Israel’s Stand Against Islamism Holds
In his new book, The Transforming Fire: The Rise of the Israel-Islamist Conflict, Jonathan Spyer maintains that what was once called the Arab-Israeli conflict has evolved into something with a different coloration, and that the Islamist side — at least declaratively — underestimates Israel’s ongoing resilience. Spyer, a researcher and Jerusalem Post columnist, has been clarifying the situation in the Middle East for years. Not only does this book not disappoint. It displays whole new dimensions of his talent.
Spyer could not have been better qualified to write it. A British immigrant in Israel for two decades and a scholar of the Arab-Islamic Middle East, he has both academic and firsthand knowledge of both worlds, complete with risky escapades to Lebanon and other regional countries. Skillfully interwoven with its analytical sections, the book’s memoir-like passages reveal Spyer as possessing not only compelling intellectual but also literary gifts.
The old Arab-nationalist effort against Israel, in Spyer’s telling, “met its Waterloo” in the Six Day War of 1967. It was replaced by a sustained PLO terror campaign — which also went down in defeat, in the First Lebanon War of 1982. Five years later came the First Intifada — also aimed at wearing Israel down (this time with riots and moral pressure), and also quelled, by the early 1990s.
By that time, though, Israel — particularly its old secular-Ashkenazi elite — had indeed grown tired of the conflict, thinking, in the heady optimism of the post-Cold War world, that the Palestinian side must have, too. The Palestinians could be brought around, the logic went, with enticements: a state on the one hand and economic development on the other. Thus was born what came to be called the Oslo peace process.
By the autumn of 2000, however, Israel did not find itself at peace but under a savage Islamist assault — though Prime Minister Ehud Barak had pulled the IDF from Lebanon in the face of Hezbollah attacks and offered Yasser Arafat the fabled Palestinian state at Camp David. (It was contemptuously rejected).
The old, ostensibly nationalist Fatah, the dominant part of the PLO, played a large role in the latest onslaught. But a brazen cross-border kidnapping of Israeli soldiers by Iranian-backed Hezbollah, and suicide bombings by Hamas and Islamic Jihad, two Iranian-backed Palestinian organizations of a decidedly religious bent, brought home its Islamic character.
It was a time of surging confidence for the Islamist camp. Israel’s withdrawal from Lebanon particularly inspired a view of the Jewish state, in Spyer’s words, as a “temporary, ephemeral and flimsy” phenomenon — inherently, essentially, doomed. But they, says Spyer, were wrong. While its old elite has lost much of its spunk, Israel itself has not weakened.
Instead, he maintains, it has changed. In the army, national-religious soldiers, heavily overrepresented among officers and elite combat soldiers, have replaced the scions of Israel’s former secular-socialist elite. The “new Israeliness,” Spyer suggests, “is steeped in a comfortable [though] not particularly rigorous attachment to the symbols of Jewish tradition,” including “the Temple Mount, the Hebrew language,” and “the Jewish festivals[.]” This “immensely powerful complex of images and ideas” forms a “bedrock” of strength, ultimately more solid than the latest wave of humiliated rage, known as Islamism, coming from the other side.
That does not mean Israel has not faltered over this past decade of Iranian-propelled Islamist aggression. It did so, egregiously, in its badly mismanaged 2006 war against Hezbollah in Lebanon. Toward the end of that conflict, Spyer was part of a reserve tank force sent into Lebanon in a pointless mission that took a fellow soldier’s life. It was then that “my comrades and I glimpsed for a moment what it would look like if things did not hold together” — if, that is, Israel were to collapse as its Islamist and formerly Arab-nationalist enemies have claimed that it will.
Since then, though, Israel’s strength, confidence, and power of deterrence have been restored — by successful military actions against the Syrian plutonium reactor in 2007 and against Hamas in Gaza in 2008; by a major revamp of the IDF; and, most important, by a serious reevaluation of the continuing importance of ground combat. Spyer contends that Israel remains the only regional force capable of withstanding and prevailing against the Islamist tide.
Read this book. Illuminating a great deal in 200 pages of simple, friendly prose, it’s worth more than hundreds of superficial, distorted reports in the New York Times and other mainstream media outlets.
It sounds like a refreshing mix of realism and optimism, and like the author knows what he’s talking about. Not everyone in Israel sees the Gaza War as such a success, because it left Hamas standing and they’re continuing to bombard southern Israel. But as far as the army was allowed to perform, it did perform well, that’s pretty clear.
Dr. Barry Rubin, mideast expert and head of the GLORIA Centre, also recommends this book by Jonathan Spyer.
Prof. Barry Rubin is the author of about 20 books on the middle east. Amazingly for a Middle east expert he actually knows what he is talking about (he also has utter contempt for Comrade Obama and his sycophants). I strongly recommend his website “RubinReport” as the best reading on the contemporary middle east that there is.
Bob from Virginia, I tried rubinreport.com and got nowhere. Do you have a better address?
http://rubinreports.blogspot.com/
http://rubinreports.blogspot.com/
http://rubinreports.blogspot.com/
In addition to Barry Rubin’s blog, you might also find these interesting:
MERIA Journal – edited by Prof. Barry Rubin, and often featuring articles by Jonathan Spyer – http://www.gloria-center.org/meria/
GLORIA Center Blog (again by Barry Rubin, with occasional articles by Spyer): http://www.gloria-center.org/gloria/
Just hope Israel can hold on until 2012, when we can get a real president in the White House that values our friendship with Israel. But, if Iran gets a nuclear weapon before 2012, I just don’t know if Obama will be ready to stand with Israel. Given his actions over the past two years, I doubt it. We can only hope that Iran can’t get the bomb before 2012. That’s what our foreign police has come to, “hoping” that things won’t happen.
This is a book to teach Americans that military power accomplishes waste & mayhem. Perhaps inculcating the spirit of the Lord might help!
Yup, I agree…
Praise the lord…AND PASS THE AMMUNITION
Reb? sounds like you have never cracked a book named TORAH- it is also full of war stories!! in fact a manual of strategy in war, how, when and why to wage it- maybe take your own advice and follow the Lord’s words to a victorious ISRAEL- ya’ know that Kingdom HE predicts and protects in it’s pages
Just one minor correction. You wrote: “if, that is, Israel were to collapse as its Islamist and formerly Arab-nationalist enemies have claimed that it will.”
Iran says it has already collapsed- ‘”Today we witness that the predictions made by the leaders of the fake Israeli regime have materialized and the failure of the regime has, in fact, led to its collapse,” Iranian parliament’s Vice-Speaker Seyed Hassan Aboutorabi-Fard said in a meeting with members of the Asian continent’s first humanitarian aid convoy to Gaza in Tehran on Monday night. ”
http://english.farsnews.com/newstext.php?nn=8909230967
What morons Hamas/Hezbollah st al. are for making the destruction of Israel their fundamental raison d’être all these years.
And the idiot states backing them, most notably Iran and Syria.
Watching so called negotiations over the decades, anyone with half a brain could tell that dealings with diehard revolutionaries like Yasir Arafat were so much blowing in the wind. (Arafat did, however, enjoy being wined and dined & treated like a “statesman” at Camp David.)
Now we’ve got people like Barack and Hillary who seem to think they can get the assassins to tone it down if Israel will do something like halt building.
Stupid, mind bogglingly, unsurpassingly stupid.
Israel better stay tough & not try to placate morons in the United States as she is the best hope for the survivial of intelligent civilization in that neck of the woods.
One of the only benefits to Israel of fighting Islamic fanatics is that practically the entire western world is also fighting Islamic fanatics in some form or another.
If Israel would grow up and fight an effective PR campaign a lot of reasonable people in the world could be convinced that Israel is right in defending herself against these barbarians.
Unlike the secular leftists from the Tel Aviv bubble, the religious zionist sector knows what it’s fighting for; they know what’s at stake. And they’re taking on greater prominence in the IDF’s middle ranks. But the upper ranks are still held primarily by generals who think, for example, that giving up the Golan is a viable strategic option in hopes of pulling Syria away from Iran.
Curiously, we’re witnessing four variant strategies for dealing with the current threats. Against rocket fire from Gaza, the IAF has adopted a “tit for tat” approach (still better than the past policy of “restraint”). Against the growing missing threat from Lebanon and Syria, it’s adopted a “watch and prepare” strategy. (I fear the current reticence to act will cost them dearly in the coming conflict.) Against the Iranian missile and nuclear threat they’ve relied on quiet but determined operations by the Mossad. And against the Palestinians, they have only diplomacy around a flawed peace process.
I was reading about the new emphasis on developng a high tech alternative energy sector in the Israeli economy. What brilliance. Takes money right out of the pockets of the Arab governments.
“high tech alternative energy” is the wave of the future and always will be…
I’ve been hoping for this for a long time, for all our sakes.
Greetings:
I grew up in the Bronx of the ’50s and ’60s. The two large demographic groups, both about 20-25% of the population, in our neighbor were people of Jewish heritage or Irish heritage. After the 1967 war, and as I was looking forward to my own military service I talked to my father about the situation that Israel found itself in. My father’s assessment was that the Israelis should take the Arabs “down to the river (Jordan), point theme east, and give ‘em a decent headstart”.
What does flogging books about the recent history of Israel have to do with the United States? No one is threatening Israel’s existence because there is no middle eastern country that wants to or can go to war with them; look at a map of who could strategically do this – Iran can’t and can’t survive a nuclear exchange with them – N. Korea and Iran just wave this stuff around to get attention. The biggest threat, Egypt, has been on the sidelines a long time now and though the grass roots hostility is still there, they have no Soviet Union to back them up and have not the brains to figure out how to lock a hotel door let alone go toe to toe with Israel. I see it everyday. Nice people here in Cairo but no threat on Jeopardy. Sorry, but it’s true.
Israel has absolutely nothing to do with the national security of the United States. Their vaunted Mossad had no clue about 9/11 or else let it happen in self interest; I doubt the latter happened but not their self interest to do so.
In fact, it is a near certainty that without the perception in the middle east about American support for Israel that 9/11 would never have happened so it is not only Israeli’s taking it on the chin for this utterly moronic 6 decades long spat with the Palestinian Arabs which has killed people in so many countries that it might be easier to make a list of countries where people have not been assassinated, taken hostage, murdered and blown up over it.
What came first, the chicken in the form of idiot muslims who want to blow up everything in sight or the egg in the form of the radicalization of the entire middle east over a few million religious fanatics fighting over “holy places”. I personally respect the fact that Jews said enough with Europe’s genocide and made a refuge for themselves but if one more plane flies into a building here I will personally go to the West Bank and declare a goddam Palestinian state myself.
It’s unbelievable.
There are still people like James who believe this mayhem has something to do with the ‘palestinians’.
The root cause of the violence in the Middle East has nothing to do with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. This is a distraction, a convenient excuse consistently used by Arab tyrants to cover up the real disease afflicting the region: Islam.
As the Hamas charter says (You can find it on the Web)…….
“Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it.” (The Martyr, Imam Hassan al-Banna, of blessed memory).
“The Islamic Resistance Movement believes that the land of Palestine is an Islamic Waqf consecrated for future Muslim generations until Judgement Day. It, or any part of it, should not be squandered: it, or any part of it, should not be given up. ”
“There is no solution for the Palestinian question except through Jihad. Initiatives, proposals and international conferences are all a waste of time and vain endeavors.”
In a sermon aired on Hamas’ Al-Aqsa television, cleric Yunis Al Astal stated
“Today, Rome is the capital of the Catholics, or the Crusader capital, which has declared its hostility to Islam, and has planted the brothers of apes and pigs in Palestine in order to prevent the reawakening of Islam.
Anther Sermon on Hamas’ Al-Aqsa television…
“Allah willing, the moment will come when their property will be destroyed and their sons annihilated, until not a single Jew or Zionist is left on the face of the Earth.”
Anybody mention ANYTHING about the Palestinians?
Have a read. They compare the loss of Israel with Spain (Al-Andalus) which also used to be part of the muslim Caliphate.
Al-Baltaji, who is deputy secretary-general of the Muslim Brotherhood parliamentary bloc in Egypt, said at a March 2010 conference, “A nation that excels at dying will be blessed by Allah with a life of dignity and with eternal paradise.”
He also said that his movement “will never recognize Israel and will never abandon the resistance,” and that “resistance is the only road map that can save Jerusalem, restore the Arab honor, and prevent Palestine from becoming a second Andalusia.
You like this little gem (Copied straight from the Quran into the Hamas charter)
“The Day of Judgement will not come about until Muslims fight the Jews (killing the Jews), when the Jew will hide behind stones and trees. The stones and trees will say O Muslims, O Abdulla, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him. Only the Gharkad tree, would not do that because it is one of the trees of the Jews.”
Still confused Dan?
They are not!
If it is all about a Palestinian state James, why didn’t the Egyptians and the Jordanians establish a palestinian state in 1948 when they occupied East Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria?
Good post, Andy.
I would like to add that 9/11 was perpetrated by Al-Qaeda which declared war on the U.S. due to the U.S. having soldiers on Arab lands – nothing to do with Israel or the “Palestinian” people.
Palistine? Really? Name me a Pal before Arafat. Fact is they are Arabs – invading Arabs at that and the desease that drives them is islam.
Nobody ever tells the Arabs to go back to Arabia. Why does everybody else have to fall before the barbarians at the gate?
There was a reason the Crusades worked – because we behaved like filthy animals who gave as good as we got and we scared the snot out of the arabs that it took them hundreds of years to get over.
“Israel has absolutely nothing to do with the national security of the United States.” You could have said the same about the Berlin Wall and the USA, or Singapore and Britain in WW2, but that would ignore what makes humanity – what we chose to love. Israel therefore has a central role in the defence of the USA’s national security, because it has a central role in defining the USA, a democracy set in a “moral and religious people”. Any nation which betrays its allies betrays itself.
Certainly the USA’s support for Israel led to the Al-queda attacks, but the USA’s support for Israel comes about only because the USA believes in freedom for all humans, no matter what their religion. You might as well say that because the USA refused to betray Israel that it received the attacks. Because the USA lived up to the ideals it had chosen for itself when declaring its independence it supported Israel, which led to it being hated by many Muslims, and the Al-queda attacks.
Which came first, the chicken of Muslim hatred or the egg of the provocation (ie the existence of Israel)? There is no doubt. It is written in the holy texts of Islam. There was no Israel in Mohammed’s time yet the religion he founded is crammed full of hatred for Jews, and anyone else who does not submit. Just read the source documents on Islam –Koran, Hadith Summa etc. You can predict Muslim actions and reactions much more easily after reading those documents than by knowing every event of the last century.
By supporting Israel the USA is true to itself. By hating Israel Muslims are loyal to Mohammed. The absence of Israel will not reduce Mulims’ hatred of the USA – it will reduce the number of diplomatic and propaganda issues the Muslims can get angry about. The hatred doues not depend on those issues. The hatred depends on one issue alone – do you submit to Islam or do you oppose Islam?
James, while I understand your sentiment, you have been mislead.
The Islamic radicals use hatred of Israel as a smokescreen to divert people like you and many others in high positions in the west.
The Islamic world is in a rage because they looked in the mirror and realized that they have been left far behind by both the Christian West and the Asian infidels to their East.
If Israel were to disappear or even if it never existed in the first place, 9-11 would have still happened and so would the war that will grow still hotter in the near future. It is a war driven by a religious culture that knows it has failed and can satisfy its rage only by bringing down the others who have surpassed them.
You three are wrong. Andy’s post is congratulated and I can’t make sense of it. He brings up Hamas which in turn brings up Palestine and says there is no mention of Palestinians.
If what he meant are the following comments then they are nothing more than anecdotal cherry picking and mean nothing as there are plenty that do mention the Palestinians.
Read your history and tell me how many muslims were radicalized before the influx of Jews into the former British Mandate of Palestine. The terrorism in Europe in the 70′s and 80′s was all about Israel and now it’s in the “global” U.S. To say that 9/11 had nothing to do with Israel or Palestine is ridiculous on the face of it; the culture of Islamic terrorism was born out of the Mandate of Palestine and did not start with bin Laden.
It’s all about honor in the middle east and there would be no mirror for Islam to look into had it not been shoved in their faces. I am not saying Islam is not at fault here, far from it. I am saying that the vortex of the hurricane that is Islamic radicalism has Palestinians as its centerpiece. It could be looked at as an excuse nowadays to further focus rage but not at the beginning and now terrorism simply rides and unthinking wave. There are holy places in the former mandate of Palestine and if Jerusalem were not important there would never have been any impetus for the original Crusades.
To a certain extent this also has to do with Islam generally picking the wrong side, the anti-US/Israeli side, in the Cold War which led to an almost automatic demonization of many Islamic polities by the West, just like we’re doing with N. Korea, Venezuela and Iran for different reasons. We invaded Iraq cuz they were on the wrong rhetorical side of this equation in regard to 9/11; in other words, we attacked him cuz he laughed about 9/11 and was a component of the radicalization of Islam – we attacked Sadam because we believed words kill and those words were born starting in 1948 and not in a vacuum or over army bases in S. Arabia. It’s all about the perception that we not only support Israel but at the same time disdain muslims.
As far as Egypt and Jordan, those were gov’t decisions based on land grabs and not philosophy and the gov’t's are not the ones radicalized for the most part but grass roots movements that can push even a dictator. This is how so many Islamic organizations like Hamas came to be, from grass roots not gov’t. The Muslim Brotherhood would have no reason to exist if the Egyptian gov’t were consistently on their side; instead, they are at odds. Jordan occupied the West Bank for themselves and not for the Palestinians. Later the king learned to his grief that his throne couldn’t survive with so many more Palestinians inside Jordan itself which situation helped bring about the 1967 War although it was really about the Straights of Tiran, now internationalized by treaty with Egypt in the return of the Sinai to Egypt.
Neither Jordan or Egypt are the sources of Al-Queda so why bring them up? To say that Al-Queda and 9/11 were solely thinking of Americans on Saudi soil is not accurate; Bin Laden had to make a case for East VS. West and not just military bases on Saudi soil – deep hatred needed for such operations doesn’t come from that. While this may have been the main thrust of Bin Laden, it doesn’t extend to the dupes he used and later joked about as being, in fact, dupes. There is no single or series of events outside of the events surrounding the founding of Israel that can be said to have kicked off the struggle between Islam and the West.
Know your stuff before saying I’m misled or not familiar with the Founding Charter of Hamas which I read years ago. Modern Islamic radicals feed on urban myths, general hatred, notions of honor and momentum rather than any real view of history – they are idiots not historians. Yet that momentum was generated in the furnace of the founding of the state of Israel however much it has now gained an identity apart from this specific event.
You’re wrong. Arab imperialism has been around for 1400 years. Arabs have been killing Jews and Christians and occupying their lands for ages. The Grand Mmufti in Jerusalem sided with the Nazi in WWII. In all these cases there was no Israel. The problem and the disease is and will always be islam. Until the world unites to defeat and irradicate islam there will never be peace on Earth.
OK, you want history?
I’ll keep it short here:
1834 – Arab pogrom against Jews in the city of Safed.
1920′s – several Arab riots and pogroms against Jews, including 1929 massacre in Hebron
WWI – Muslims are fighting against the allies and with the Central Powers.
WWII – Muslims are fighting with Germany.
That put your theory that Muslims started their terror after 1948 to rest.
Also, as Muslims were behind on their industrial development, they simply lacked the funds to cause mayhem. After 1948 with increasing demand for oil and endless petrodollars they increased their ability to terrorize the West.
The U.S. has a much larger footprint in the ME than Israel will ever have, so please stop blaming Israel for Muslim hatred toward the U.S.
You are keeping it very short….
Hijra year 5 (627 AD)
Almost nine hundred Jews of a Medinan tribe named Banu Qurayza were massacred by Muslims in one day. Muhammad, the prophet of Islam was the lead spectator of this inhumane butchery which began early in the day, ending in torchlight. Those who escaped death were taken captive by Muslims and sold in slave markets. This genocide is known in history as the Banu Qurayza incident.
1066
Joseph HaNagid, the Jewish vizier of Granada, Spain, was crucified by an Arab mob that proceeded to raze the Jewish quarter of the city and slaughter its 5,000 inhabitants.
1465
Arab mobs in Fez slaughtered thousands of Jews, leaving only 11 alive. The killings touched off a wave of similar massacres throughout Morocco.
Other mass murders of Jews in Arab lands occurred in Morocco in the 8th century, where whole communities were wiped out by Muslim ruler Idris I; North Africa in the 12th century, where the Almohads either forcibly converted or decimated several communities;
Libya in 1785, where Ali Burzi Pasha murdered hundreds of Jews;
Algiers, where Jews were massacred in 1805, 1815 and 1830
Marrakesh, Morocco, where more than 300 hundred Jews were murdered between 1864 and 1880.
Decrees ordering the destruction of synagogues were enacted in Egypt and Syria (1014, 1293-4, 1301-2), Iraq (854-859, 1344) and Yemen (1676).
1834
First recorded attack on native Jews in Israel by Muslims, is the one in June 1834, Safed (the Plunder), the massacres and mass rapes went on for 33 days, (an inciter, Muhammed Damoor, a self-proclaimed prophet, ‘prophesied’ the attack for which he agitated). It was repeated in 1838.
1886
Attack of Arabs on a Jewish settlement was in Petach Tikva (which was the first settlement in modern day Israel-Palestine), in the year 1886.
1920
Arabs attack Jews in Jerusalem & in Safed 1920-1921. Better known as “riots.”
During the year, 142 pogroms and 36 lesser riots occur against the Jews. It was led due to incitement by the Mufti Haj Amin al-Husseini who began accumulating wealth and power.
1929
The Hebron massacre in 1929, incited by the Mufti al-Husseini who called to “Kill the Jews everywhere. This pleases Allah.” that was the foundation of the Arab-Israeli conflict.
1938
Arabs massacre Jews in Tiberias.
The Tiberias (today part of the State of Israel) massacre took place on October 2, 1938 during the 1936–1939 Arab “revolt” in ‘Palestine,’ as they went from village to village, while shouting ‘Death to the English.’ Arabs murdered twenty Jews –among them 11 children– in Tiberias after infiltrating the Kiryat Shmuel settlement.
1941
The [non-Aryan, Arab] Mufti meets with Adolph Hitler (who considered the Arabs, an inferior monkey-type “race,” yet managed to use him against the Jews) in 1941, his parties & youth groups in Palestine are fascist, [since 1936, existed Nazi type "stormtroopers" with the youth's oath of: "Life -- my right; independence -- my aspiration; Arabism -- my country, and there is no room in it for any but Arabs. In this I believe and Allah is my witness."] he plots in his pact with the nazi leader, to massacre Jews on a big scale. He agitates –in that year– the Arabs, in Nazi oriented Iraq, to attack the Jews, many innocent Jews fall victims in the
Farhud (pogrom in Baghdad), by the Arab-Islamic [Hitler-Youth group type] “futuwwa,” led attack.
Later on, in 1943, he will lead a Nazi SS Muslim army [crimes against humanity, ethnic cleansing] against the Christian Serbs
Why not just list all the wars in history? Did the Roman Empire conquer cuz they hated the North and East? Of course not – they were pirates as were the conquering Islamic armies throughout the middle ages. Was the British Empire a “terrorist” Eastern hating organization? These conquests by Islam in history were not a crusade of hatred and have nothing to do with a radical and political hatred of the West any more than Cortes’ disdain for the Aztec culture – both East and West were hostile but not in the same sense as are individual terrorists today; there were no muslims blowing up buildings in Vienna after the 2 failed sieges of Vienna – it was just war. Setting up straw man arguments and then winning them against something I never stated is neither here nor there. You’re like Noam Chomsky, a linguist, who qualifies words with semantics to try and make one thing seem like another and so win a debate.
Adolph Hitler was the “West” so I’m not sure what siding with him means and I have already said in another response that any acts within the Mandate of Palestine before the foundation of the state of Israel were mutual acts of terrror by Jews and muslims.
National competitions are not “terrorism” in the specific sense of the term nor was the Islamic conquest of much of the Mediterranean Basin although they certainly terrorized people. Let’s not split semantic hairs to prove a point you have already lost which is evident in your response. Qualifying events in order to make the muslim sieges of Vienna or conquest of Spain look more like bombings in Paris in the 1970s is childish debate.
Islamic general anti-Western terrorism that blithely targets Spain, America, Britain, Luxor and Kenya as interchangeable enemies is a new thing, devoid of local political considerations and is nowhere evident in world history before the British Mandate of Palestine as a phenomenon. To portray such events as merely Islam without effective armies is nonsense.
None of those examples speak to Islamic radical terrorism towards the West. There is a difference between cultural conflicts between polities and grass roots terrorism that is fundamentally opposed to the larger West. You are historically, contextually and perceptually challenged in understanding the difference between taking sides in larger conflicts or the idea of Islam conquering and killing people as marauding armies which they have been doing for centuries. The 1920 example basically agrees with my own premise although since the Palestinians had not yet lost that conflict, they were not yet radicalized in larger sense against the entire West and, there was terrorism on both sides; the Arabs had not yet come to associate a loss that hadn’t yet happened with the West and least of all America.
Read James
There is no mention of the ‘Palestinians’
Then…Palestiniams are a political construct.
ARAB refugees in Israel only began identifying themselves as part of a Palestinian people in 1967, two decades AFTER the establishment of the modern State of Israel. The name “Palestinians” is not mentioned in UN General Assembly Resolution 242, adopted unanimously by the UN Security Council on November 22, 1967 in the aftermath of the Six-Day War. It is also not mentioned in Resolution 338, adopted on October 22, 1973 which called for a ceasefire in the Yom Kippur War.
Reason being, until the Jordanian occupation of Judea, Samaria and part of Jerusalem ended in 1967, such a people NEVER EXISTED.
Again semantic hairs are split to prove a defenseless point. Whatever the name of the ethnic group Hamas is constructed from it is still that group and so it is bewildering to me to use it to prove that that ethnic group is of no consequence in this turmoil; no Israel, no Hamas, no Hamas charter. Call them Bugs Bunny and they’re still cheering the blowing up of trains in Madrid for the same reasons. They now see the West and Israel as imperial crusaders.
People in the middle east genuinely believe the West and Israel have larger designs on the middle east and that we use Israel as a proxy to help accomplish this. You think Jews disappeared from North Africa because of what? Al-Queda? No, it was Israel/Arab wars. The hatred of Jews throughout the middle east has no equivalent in history. Bringing up massacres of Jews in ancient or middle ages history is pointless since muslims massacred many peoples.
What difference in this world does it make if an academic point can be made that there was never an actual nation or people called Palestinians although the Arabic word, philistines, suggests otherwise and the Jerusalem Post newspaper was founded in 1932 as the Palestinian Post – in that day there were Palestinian Jews and Arabs – it’s what they called the place lest I belabor the obvious with the name Mandate of Palestine. People in South America always tell me they’re Americans too but they’re not in an academic sense – what’s the difference if they believe it. Academic argument won, crap still blowing up.
They sure as hell think of themselves as Palestinian now and will blow up Jews and Americans wherever given the chance as will their moronic proxies in Somalia and Hamburg and Argentina who’ve never set foot in Palestine and will target anything that is not muslim – take away the conflict in Israel and those proxies literally don’t exist. Those proxies were created by the success of Israel and the unwillingness of the Palestinian Arabs to do a Robert E. Lee and surrender. Even Brazil is in on this in spirit as they just laid the first stone for a Palestinian state embassy in Brasilia the other day. Taking away Jewish immigration to Palestine and the founding of the state of Israel, what events would see terrorism in Hamburg and Kenya and Spain? Would any Islamic nation have felt disrespected in the first place and been able to play on anti-Western sentiment as have Iran and Saddam Hussein? The idea that Islamic fundamentalist terrorism is merely a continuation of muslim competitions against Europe ages ago holds no water. Turkey exists because it physically threw out occupying European armies after WW I and where is the hostility there? The middle east never did so and were handed countries by exhausted British and French empires and so would have even less cause for hostility.
No, this is a Palestinian thing though I agree that it may have gone way past the establishment of a state on the West Bank to solve it. The beast has overgrown its original imperative in a chicken and the egg scenario where now it is Iraq and Afghanistan that are thrown in the mix and in any event, radical Palestinian Arabs will settle for nothing less than ALL of Palestine and the dissolution of Israel entirely and any Palestinian leader who sets up a West Bank state will be assassinated in short order.
You have swallowed the Palestinian line hook line and sinker. You disregard anyone’s argument as invalid even though they have substance. “Oh, Moslems have always committed genocide…..” Your own quote tells the story. Blaming Moslem radicalism on Israel’s existence is the big lie you’ve incorporated. Moslem radicalism is really Moslem fundamentalism. Its a step back in time not a step forward. Remember you said the Moslems always committed genocide. Now the main fallacy to your argument is that this is because of that. Its like you saying that cancer is caused by the common cold. The fact is that they were both around and may or may not be related. The same is true for the scenario you are trying to repaint to your colors. Grow up and come back with a better argument.
Calling Arabs “Palestinians” actually comes from the founding of the “Palestine Liberation Organization” by the ruler of Egypt, Gamal Nasser, and the Soviet Union in 1964. This is the source of all the phony history and propaganda about these Arabs. The name “Palestine” dates back to 135 A.D., when the Roman Emperor Hadrian changed the name of Judea to Palestina, after having defeated the last Jewish rebellion under Bar Kochba; Hadrian wanted to eradicate all memory of Jews and Judea, and outlawed Judaism. Since that time, “Palestine” became synonymous with “land of the Jews” or “the Holy Land” (Jesus having been a Jew), and “Palestinian” ynonymous with “Jew.” That is why the Zionists wanted the Palestine Mandate, and Great Britain was awarded the “Palestine Mandate” after World War I to be “homeland of the Jews.”
It is backwards to think that resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is the key to resolving the wider conflict with aggressive Islam. Would that it were that easy. Instead, resolving the wider conflict with aggressive Islam is the only way to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. If Israel disappeared overnight, Islamists would still be at war with us.
Islam Tax Dollars for Muslims
by Connie Hair / 09/02/2010
Islam Islam’s Burning Rage
by Rich Trzupek on Sep 15th, 2010
“The only problem with Islamic fundamentalism are the fundamentals of Islam.”
A Christian Church in Mecca and Medina, Saudi Arabia?
The most sacred place in Islam is the Ka’ba in Mecca, Saudi Arabia. The Ka’ba is a mosque (built by Abraham according to Muslim tradition) built around a black stone. The Prophet Muhammad designated Mecca as the holy city of Islam and the direction (qibla) in which all Muslims should offer their prayers. There is a small building two blocks up the street from the Ka’ba that would be a perfect size to start a Christian Church in.
The second most sacred place in Islam is Medina. Medina is a city in the Hejaz region of western Saudi Arabia, and serves as the capital of the Al Madinah Province. It is the second holiest city in Islam, and the burial place of the Islamic Prophet Muhammad and it is historically significant for being his home after the Hijrah. Believe it or not, two blocks up the street there is a small building that would be a perfect size to start a Christian Church in.
Who would I contact in Saudi Arabia to find out about coming over to Mecca and then Medina to start the Christian Churches there? Our parish is looking forward to spreading the “Word” in Saudi Arabia. God bless. P.S. Say, you don’t think we will run into any problems, do you?
Wow, wasn’t there just an article called “Muslims Behaving Badly”?
And another article called “Islam Expert Not Shocked by Disappearance of ‘Draw Muhammad’ Cartoonist”?
And another called “Christians Warn Against Double Standard in Wake of Quran Burning Row”?
And another “Koran Burning: How Dare the Muslim World Lecture America on Religious Tolerance”?
And another “Muslims Resume Building on Christian Graveyard in Pakistan”?
And another “NYC Mosque Rhetoric May Harm Persecuted Christians”?
And another “Controversial Jesus TV Show Canceled in Lebanon”?
And another “Pakistani Court Acquits Christian Woman of ‘Blasphemy”?
And another “Prospects of Religious Freedom Appear Grim in Islamic Maldives”?
And another “Poll: 3 in 5 New Yorkers Oppose Ground Zero Mosque”?
And another “Muslim Protesters Surround Worshippers in Indonesia”?
Gee, for so few radicals out there in the world, they sure get around, don’t they? But, they told us their religion was peaceful? You mean they lied to us? And we Socialist Progessive’s (I mean Democrat American’s) believed them? I guess I should stop watching the Main, I mean Lame-Stream Media? Oh my God, MSNBC, CNN, ABC, CBS, NPR, and PBS and David (Fidel) Letterman have all become Pravda America?
I wonder if the “strip joint” around the corner from the Mosque at Ground Zero was similar to the one that many of the 911 Muslim terrorists attended the night before they flew the planes into the Twin Towers, the Pentagon, etc murdering thousands, many who were women and children?
If these people were religious terrorists and not political terrorists or people acting out on political grievances, how could they have drank, gone to strip clubs, and rented hookers the night before they supposedly wanted to meet Allah? (Notice I didn’t say God, I said Allah). So if everybody doesn’t accept their version of reality, that somehow invalidates it for them. Everybody must believe the same things they do. Solution to this problem? Believe it or not, there is. It’s called an election and it just happened. Next, America needs to vote Barry Hussein Soetoro out.
Israel will stand and hold against the Islamist threat.The year 2007 was a turning point.Iran is getting desperate and know now they cannot hold out longer than the Israelis.They are still losing the PR war badly as are Hezbollah and Hamas.Watch for these areas(Syria,Iran,Gaza) and crackpots implode and turn on each other.Its coming.We just need to weather the storm as it happens.
As I write this lawmakers in Lebanon have proposed a law that would forbid the sale of land in an attempt to thwart the wholesale buying of swaths of land by muslims with unknown money from Christians in Christian bulwarks; I doubt it can pass or change anything anyway.
Some decades ago Christians were the majority and are now at 34% of the populace and falling. Some are leaving as they see the handwriting on the wall. Another civil war is brewing in Lebanon and they will probably be the next radicalized Israel hating state. They already have no love for Israel.
Multiculturalism is not big in Islam nor is the idea of peacefully sharing power. The Kurds in Turkey and Copts in Egypt are not equal citizens in fully keeping with Islamic tradition. One can only wonder how much worse it was hundreds of years ago. The Coptic calendar starts with a massacre of Christians in Egypt.
Syria, Iran and Gaza are non-players as they have no capability to reach Israel with meaningful military force. Were Syria to lose again it would mean the end of the regime. Only muslims in Lebanon have the suicidal will to take on Israel regardless of the consequences though they got a bloody nose the last time. Still, large Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon are isolated pariahs so hatred of Israel ironically in the name of Palestinian Arabs actually has little compassion for the actual people; it’s just hatred now.
@Matthew
Again.
The violence against the Jews perpetrated by muslims has nothing to do with Israel. I have just given you a small list of examples of muslim violence against Jews. The violence did not start with the establishment of Israel and it will not end with the destruction of Israel.
The violence started about 1400 years ago with mohammed.
The Koran exhorts Muslim to “slay the unbelievers wherever they find them,” “not take non-Muslims for friends” and “when ye meet unbelievers, smite at their necks.” Mohammed, whose very actions define morality for Muslims, encouraged his followers to deceive kuffars, or non-believers. Islamic doctrine explicitly supports the killing, insulting, torturing, robbing, beheading, enslaving, pillorying, and raping of non-Muslims.
A “Doctrine of Enmity” toward non-Muslims is part and parcel of Islamic practice and belief, with the greatest wrath reserved for the Jews as punishment for their refusal to recognize Mohammed as the final prophet.
Five times daily, observant Muslims worldwide condemn all non-believers in ritual prayers, singling out Jews and Christians. Muslim students readily identify Jews and Christians respectively as “those against whom there is wrath” and “those who are astray,” phrases found in the Koran’s opening Sura. This veiled cursing of non-believers has occurred for 1,400 years, even amidst duplicitous attempts to appear conciliatory and engage in interfaith dialogue.
Expelling Jews and Christians from the Arabian Peninsula is a religious obligation for Muslims. In Sahih Al Muslim, Allah says, “I will expel Jews and Christians from the Arabian Peninsula until there is none but Muslims in it.” As an example of how this religious obligation is translated into modern-day action, Al-Qaradawi, one of the most influential Sunni Islamic clerics and the ideological leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, who recently stated, “… and it is a duty of the faithful to obey Allah and his apostle and liquidate the enemies of Allah and, in particular, … who else but the Jews?” The issue appears to outsiders to be over land, when in reality, the present-day enmity toward Israel is based on the Koran’s 7th-century doctrines against the Jews. Modern-day Muslims are seeking to enforce this mandate of the Koran.
@Matthew
“Taking away Jewish immigration to Palestine and the founding of the state of Israel, what events would see terrorism in Hamburg and Kenya and Spain? Would any Islamic nation have felt disrespected in the first place and been able to play on anti-Western sentiment as have Iran and Saddam Hussein?”
In 1785, Thomas Jefferson and John Adams asked the same question as you.
They went to negotiate with Tripoli’s envoy to London, Ambassador Sidi Haji Abdrahaman). At issue was the Barbary pirates’ demand of tribute from American merchant vessels in the Mediterranean Sea.
Upon inquiring “concerning the ground of the pretensions to make war upon nations who had done them no injury”.
The ambassador replied:
“It was written in their Qu’ran, that all nations which had not acknowledged the Prophet were sinners, whom it was the right and duty of the faithful to plunder and enslave; and that every Muslim who was slain in this warfare was sure to go to paradise..”
Jefferson and Adams, in their subsequent report to the Continental Congress, recorded the Tripolitan Ambassador’s justification:
… that it was founded on the Laws of their Prophet, that it was written in their Koran, that all nations who should not have acknowledged their authority were sinners, that it was their right and duty to make war upon them wherever they could be found, and to make slaves of all they could take as Prisoners, and that every Musselman who should be slain in Battle was sure to go to Paradise.
Israel is just an excuse. The violence did not start with the establishment of Israel and it will not end with the destruction of Israel.
You want it from the horse’s mouth?
This is what Yusuf al-Qaradawi an Egyptian Muslim scholar and Islamist preacher has to say. Yusuf al-Qaradawi is the winner of eight international prizes for his scholarly contributions and is considered one of the most influential Islamic scholars living today
The Muslims conquered Constantinople, where Eastern Christianity is situated, and in the future, a mighty king will arise for the Muslims; through him, Islam will spread and Rome will be conquered. We will control the land of the Vatican; we will control Rome and introduce Islam in it. Yes, the Christians, who carve crosses on the breasts of the Muslims in Kosovo – and before then in Bosnia, and before then in many places in the world – will yet pay us the Jiziya, in humiliation, or they will convert to Islam…”
Or Syed Abul A’ala Maududi, Sunni Pakistani journalist, theologian, Muslim revivalist leader and political philosopher, and a major 20th century Islamist thinker
It must now be obvious that the objective of the Islamic jihad is to eliminate the rule of an un-Islamic system, and establish in its place an Islamic system of state rule. Islam does not intend to confine his rule to a single state or a hand full of countries. The aim of Islam is to bring about a universal revolution. Although in the initial stages, it is incumbent upon members of the party of Islam to carry out a revolution in the state system of the countries to which they belong; their ultimate objective is none other than world revolution. “Islam is not merely a religious creed [but] a revolutionary ideology and jihad refers to that revolutionary struggle … to destroy all states and governments anywhere on the face of the earth, which are opposed to the ideology and program of Islam.”
@Matthew
Yep, lets throw Israel under the bus. That will hopefully placate those angry murdering mobs.
However, after they have finished and conquered Israel and after the Americans have left Afganistan and Iraq they will continue their acts of terrorism because islam is ‘threatened’ or opressed in….
India and the Sudan and Algeria and Pakistan and Russia and Chechnya and the Philippines and Indonesia and Nigeria and Thailand and Spain and Egypt and Bangladesh and Saudi Arabia and Ingushetia and Dagestan and Turkey and Morocco and Yemen and Lebanon and France and Uzbekistan and Tunisia and Kosovo and Bosnia and Mauritania and Kenya and Eritrea and Syria and Somalia and Kuwait and Virginia and Ethiopia and Iran and Jordan and United Arab Emirates and Louisiana and Texas and Tanzania and Germany and Australia and Pennsylvania and Belgium and Denmark and East Timor and Qatar and Maryland and Tajikistan and the Netherlands and Scotland and Chad and Canada and China and Nepal and the Maldives and Mali and Angola and the Ukraine and Uganda and Sweden and…
At the same time they will continue their terrorism because of music, cartoons, sikhs, movies, poems, newspaper articles, books, films, christian symbols, hindus or anything else that offends them.
The only thing that would keep them happy is if nobody ever confronted, criticised or scrutinised Islamist ideology and if criticism of Islam is banned.
Its also a ‘respect’ thing, they are angry because Islam is not shown enough ‘respect’ by society at large. A very amorphous idea, but in general, a bowing down to and pandering to him is what is required, anything less than that is equal to ‘they hate us’ and reason to riot in the streets.
Israel is now facing an Islamic enemy which has learned from it’s mistakes on the battlefield, the diplomatic arena, and on the world stage. I do not think that Israel has yet learned from her mistakes over the almost two decades since the catastrophic Oslo Accords.
True, the era of unilateral Israeli territorial withdrawals as a sop to Palestinian radicalism have ended. But not because of the lack of Israeli desire to make them or because Israeli leaders have developed some common sense, rather because there is almost no “safe” territory left to concede.
Israel is now engaged in the toughest war of all, the war for international public opinion and is losing hands down.
The Palestinians have effectively put an end to even the facade of peace negotiations. They are now attempting to achieve statehood by UN and International fiat, a step which if successful, would seriously and negatively impact on Israeli security interests and demographic concerns.
The scenario is this. With de facto and possibly UN sanctioned de jure statehood, the Palestinians could legitimately invite every Palestinian refugee in the world to return to Palestine.
This could and probably would mean that all the Palestinian refugees in Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, and the rest of the Middle East could be forcibly repatriated by those states to the new Palestinian state. Of course this would be economically and socially devastating. Thus the Palestinian government would then mass these new Palestinians by the tens of thousands on the border with Israel and tell them to take back their “occupied” property by force. I don’t think I need to go into detail how much of a blood bath would probably result, with Israel quickly being convicted of massive human rights violations and hit with destructive economic and other sanctions.
No one in Israel has yet addressed this scenario, not Jonathan Spyer nor his mentor Barry Rubin, and certainly not the Israeli government.
But this is what the future will almost certainly hold should the Palestinians achieve statehood without negotiations with Israel.
What is it about the difference between wars for national competitions and radicalized grass roots terrorism without uniforms do you not understand? Was there ever a regime more odious in it’s wars of aggression than the Nazis? What does that have to do with the Bader-Meinhoff Gang? One is not an extension of the other.
What does racial superiority have to do with terrorism as certainly both Muslims and Christians in the middle ages hated one the other? Why single out the muslims? By your reckoning those Christians should have devolved into terrorists, the hatred still there and the armies conquering Algeria gone. “Non, je ne Regrette Rien” flourished a few years and died, proof that terrorism is about radicalization which is apart from imperialism which cannot survive without national will and leadership. It is not terrorism no matter how odious.
The idea that terrorism is simply a continuation of Islamic conquest now that the military options have been taken from them is stupid. Wars in the middle ages were enacted from the top, not the bottom and not out of political hatred but for cash. Terrorism is enacted from nearer the bottom and is not an extension of national political will for power and money as is an army. The idea that the mercenary Carlos the Jackal is merely another in a long line of crusading Islamic armies would have to buy into the belief that old Islamic armies invaded out of hatred which is to suggest Caribbean pirates acted out of political hatred; they just wanted money.
If you believe that pirates were terrorists and current terrorists merely pirates without a ship then good going. Take away profit and armies fade. Terrorism is another animal which survives on hate and copycat actions. The Palestinian Arabs and the events surrounding them invented modern terrorism and all terrorism is an extension of this and not medieval Islamic armies and certainly not US military bases in Saudi Arabia.
Sorry, James but you were cornered, so you changed your argument.
You started with saying that there was no Arab terror before 1948 – Andy and I have proven that you are wrong. You said that Arabs did not fight the U.S. before 1948 and you were proven wrong again (see WWI & WWII).
You said we are historically challenged so we brought historical facts, which of course you considered irrelevant.
Now you pop up with a new argument that terrorism stems from hate and war from greed or thirst for power. Here is an interesting historical fact for you: Yassir AraFart, the father of the PLO (Palestinian Liberation Organization) and modern terror was born in Egypt, not in “Palestine”. AraFart was power thirsty and when he died he was worth $300,000,000, so please don’t tell us that terrorism is only a factor of hate. Terrorism is just a dirty way of waging war.
Let me help you out here Jimmy. Let’s start with Nazis and Bader-Meinhoff Gang….what does one have to do with the other. One fact anti-Semitism.
The idea that terrorism is simply a continuation of Islamic conquest now that the military options have been taken from them is stupid…..is a really stupid statement. The basic core is still Islam. When not conquering, or being terrorists they inject themselves into the their host cities with the total intent to disrupt until they have control………look at Europe or what is now called Eurabia.
Islamic armies invaded out of hatred which is to suggest Caribbean pirates acted out of political hatred; they just wanted money. Let me correct you here………..Caribbean pirates acted out of greed, yes. How about the Islamic Mediterranean pirates that Jefferson sent the marines to deal with? What was their motivation while they sold Christian sailors on the slave markets? How about the Somali pirates, doesn’t Israel get a share of the blame for them by using your logic……after all they weren’t around until Israel was a founded State.
Tighten up your arguments, they are falling apart. Ok, we can blame Israel for that too!
You won my argument for me” “When not conquering, or being terrorists…” A de facto admission that they are two separate creatures. I might add that one ended in 1683 and the other didn’t start til the 20th century in Palestine; not exactly an argument for continuity when it comes to fundamental imperatives which are entirely different expressions of entirely different eras. Christian sailors on the slave market: money.
As far as Israel, I blame that country for nothing. What I said is that terrorism was born out of the cauldron that is that conflict. I am not a moron who “blames” a country for winning a civil war or for defending itself against idiots who won’t give up through 6 decades; Robert E. Lee was rightly lauded for doing the exact opposite so Americans don’t think much of Palestinian Arabs, kamikazes or suicide bombers dreaming of 72 virgins who live in dirt.
That doesn’t mean I’m willing to have any more planes flying into buildings simply cuz Israel won’t leave the West Bank; it’s not a blaming political position but simple defense and survival – we already have buses in Seattle where the proxy war is being played out thanks to our new “peaceful” population of muslims to go alongside 9/11 and thwarted plots, by an amazing “coincidence” also in Oregon. If a dirty radioactive bomb ever goes off in the U.S. (which I consider inevitable) the first thing the U.S. should do is nuke Mecca and unilaterally declare a Palestinian state and tell the Arabs, “You’re welcome”, and to shut up and read books or something; get along with their lives and stop brooding about a civil war they lost when everything was in their favor some 60 years ago; you lose at poker you can’t have the chips back.
I couldn’t even parse your latter sentences and don’t know what you were trying to say. The idea that middle ages Islam and modern Islam do things inimical to the West for the same reasons doesn’t hold water. Post WW I Arab nationalism with the added fuel of the creation of Israel to make those nations anti-Western has nothing to do with the more conventional imperatives of middle ages Islam which was more or less conquest for the sake of conquest the same as Europe when they got the upper hand starting in the 18th century in Hungary and the Balkans; there was no more hatred on one side than the other.
As a side note, ironically, the Arab press here has come up with a conspiracy story published and accessible on Al-Ahram Weekly’s website as a multi-page story in the print version this last Spring, that Israel actually is behind the Somali pirate attacks in a bid for control of the waterways down south in Hormuz. The anti-Western Islamic press is nothing more or less than a group of thuggish myopic morons and half of their English dictionary are all terms that mean “imperialism”.
You lost this debate at the gate and should listen and learn rather than try to prop up indefensible positions. Or you could continue and make me a list of all the Islamic terrorist attacks against the West throughout the entirety of the 19th century. What happened – were they taking a nap after having exhausted themselves with all the bombings in the 18th century?
It was the British and their mandate that awoke the sleeping Nationalist beast by making promises they couldn’t keep due to the inconvenient slaughter of 6 million Jews in Europe whose survivors subsequently came to roost on top of the unsuspecting heads of Palestinian Arabs and then the civilian world go boom.
Bin Laden quote from an audio tape: “These Jews are masters of usury and leaders in treachery. They will leave you nothing, either in this world or the next.” Don’t tell me his jihad came out of a Wahabi obsession with military bases. No Israel, no anti-Western tradition of terrorism, no 9/11, period.