to give up entirely on a “peace process” that, thanks to Palestinian intransigence and Islamic Jew-hatred, is doomed to bankruptcy…the Middle East disease is, frankly, incurable.
Frankly, yes.
And if you are dealing with an enemy that has a 1400 year history of conquest and spoliation, and which is committed to your annihilation, then you must remain in a state of perennial military readiness and be prepared to defend yourself in perpetuity. Clearly, this is not a pleasant option but, unfortunately, there is no other feasible alternative.
It does not inspire confidence that, after decades of mechanically conducting this sham of a “peace process”, we in the US currently have a sec’y of state, a vice president and a president who don’t seem to get this.
They get it, they get it, The reason they do it, is to take Israel down.
Peace in the Middle East is impossible because one-fifth of humanity is deluded into believing that a sadistic sociopath, Muhammed, is a ‘holy prophet’ and a moral role model.
During his first 12 yeas as a desert charlatan in Mecca, Muhammed preached some flowery, nomially benign rhetoric. But, failing to penetrate the moralilty of Judaism and the love of Jesus, he only found success in slaughter, looting, rape, enslavement and terror in Medina.
Honestly, what kind of ‘morality’ upholds a savage madman as its moral beacon? Islam.
Simply put, there can be no peace in the Middle East because the ‘holy prophet’ of Islam waged war, demanded his minions wage war, and made war the central canon of Islamic theology.
Know Muhammed, no peace. No Muhammed, know peace.
~ The Infidel Alliance
And the truth about the ‘prophet’ of Islam shall set over a billion Muslims free, as well as the rest of the bleeding plant.
The most insane rendering of all is – that Islam is a religion of peace.As if…..If only…..
“Forget peace. It’s not going to happen.”
I can’t believe it’s taken this long for folks to figure this out. I also believe that if G-d Himself came down from heaven, Divinely and openly, announcing to the world that He has given the Jews their homeland, the Arabs would still deny the existence of Israel. The Palestinian Arab is so filled with hate for the Jew that if G-d Himself magically transported all the Jews out of the desert and onto some other G-d given paradise on earth a thousand miles away, in six weeks time there would be a camp of angry Arabs next door armed with guns and rockets. So severe is their anger and hatred.
Let’s face the reality of facts, the problem in the Middle east is not one of real estate, but that of ideology and religion. Like oil and water, the two don’t mix. Regardless of Jewish concessions, the Palestinian’s ideal solution is still going to be the death of the last standing Jew.
The powers that be in America and the Western world know full-well that there will never be peace. It’s all a game of ping pong. No sane, rational adult believes that there will ever be peace.
“No sane, rational adult believes that there will ever be peace.”
While I fully agree with your statement, I must point out that many of the rank and file liberals really DO believe it.
And, yes, I understand the implication of that juxtaposition.
Unending war in the Middle East is just a part of Muhammed’s evil legacy. This sadistic sociopaths enduring gift to human civilization was nothing less than THE ISLAMIC WORLD WAR.
Muhammeds ISLAMIC WORLD WAR has been burning for over 1,400 years and rages today on every continent except Antarctica, against everyone and everything “non-Islamic”. Let’s look at the facts:
Islam against…
- the Catholics in the Philippines (routine slaughter & beheadings)
- the Christians in Indonesia (routine slaughter & beheadings)
- Australian tourists in Bali (blown up…twice)
- the Buddhists in Thailand (routine slaughter & beheadings)
- the Hindus & Sikhs in India (hundreds of years battling the Islamic Jihad)
- the Jews in Mumbai (slaughtered)
- the Zoroastrians & Baha’i in Iran (virtually exterminated)
- Islamic converts to Christianity in Afghanistan (death fatwa)
- ancient Buddhist statues in Bamiyan, Afghanistan (blown up)
- the Chaldean Christians in Iraq (routine persecution, slaughter & church burnings)
- the Jews in Israel (routine attacks against civilians, threat of 2nd genocide)
- the Jews in Yemen (nearly exterminated)
- S. Korean & German tourists in Yemen (blown up)
- the Coptic Christians in Egypt (routine persecution, slaughter & church attacks)
- the Christians & animists in Sudan (genocide)
- the Christians in Kenya (constant Jihadist threat from Obama’s homies)
- the Christians in Nigeria (routine Jihadist attacks)
- U.S. embassies in Tanzania & Kenya (blown up)
- the athiests in Europe (the prime target)
- the native French in Paris (torched car terrorism)
- Jews in Paris (read the grisly story of Ilan Halimi, a Jewish shop clerk who was kidnapped, tortured and killed in 2006)
- the native Swedes in Malmo (Islamic rape brigades)
- the native Dutch in Amsterdam (routinely terrorized)
- Dutch politicians (Geert Wilders & Ayyan Hirsi Ali – death fatwa)
- Dutch cinematographers (Theo vanGogh savagely murdered by an Islamist in broad daylight)
- Dutch cartoonists (Kurt Westergaard – death fatwa)
- Dutch newspaper editors (Flemming Rose, Jyllands-Posten’s culture editor – death fatwa)
- Train commuters in Spain (blown up)
- Tube commuters in London (blown up)
- Airports in Scotland (blown up)
- Jews in Argentina (blown up)
- Jews in Caracas (blown up)
- Twin Tower office workers in N.Y. (blown up – twice)
- Defense workers in the Pentagon (blown up – airliner jihad)
- Army/Navy military recruiters in Little Rock (gunned down by an Islamist)
- Soldiers in F.t Hood Texas (gunned down by an Islamist)
- Pedestrians at the U. of N. Carolina (run down with an SUV by Islamist)
- Journalists like Daniel Pearl (savagely decapitated by Islamists)
- Nick Berg, Kim Sung-il, Piotr Stanczyk, Jack Hensley, Eugene Armstrong, Paul Johnson (savagely decapitated by Islamists)
- Jewish centers in Seattle (slaughtered by Islamist Jihadist)
- Jewish centers in Toronto (slaughtered by Islamist Jihadist)
- Infidel Delta Airlines passengers (underwear bomber)
- Times Square pedestrians (SUV bomber)
- Soccer fans in Uganda (Blown up while watching the world cup)
- Churches in Iraq, Nigeria, Indonesia, Malaysia, Egypt (blown up)
And on, and on, and on…
It is Islam against everyone, everything, everywhere that is not Islamic.
It is Dar al-Islam against Dar al-Harb. Them against us, not us against them.
THE ISLAMIC WORLD WAR – mandated by Muhammed who said “I have been ordered to fight the people till they say: ‘None has the right to be worshipped but Allah’” – Bukhari (8:387)
Let’s face the facts and call it what it is. It is not a ‘War on Terror’ against a few ragtag misunderstanders of Islam. It is nothing less than: THE ISLAMIC WORLD WAR.
THE ISLAMIC WORLD WAR – Muhammed’s legacy.
~ The Infidel Alliance
Our leaders fail to understand that, although we may not be at war with islam (as spoken by GW Bush among others) islam is at war with us, like it or not.
Thank you for this synopsis. I am printing it out and plan on making copies to dispense to those who repudiate me when I speak the truth about Islam.
Dear Toronto Girl,
THE ISLAMIC WORLD WAR is just a corollary to the real pathology that infects Islamic consciosness – the reverence of Muhammed. As alluded to in my previous post, one fifth of humanity fetes Muhammed as their spiritual and moral role model.
But we all must understand the Islamic claim that Muhammed was some kind of holy man, a moral role model for all humanity with a direct connection to some kind of God, is the biggest fraud ever perpetrated upon humanity. It is a massive lie that is propagated by Islam’s power to repress inquiry, dissent and the truth by fear, intimidation and violence.
But the truth about Muhammed cannot be suppressed, because it can be found in the Islamic ‘holy’ texts, the Koran, Ahadith and Sira Rasul Allah, recorded in black and white for the whole world to discover.
The Koran 68:4 upholds Muhammed as ‘uswa hasana’, “an exalted standard of character.” Islamic tradition upholds Muhammed as ‘al-insan al-kamil’ or ‘the perfect man’, to be emulated by all Muslims.
But the hard truth about Muhammed, as recorded in the Islamic ‘holy’ texts, is that far from being a a ‘holy prophet’ Muhammed was a sadistic sociopath, a 7th century Arabian Hitler, only worse – a successful Charles Manson, only creepier and far more evil.
Muhammed was in fact a mass murderer, a sadistic torturer, a heartless amputator, an inhuman decapitator, a savage mutilator, a human slaver, a looting stealing thief, a serial rapist, a human trafficker and kidnapper, a sex trafficker, a perverted child rapist, a twisted sexual deviant, a woman hating misogynist, a perfidious liar, a brutal intolerant genocidist and a self proclaimed terrorist.
By any objective standard Muhammed was one of the most vile and repulsive men in the pantheon of human history, a brutal barbarian and megalomaniacal narcissistic consumed by unquenchable sexual lust, greed and power.
Muhammed should have been incarcerated not venerated, and he should be reviled not revered.
Every pathology that afflicts Islam comes directly from this sick man, Muhammed, and the entire world suffers because of him. Yet this is the man who informs the Islamic consciousness.
If Muslims and non-Muslims alike are taught the truth about this monster, the entire ‘moral’ foundation of Islam collapses under the weight of this massive fraud.
Please help expose the truth about Muhammed, this literal ‘anti-Christ’, this absolute ‘anti-Buddha’.
~ The Infidel Alliance
One of the first things that we must do is repudiate the notion that Islam is a religion. It is not. It is a radical, political ideology. I believe it is really a cult that has been legitimized by self-loathing and terrified liberals. We must change our venacular when referring to it is a religion. As soon as I learned that Mohammed had married a 6 year-old child and ‘consummated’ the union when she was only 9, it was game over for me. Anyone with half a brain would be repulsed at the mere idea of worshipping this despicable and anti-human thug.
Dear Toronto Girl,
Muhammed is Islam’s Achilles heel. When people discover the truth about this monster, as you and I have, the ‘moral’ foundation of Islam begins to chip away.
Please help spread the truth about Muhammed, and challenge people to understand the meaning of this.
Many thanks!
~ The Infidel Alliance
Note Infidel Alliance
This is incorrect: “Jewish centers in Toronto (slaughtered by Islamist Jihadist)”
Terrorized, not slaughtered. I stand corrected.
http://www.mererhetoric.com/2009/02/12/muslim-mob-attacks-jewish-center-at-toronto-university-police-respond-by-shutting-down-the-center/
http://www.jweekly.com/article/full/9287/arson-damages-toronto-s-jewish-community-center/
http://www.calgaryherald.com/news/Attacks+synagogues+Jewish+school+condemned/4121888/story.html
Any such list that fails to mention the thousands of Sharia-inspired honour killings is thoroughly discredited. Solway brings to light two in his seminal article.
Once again, you are correct.
There are many reasons why the governments, and the media, of the western world refuse to confront Islam. This article points out one significant reason that nobody talks about:
Why the West Fears to Confront Islam
You pose an interesting question, Talkbacker John B. Are these “blinkered counterparts” really “blinkered” or do they know just what they’re doing which, in this case, subverting Israel out of malice towards Jewish people and/or to appease the Arab world in order to gain more time before they, too, are destroyed by the process of Muslim insurgency. I am not sure about your own conclusion. As a (now retired) psychologist, I have viewed too many cases where otherwise sane, intelligent and inciteful people evinced blindness in one or more particular areas of importance. Case studies on these particular personnages would be required.
Yes there can be peace in the middle east if one is willing to build it on fact not fantasy.
Ninety-nine and one-half percent of the middle east is muslim. There are enormous swathes of empty land throughout the Arab world. A fraction of the money spent on war would build one thousand Beverly Hills’ for refugees who wanted to move. There are people all over the world looking for better homes and opportunities. Are the Palestinians all of the same mind? No single Palestinian wants a new villa, a new school for his children, and the money to start a bakery?
There is plenty of money for flagship properties and boutique hotels in London for the privileged instead of cities for the Palestinians? Why? Because their is more money to made in war than in peace. And those countries that soak up arab oil must sell something to the arab world to balance payments. Fighter aircraft and weapons systems do that well.
Yet there is a way to peace.
I am a proponent of non-violent population transfer.
The world community believes in violent population transfer.
Helen Thomas and Hamas both want the Jews out of the Middle East.
Thomas wants the Jews transferred to Poland.
Hamas wants Jews transferred to the middle of the ocean.
Where there can be no tree to hide a Jew if he is chased by murderers.
They are proponents of violent transfer.
Thomas , with her , ” Get the hell out! ” and Hamas with their baby killing.
Different, to be sure, but the intent, identical.
That is true ethnic cleansing .
On the other hand non violent population transfer has been done before.
In fact the very first High Commissioner for Refugees of the League of Nations, Fridtjof Nansen , received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1922 for ending a war that seemed intractable by using non violent population transfer.
What if muslims in Israel wish to remain where they are? No problem. They can. Their reason would be their business. No need to justify or argue. You want to stay? Stay. As long as they are peaceful and there is no criminal activity, no problem.
Where people wish to remain they should be able to do so as citizens of Jordan, which already controls seventy-seven percent of territorial Palestine. If Jordan wishes to change its name to Palestine, as the late King Hussein Ibn Talal suggested, that is its right.
Perhaps there are other countries that would allow applications for citizenship. I don’t know.
Muslims all over the world are on the move. Only the Palestinians stay put?
Hamas wants the Palestinians in Gaza to stay put. They are its hostage.
Population transfer has become a ” dirty word “. Some would have you believe it is ethnic cleansing. It is not.
Fridtjof Nansen was a true giant yet few know his name.
” In 1919, he became president of the Norwegian Union for the League of Nations and at the Peace Conference in Paris was an influential lobbyist for the adoption of the League Covenant and for recognition of the rights of small nations. From 1920 until his death he was a delegate to the League from Norway. In June, 1921, the Council of the League appointed Nansen its first High Commissioner for Refugees. Stateless refugees recieved a ” Nansen Passport ” , a document of identification which was eventually recognized by fifty-two governments. In the nine-year life of this Office, Nansen ministered to hundreds of thousands of refugees – Russian,Turkish, Armenian, Assyrian, Assyro-Chaldean – utilizing the methods that were to become classic: custodial care, repatriation, rehabilitation, resettlement, emigration, integration. In 1922 at the request of the Greek government and with the approval of the League of Nations, Nansen tried to solve the problem of the Greek refugees who poured into their native land from their homes in Asia Minor after the Greek army had been defeated by the Turks. Nansen arranged an exchange of about 1,250,000 Greeks living on Turkish soil for about 500,000 Turks living in Greece, with appropriate indemnification and provisions for giving them the opportunity for a new start in life.” Nobel Prize Website
IN 1922 FRIDTJOF NANSEN WAS AWARDED THE NOBEL PEACE PRIZE .
” We all know from the history books of the exchange of Turks and Greeks, which took place after World War I when, after the war ended, there was a further war between Greece and Turkey, at the end of which, the Greek and Turkish governments agreed on an exchange of populations. And as it appears in the history books, the Greek minority in Turkey was sent to Greece; the Turkish minority in Greece was sent to Turkey. That’s what it says in the history books. But if you look at the treaty in which this agreement was incorporated, it says something different. The parties to be exchanged are defined as Turkish subjects of the Greek Orthodox faith and Greek subjects of the Muslim faith. And if you look more closely at who the people actually were, they were, to a very large extent, Turkish-speaking Orthodox Christians from Turkey and Greek-speaking Muslims from Greece. This was not an exchange of two ethnic minorities. It was a deportation of two religious minorities. ”
Prof. Bernard Lewis, April. 27, 2006 interview, Pew Forum
Those of us , like myself , see population transfer as the most sane and humane solution to many of our problems should remind the world of Fridtjof Nansen , his success and recognition. We should not allow ourselves to be demonized. This is the only way to peace in the middle east.
Population transfer is a wonderful idea. I suggest we transfer the Israelis to California. The present governor and legislature would be declared irrelevant and an Israeli government would be installed. California would secede from the U.S. This move would have immediate benefits. First and foremost, the rest of America would get a failing state off its back. Nancy Pelosi, Barbara Boxer, Henry Waxman, Pete Stark, and Diane Feinstein would be out of jobs. The Israelis would, in record time, clean up California’s insolvency and would solve its problems with illegal immigrants. In no time at all, California would be on the road to common sense, reason, and fiscal responsibility. Creativity, innovation, and entrepreneurship would be celebrated. California would once again be golden.
We have no historical right to California. Although its an awfully nice place to visit.
I’m not against your idea of peaceful population transfers; however, I would like to remark that you’re wrong in identifying the transfers between Greece and Turkey of 1923 as “religious” alone; they were mostly ethnic based, with individuals considering themselves “Christian Orthodox Greeks” (but Turkish citizens as permanent residents of Turkish lands), and similarly on the other side individuals considering themselves “Muslim Turks” (but Greek citizens as permanet residents of Greek lands). At the same time, there were Greeks of muslim faith who didn’t move from Greece to Turkey, as they were also Christian Orthodox Turks who stayed in Turkey. To this day, they’re such cases both in Thrace (Greek muslims) and in the coastal area of both the Black Sea and Asia Minor (Christian Orthodox Turks).
One more point: Israel claims historical “rights” to the land of Israel, and I fully recognize those rights; however, would israelis recognize then the historical “rights” of the Greeks over a large section of Asia Minor, including Constantinople, Smyrna, Pontos, East Thrace, Anatolia etc?
I was quoting Prof. Bernard Lewis who knows a thing or two
The history of the Jews and Israel did not begin with Zionism or with the destruction of European Jewry. In fact there are Jewish communities in Israel that have lived on the land continuously for more than 2000 years. The graves of our ancestors still are Holy places of worship to us and have been continuously for almost 4000 years. In fact the Jewish Tomb of the Patriarchs in Hebron is the oldest public building in continuous use in the entire world.
From 1400 to 1900 CE the Turks ruled but did not live in what was commonly called territorial Palestine. The Muslim Palestinians ( yes there are Jewish and Christian Palestinians too ) currently control 80% of the territory of Palestine. On that 80% they have three operating governments. One in Jordan, one in the West Bank and one in Gaza.
Despite the fact that Jews have lived in Israel for thousands of years Muslims refuse to recognize any Jewish rights what-so -ever.
Hebron is a case in point. The Jewish neighborhood in Hebron comprises only 3% of the town. In that neighborhood 800 Jews live surrounded by 30,000 Muslims. Hebron and its religious sites have been holy to Jews for 2700 years before Mohammed was even born. Yet the Muslims wish to deny Jewish rights to worship in Hebron. The Israeli army is not called in to harass the Muslim population. It is there to prevent a repeat of the 1929 massacre when the Muslims rioted and murdered Jewish men, women and children.
It is time for people to look at the history of Palestine and ask themselves the following- Why do the Palestinians require more than the 80% of Palestine they already control? Why do the Palestinians refuse to recognize Jewish rights to areas that were Jewish before Mohammed was born? Why are the Palestinians so interested in building on top of Christian and Jewish Holy sites? Why have the Palestinians driven the Christian community from Bethlehem? Why do the Palestinians indoctrinate their children to hate rather than live in peace?
As far as your other questions, ” Would israelis recognize then the historical “rights” of the Greeks over a large section of Asia Minor, including Constantinople, Smyrna, Pontos, East Thrace, Anatolia etc? “, I cannot offer an educated opinion.
You said:
“I was quoting Prof. Bernard Lewis who knows a thing or two.”
Obviously, he doesn’t know a thing abount the exchange, if that’s his main argument. As for the rest of your statements, although I don’t disagree with them, I too have no educated opinion about them.
My point about the “historical rights” of the Greeks over the turkish lands in Asia Minor, are as strong (if not stronger) than those you suggest of the Jews on the lands of Israel. Greek tribes used to live in Asia Minor more than 4,500 years of well recorded history. Although the arab muslim conquest started in the 7th century AD, the muslim Turks invaded and conquered Constantinople in May 1453 and since then the Turks occupy these lands.
“The likelihood of the Palestinian Authority agreeing to even one of these conditions is virtually nil.”
Or more likely, they’ll engage in what they’ve been doing for the last 50 years or so, which is to “accept a compromise” in exchange for far greater concessions from Israel, only to renege on it the moment those Israeli concessions have been implemented.
This of course completely in line with Islamic theory, which dictates that any peace with infidels cannot be binding to a Muslim, therefore he can accept whatever he needs to get what he wishes, it has no force over him.
So they will accept to a ceasefire in exchange for more land (or even, I see coming, for Israel forcing hundreds of thousands of Jews to emigrate out of the Jewish state), only to instantly break it the moment the kuffar have held to their side of the bargain (and then claim some vague insult as an excuse for doing so, which the world will accept at face value as they’ve accepted any and all Palestinian violence, ever).
Lo La
Arabs (and Persians and other Muslim countries) are not first world countries. Yet they believe they are God’s chosen ones. There has to be a reason for the fact they are inferior — which is why they blame the Jews, always have to blame the Jews when things aren’t going your way.
The real reason is they have corrupt, authoritarian and ineffective governments, but rather than look in the mirror, the governments put the blame on the Jews. Until there is an Islamic Reformation, there won’t be any change and we shouldn’t spend any time, money or effort on the so called Mid-East Peace Process. The Arabs want continued hostility. The governments need it to deflect criticism against themselves.
There wasn’t any “world-historical clash between a Hydra-headed Islamic collective and a half-dormant Western world” until the gun-legal British Mandate in Palestine collapsed. In fact, the West (Europe) had been pretty much down the throats of everyone in the region til then and were just about to leave to take an imperialist nap after drawing very nice and neat lines on a map.
It’s possible that the 6 decades plus “No-State Solution” (click my name) solved itself in 1947-48 since the Palestinian Arabs show no sign of abandoning the debauched and hypocritical policies that are likely to fail them for another 6 decades. In this case the Palestinian Arabs don’t believe in remembering the Alamo so much as making it a permanent theme park with themselves as living re-enactors, under siege forever.
If Yassir Arafat had been Gen. Pemberton at the 1863 siege of Vicksburg during the American Civil War, Gen. Grant’s ancestors would still be exchanging dirty limericks with Confederate gluttons for punishment which is what the Palestinian Arabs are. The words “pragmatism” or “surrender” are apparently not present in the Arabic tongue.
How they translate into English is roughly like Orwell’s little ditty about a bootheel stamping on a face forever. Neither good for one’s complexion or creation of a nation. I would recommend that the Palestinian Arabs stop letting themselves be falsely encouraged by those who cannot in fact help them like the International Court at the Hague, the U.N., Noam Chomsky and Norman Finkelstein who all by an amazing coincidence share only an academic interest since they are all people who get to go home to a real country to sleep at night. But who I am but a secular pragmatic rationalist empiricist?
Spot on ,Mr Solway
Now,would you be so king to ask for your seminal article to be published in haaretz or ynet pages ????
Of course its possible to have peace in the Middle East.
Throw out the “peace process” and kill a whole damn bunch of the bastards, esp. their leadership, then put your boot on the necks of the survivors and let them know you’re willing to do the rest of them if they don’t like the conditions you’ve imposed.
That will get you peace for at least a generation, until they think you’ve softened, or until they forget what you did to their ancestors. It will last longer, if make certain they don’t forget…
The only way to have peace is through Victory. Anything less is just setting up another war. It worked with Germany. It worked with Japan. It will work with Palis and other Arabs.
Israel has actually been doing what you propose in your first paragraph since 1967 and it hasn’t resulted in the second paragraph.
James,
The Israelis have only been “tickling” them that’s why it
looks like it hasn’t worked.
The Arabs, Palestinians whatever haven’t really
had a good enough beating put on them yet to make them
change their minds.
There actually WAS a period of relative peace after the Israelis ran the PLO out of Lebanon. You might be too young to remember it…
The current problems started AFTER the PLO was allowed to return Palestine to become the PA.
In hindsight, the Israelis should have exterminated the PLO in its entirety. Unfortunately, we forced the Israelis to allow them to escape to Tunis.
This statement is absolutely false! Written by some one probably uder the influence of Moslem and radical leftist propaganda.
Not only was this article outstanding but so have been the responses with particular appreciation for James May’s excellent scholarship in clarifying the current mideast situation plus his rarified sense of humour (last line) as well as Menachem Ben Yacov’s pertinent references to Fridtjof Nansen, a giant of a diplomat whom, I must confess, I had never heard of before reading about him in this series of Talkbacks.
Thank you Robert.
The Mid-East peace process will be around for as long as the western democracies underwrite it. As long as they do, the process will continue and the goal never be met.
The Mid-East peace process became a western government bureaucracy long ago. It doesn’t have a main building, but that is what it is. And bureaucracies protect their existence. Their driving force is to maintain the need for their existence. They have no incentive to solve, minimize, or mitigate their reason for existing. A lot of people have gotten rich since the 70′s because they’ve understood that that actual peace in the Mid-East will end the gravy train and have no intention of seeing peace finally break out on their watch.
Peace is never possible when one side, Palestine, wants to obliterate the other, Israel. The Mid-East “peace process” is a joke. Israel should just destroy Palestine & be done with it before Palestine destroys Israel.
You guys need to read the Bible a little more…. it says there will be a peace agreement,brokered by the AntiChrist.
Yes, Refuse2lose, but it will only be for a few years. As I guess you know, it will be the temporary pact with hell.
That doesn’t mean one should abandon trying for peace, but the only peace that will work has to be based on reality.
David, I thoroughly enjoy your work and this one is at the top of the list. Kudos for wonderful work.
My own thoughts on the “peace process” is that it is not “peace” that is doomed to failure, it is the process that is doomed.
Here is why in a nutshell.
1)A “process” is only as good if one clearly defines, roles, goals and measurements of success with clarity and unity of purpose.
One cannot design a process like a Rube Goldberg contraption, adding useless complexity upon useless complexity, heaped upon mechanisms designed forever forward to remedy the last inanity. That is where the “process” is currently. This administration has added some of the dumbest and most inane complexities and requirements among the many already in place.
2)The futility of any “negotiation” becomes evident when the “real parties in interest” AND the “real parties in power” are not clearly identified and are not even at the table.
More than the first point, this will continually hamper any serious movement forward, because Israel is forced to negotiate with Pinocchio while Geppetto is never brought to the table. Pinocchio’s nose continues to grow throughout the discussion, but the cobbler is still whittling away at the results when everyone goes home.
3)Playing by different rules sabotages the outcome of every game. When the refs are crooked and impose “rigged” or “fixed” outcomes, one cannot build upon little success patterns to create big success patterns. The landscape is soiled and the field of play is tainted.
There is no more stark analogy than the leftist media and its treatment of all issues great and small. The raging unfairness of the facts, the bastardization of the truth, the distortion of events actually retards the ability to bring sides together. When you bring a non-neutral third party into an argument (whether at home, in business or in the geo-political arena), you increase the hostility and defensiveness and it NEVER assists the process. The BBC, Reuters, AP, and all the Jew-bashers of the left…sabotage the “peace” and invade the “process” with their relentless “rigging” of the facts.
So much time is spent trying to undo their damage, the process is not only stalled, it is in perpetual remediation.
So, David…is there a chance that this all could be remedied?
I see not one reason to believe one could rely upon to bet anything…other than against such a prospect, sadly.
cfbleachers: Yes, of course, I meant “insightful” but got carried away with my (positive) delirium upon reading this article. Thank you for the gentle correction.
Trumpeldor: Haaretz would never publish this article, of course. In fact, Haaretz refuses to publishes any of my replies in its Talkback section. Even Maan News doesn’t deprive its readership with responses critiquing its many (poor) articles. Ynet would publish it. I just left a response in a Talkback section with references to this article for all of Ynet’s many readers.
Most of the problem is found inside Israel, in the determination of the political establishment not to rock the boat, and in the inability of the rather conservative public to have its views reflected in policy. The moral abstinence, the abstinence from responsible legislating, by the Knesset, and the inability of the public to restrain a super-activist, liberal judiciary is pretty much the whole ballgame. We can blame the anti-Semites and self-interested peacemakers all we want, and they deserve some blame.
Basically, though, it is on us, the right-wing Israelis to fix this. It is a painfully slow process, leading to never-ending Oslo or semi-Oslo. It’s really on us, guys.
Exactly.
Hey, Terry, I can be reached at ‘spinzit3@gmail.com’ if you want to get in touch.
Thanks to all for some very pertinent responses. Gets me thinking.
David
The problem is that Arabs and specially Palestinians are not interestzed in peace because in fact we foot the bill.
Pesce is perfectly possible in the zone provided:
a) The Arabs are told in unequivocal terms that we have had enough about them denying nationality and work top Palestinians in order ‘they keep their identity” read “keep them despaired so they have nothing else to do than keep tryiong to kill Jews”
b) Palestinains are told they have had 62 fricking years to buld an economy so they will get zero that is zero dollars from us, that in fact we want our money back since most of it has been squandered in weapons and people in Darfir neeed it much more. It is work or starve. If they have to work, they will be too tired for terrorism and building Kassams sounds a lot less atractive when you have to pay for them
c) Palestinans are told that every act of terrorism will result in a fine of X million dollars and a loss of X square meters of territory. Aklso that we will not rebuild property destroyed by Israel’s acts of retaliation.
This way war will become costly to them.
It’s really quite simple. The history of this strip of land between Asia and Africa shows that since time immemorial whoever is strongest holds it. If Israel wants to exist, they will forever have to be the strongest military power in the region, and not be duped by paper promises. Am Yisrael Chai!
David’s article is spot on. There can be no peace through negotiation. This was also written in Bible prophecy some 2500 years ago which describes four upcoming wars.
The first is described in Psalms 83, Isaiah 17 and Jeremiah 49:24. In summary, there will be an Arab war against Israel with the single goal of destroying Israel. Palestine, Jordan, Egypt, Hezbollah, Lebanon, Hamas, Gaza Strip, Syria and parts of Saudi Arabia will form a confederation and attack Israel. Israel barely wins, but is decimated. Damascus will be destroyed such that no one will ever inhabit that city again. Iran will not directly attack Israel in this war.
A second major war is described in Jeremiah 49:34 and is an alliance against Iran (attacked by enemies from all sides). Israel may not be a part of this war. Iran loses, but is not totally destroyed.
At this point in time, Israel will be living in peace as another major war is described where Israel is described as having “…unwalled villages; I will go to them that are at rest, that dwell safely, all of them dwelling without walls, and having neither bars nor gates…”. This known as the Gog-Magog war that is a coalition led by Russia and includes Turkey, Libya, Sudan and several of the “stans”.
The rather famous peace treaty to be signed with Israel and the Anti-Christ will not happen until after the above wars.
The Bible is a rather fascinating study of history and times to come.
Isaiah 17 and Jeremiah 49 almost certainly refer to the same war, and it is likely that Isaiah 17 & 23 refer to the same war described in Psalm 83.
There will be peace in the Middle East within the next few decades. The caveat is that there will be a massive war or two first.
Bravo!!! Finally, someone with a widespread public forum admits a truism that politicians worldwide have refused to admit for decades — there will NEVER be peace in the Middle East. Read the Bible! The Jews/Israelis and Arabs have been fighting each other for thousands of years. There is nothing about modernism to change the fact that they loathe each other, and though the Israelis at this point simply want to get on with their lives, the Arabs won’t let them. As long as even a fraction of the Arab world with the money to wage Islamic-fascist terrorism exists, i.e., eternity, there will be no Middle East peace.
The relevance for the world should be to craft a foreign policy that reflects this fact instead of a Wilsonian, utopianism that hopes upon baseless hope that these two ancient enemies will one day become at least neighbors who agree to disagree without killing each other.
The short answer is no. Same as the long one. Were I king of Israel and could command all I would arm my country to the teeth, blow up anyone who dares to disturb her and her people, and tell the rest of the world to f%#k off. Enough already.
The Bible reads there will be no peace between the reborn Israel, and it’s Islamic neighbors. Also, it reads all countries who try involve themselves in the area will be cut to pieces.
Terror attacks? Storms? Earthquakes? All three?
In an essay I wrote last Spring, I echoed one of the points in this article which I believe is an important one and should be included in any process which results in a Palestinian State:
“Anti-Israeli and anti-Western rhetoric must be considered as hate speech and liable to prosecution as libel and defamation and any groups like Hamas outlawed. Revisionist histories of the Arab-Jewish civil and national wars from 1947-73 presented in either the media, text books or history books must be similarly subjected to special libel laws that are at the same time sensitive to freedom of speech; a difficult task, I admit.”
Norman Finkelstein, the academic who lost tenure at DePaul over his unabashed support of the Palestinian Arabs has constantly said that Israel needs a great military defeat of some kind in order to bring it to its senses. This great defeat in fact happened to the Palestinian Arabs and has only resulted in a culture that prefers checkpoints, demolitions, barriers and martyrdom to what they see as a shrunken nation.
Even cultures gone mad like WW II Japan and Germany finally succumbed to reality. This is because, unlike the Palestinian Arabs they were not utterly radicalized to the last woman and child with urban myths that deny the history of their own part in this decades long conflict while playing up and distorting the role of the West, particularly America.
Propaganda is at the heart of keeping hatred alive as there would be no hard hearted policies from Israel in the West Bank if the PA’s had simply “endured the unendurable”, given in to the reality of the fate that had overtaken them and simply surrendered. On the streets of Cairo every book shop and stand has copies of “Mein Kampf” with a photo of Hitler on the cover on display and we have morons like Joseph Massad at Columbia U writing articles for middle eastern newspapers and Palestinian websites that amount to hate speech. Write Columbia University.
You know there’s a problem with a man like Massad who sees a “rabidly pro-Israeli American President Obama.” Like his mentor Edward Said, Massad in also a historian who cannot find history and both are praised as academics while their intellectualism is in fact debauched. A Jordanian born Palestinian Arab teaching his nonsense at Columbia is an excellent argument for simply closing the doors to immigration.
Let me remind you once again what this “historian” wrote in last week’s Al-Ahram Weekly in Cairo about the Alexandria Two Sisters Church bombing:
“Those few who believe that foreign intervention in Egypt might protect the Copts are wittingly or unwittingly using the incident to bring about a wider role for US imperialism in the country — as if what the US has brought about in Egypt in the last three decades (in terms of massive enrichment of the rich and impoverishment of the poor, de-education, destruction of Egyptian agriculture, gargantuan corruption and theft of public funds, economic dependence, and diminishment of Egypt’s regional political and military role, not to mention the US hand in the ongoing sectarianism)…”
In this case Masssad’s view of history is one that literally doesn’t exist and later in the article he implies that Israel was behind the bombing. Massad is typical of those in the middle east who blame their own shortcoming on the ever convenient United States or Israel. I recommend this article as, in fact, one of the rather less virulent anti-Western articles that are published there: http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2011/1030/op2.htm
Al-Ahram is far from being a radical newspaper and yet every week it contains around 3 articles about the U.S. and Israel that verge from the merely one-sided to the delusional. It is sometimes hate speech (Israeli’s stealing organs in Haiti) that is as self-righteous as Paul Krugman’s own one-sided and purposefully disingenuous view of the world. While Krugman doesn’t rise to the level of hate speech, he is, like Rachel Maddow and Keith Olbermann, a man who blithely yet pointedly ignores anything in history past or present that doesn’t advance his political agenda.
The Palestinian Arabs are hopelessly awash in propaganda and disinformation that it will take at least one or two generations to undo if ever. People fly planes into buildings and see hurricanes as racist as a result of urban myths about success being built on others failures that are simply false. Spike Lee, Paul Krugman, Rev. Wright and Joseph Massad are masters of handing out history on a plate that is almost completely composed of falsehoods.
You can’t be serious. these animals love the blood and guts even if it means they have to kill the molther’s and father’s son’s and daughter’s
Ah, realism! Thank you for speaking it.
The phrase “peace process” and the whole show surrounding it has always struck me as a complete farce (literally since I was a young child, overhearing it amidst coverage of Camp David). A “process” is a systematic, step-by-step route to a known, fully expected outcome. Almost clinical, surgical. Steadily complete the steps,one after the other, and your desire will be accomplished; it’s only a matter of time. And this term is applied to a complex situation with deep historical and spiritual roots that go back millennia? Just who do we think we are? What hubris. And pride has a way of causing more harm than good… generally leading to a fall.
“Forget it. It’s not going to happen.”
Not as long as the Muslim invaders are still camped out on our lands.
Once we’ve finally driven the Muslims out, and everything north of Aqaba is once again under Jewish/Christian rule, there might be peace.
Wouldn’t bank on it though.
We’ll just start fighting amongst ourselves, or we’ll find someone else to fight with.
Same as it’s ever been.
Wow, all of you “Islamic” guys sound like those movie stars who played the terrorist parts in the “True Lies” movie. Your speech betrays you. Oh wait, maybe it was the movie “Black Sunday.” Or was it “A Son of the Sahara” or “The Black Stallion”, or maybe “Iron Eagle” or “Death Before Dishonor” or “Navy SEALs” or I know it’s “The Delta Force” or could it be “Executive Decision” or many peoples favorite “Reel Bad Arabs.” Gee, there are so many to pick from. Anyway, you guys go out and rent these and I am sure you will enjoy watching yourselves. If you guys find that these movies have helped you in any way, please guys, for your own sake, go see if you can get some anger management help. There is help out there.
One way to help you guys might be this latest infomation about the author Joel Richardson breaking new ground with a devastating account of the possible connection between the Biblical Antichrist and the Islamic Mahdi. The Bible predicts that in the last days a charismatic leader will establish a global following in the name of peace. The Quran also predicts that a man will rise up to lead the nations, pledging to usher in an era of peace. The man in the Quran is called the Mahdi, or Islam’s savior. However, the man in the Bible is the Antichrist. Could it be possible that they are one and the same person? Richardson’s stunning research and analysis suggest that it is.
“the current negotiating paradigm of Israeli concessions for Palestinian recalcitrance”
I challenge you to name just 1 Israeli concession from 1948 to the present day. A concession being the voluntary giving up of something to which you are legally entitled.
“Why the Israeli leadership ever embarked on so fruitless a project is beyond rational explanation.”
The Israeli leadership makes no such effort. At every turn, Israel has chosen expansionism over security.
“Why then should 300,000 Jews living in Judea and Samaria be evicted from their homes?”
As part of a truth and reconciliation process, land stolen from Palestinians to make way for illegal Israeli settlements would have to be returned or at least paid for.
“The Palestinians would have to realize that their insistence on the “right of return” to Israel of seven million so-called “refugees” is a complete nonstarter”
If asking Israel to observe international law and the international consensus is a non-starter, at least the picture of Israeli intransigence is laid bare, thank you for pointing this out.
“and must be dropped from their negotiating position.”
So Israel’s extreme precondition is that the Palestinians should give up their legal entitlements before they can negotiate. I thought Israel’s mantra was “no preconditions!”
“Israel is not about to commit demographic suicide.”
The perpetrators of ethnic cleansing now view their victims as a demographic threat. Israel is so terrified of democracy, so terrified of being a state of its citizens, it’s embarrassing.
“They will be required to recognize Israel as a Jewish state.”
There is no such legal or moral requirement. It is a fabrication designed to circumvent international law and to allow Israel’s racist policies to continue.
“They will have to accept Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and Ramallah as the capital of Palestine.”
Further confirmation that Israel’s preconditions are so extreme that it boggles the mind. Perhaps Israel should accept Jerusalem as the Palestinians capital and use Tel Aviv as theirs??
“They will need to be reminded that the “green line” is not an officially ratified international border”
It is an internationally recognised border. Resolution called for a withdrawal to this line with minor and mutual deviations to rationalise the border into a permanent one.
“but merely a temporary armistice line, allowing for adjustments that ensure Israel’s retention of strategic depth.”
Not according to the people who wrote the resolution.
“For the Palestinian Authority to assume that its proposed or unilaterally declared state would abut the pre-1967 borders is a violation of UN Resolution 242.”
The 67 borders with minor and mutual corrections is the intent of 242. As it is inadmissible to acquire territory by war, if Israel doesn’t accept these, it will have to shrink to the partition boundaries.
“Moreover, Clause 5(2) of the Rhodes Armistice Agreement of 1949 stipulates that “In no sense are the ceasefire lines to be interpreted as political or territorial borders” and that they do not affect “the final disposition of the Palestine question.””
And as it is inadmissible to acquire territory by war, the only conceivable interpretation is that the land between the partition lines and the 67 lines is conceivably Palestinian land.
“They will consent to cease promulgating anti-Jewish hatred in media and mosque and to erase anti-Israeli incitement from textbook and classroom.”
c.f. The rabbis and their Nuremberg laws.
“Given Israel’s meager territorial scale and the volatility and inherent violence in the region, especially the aggressive meddling of Iran in local affairs, the smuggling of rockets and other armaments threatening Israel, and the inroads made by al-Qaeda and its offshoots, the Palestinian Authority will be compelled to permit a defensive Israeli presence in the adjacent hill country.”
Given the Palestinians’ minute territorial scale, and the danger posed by the regional superpower and their constant warmongering, and the aggressive meddling of the US in the conflict, the unparalleled level of illegal military aid sent to Israel as part of the US proxy war against the Palestinians, the Israeli authorities will agree to PA security forces placed at strategic points throughout Israel in the name of Palestinian security.
“The likelihood of the Palestinian Authority agreeing to even one of these conditions is virtually nil.”
Because they are illegal, immoral and unjust.
“But in order for a viable peace to take root, all of these conditions would need to be implemented.”
Israel has only ever back illegally acquired land when compelled to do so by force, e.g. forced by the US in 57 etc.
“Further, none of the desiderata I have listed resolves the dilemma of a Hamas terrorist government solidly entrenched in the Gaza Strip and committed to the destruction of Israel.”
Nor does it tackle the terrorist regime, solidly entrenched in Israel, committed to the destruction of Palestine.
At no point does the article even suggest that Israel’s Hitleresque policies of nationalist expansionism or its constant brutalisation of the Palestinians have even the slightest role to play here.
Very amusing.
Since, according to your logic ( rather the lack of it ) Israel is entitled to nothing, any concessions are meaningless.
I will just ask you one question-
What boundaries for a Jewish State would you say are appropriate?
‘I challenge you to name just 1 Israeli concession from 1948 to the present day. A concession being the voluntary giving up of something to which you are legally entitled.’ er, Gaza? You know nothing, nuff said.
In an amusing, predictable and cowardly act of censorship, my post pointing out the mind-numbing stupidity underlying the “article” did not pass the moderators. Nor I suspect will this one.
So flimsy are the arguments contained herein that to allow response from someone who knows the subject better than the author would be, shall we say, embarrassing.
Keep up the good work, keep letting the medieval mystics expound their bigotry and advocacy for criminality and ethnic cleansing, and whatever you do, don’t let ANYONE criticise your posts.
Haha, and in an amusing act of embarassing coincidence, there appears my post. Rant retracted
Tim Haughton – Yet another ‘know-it-all’ troll espousing more self-flagellation about one’s self. Goody!
Regarding the, ‘..ethnic cleansing..’ rant – I believe you’re playing that up for the ‘wrong team’ Tim.
Israel has had the ‘big one’ for some time, and if it so desired, could turn the Trans-Jordanian people/area into glass.
Do you think the Iranians, Hezbollah or the other terrorist organizations that have turned Beirut into a hellhole would have such diplomacy?
Oh but that goes against your narrative/rose colored glasses of the nonsensical, ‘..poor displaced people’ – right?!
Tim, please, divulge which periodical or column you write for in the M E, considering you’re having ‘more knowledge on the subject’. Enquiring minds and all..
Secondly, for the ‘sliver’ of land occupied by the Trans-Jordanians, what have they done to make that land bare fruit the last 62 years nationally? Internationally?
The BILLIONS of dollars through the years siphoned, err, ‘provided’ to the Trans-Jordanians, what has been the ‘progress’ in turn for said monies?
How have the Trans-Jordanians improved diplomacy, commerce, legislation, elected government to improve health, education and continuing growth, advancements in their culture, economic and humanitarian contributions to name but a few?
Hint: Global empathy amongst the lobotomy-like masses doesn’t count.
vey nice article and i agree on almost everything. one question though – you say Forget peace. It’s not going to happen. – what about the peace with Egypt and Jordan, does this not count for something?