We’ve all built our Arabic vocabularies a touch since 9-11, but the definition of words can often be problematic. The meaning of concepts like, say, jihad, are notoriously difficult to pin down, even when they shouldn’t be; I think deliberately. One of those elusive terms is hudna, meaning a temporary truce or “quiet.” A permanent truce, i.e., genuine peace, does not seem part of the vocabulary of jihadists whose sworn goal is to make the world Islamic, sooner or later, like it or not. They just take a time out when it looks as if they could be in trouble, like a hockey player with a twisted ankle. As an example, Hamas is known for its hudnas, cooling down (or pretending to) and then heating up again as soon as possible to do what the beginning of its charter always promised it would do — destroy Israel.
For years the bien pensant of the West (Europe, the U.S.) have urged, actually put strong pressure on, Israel to play the hudna game with Hamas, Fatah, Islamic Jihad and the rest of the sociopathic Islamofascist crew. The Israelis, from a humanistic tradition and anxious to be thought well of, have acquiesced, even when they have the extreme whip hand. The results have been as one would predict: another war, another hudna and on and on. This has been going on since the founding of the state of Israel in 1948, even before that really. In other words, for a long while.
Maybe it’s time for a different approach. How about just…winning?
As I write this, the Jerusalem Post live blog for 6:26 a.m. Israel time is announcing: “A Code Red rocket alert siren was heard a few minutes ago in Sha’ar Hanegev Regional Council.” Hamas is evidently still at it.
Yesterday, the terror organization bragged that they had lobbed missiles (missing, thankfully) at the Israeli atomic reactor at Dimona. That’s about as insane as it gets, considering that a hit (were it possible) might generate nuclear fallout all over the Middle East, killing and injuring more Islamic people than Jews, simply because there are so many more of the former, not to mention contaminating the region.
Hamas doesn’t care. And yet I suspect they have been surprised by what has happened to them in the last few days — and so does noted Arab-Israeli journalist Khaled Abu Toameh, who Wednesday published “Stunned by Israel’s fierce response, Hamas sends distress signals.”
Let’s hope Toameh is right and that the terror organization has been so wounded that it is quietly looking for a way to save face and get out — for now. But let’s further hope that Benjamin Netanyahu will resist that call for a hudna and finish the job.
Of course, the most powerful call for that hudna will not come from the Arabs — many of whom despise Hamas anyway and just have to make a show for home consumption — but from Barack Obama and his “progressive” administration. They are the ones who find moral equivalency between terrorists firing missiles randomly at civilians (and nuclear reactors) and an air force that notifies the enemy’s civilians, for the first time in human history, to vacate a building before it is bombed. (If you want an example of these exasperating reactionaries from the U.S. administration, have a look at the words of one Philip Gordon, who lectured Israelis on the peace process yesterday in Tel Aviv as the rockets were flying in. This rude, fatuous creep deserves to be taken to the woodshed and left there. His hypocrisy is made all the more absurd by the fact that more people were killed over the weekend by violence in Obama’s beloved Chicago than in the first few days of the new Gaza war.)
Nevertheless, when I wrote yesterday my belief that Israel should “go to the mattress” this time, as Don Corleone might say, people justifiably asked what I meant. Should Israel exterminate the Arabs of Gaza? Of course not. But they should disarm them. Completely. And make an attempt to reeducate them. They are taught to hate and kill Jews, literally from nursery school. (If you haven’t seen the videos, go to MEMRI.com.) This cannot go on. And Israel should enforce that. This will take a long time. But it is worth it.
The only way to effectuate change is to finish the job. Otherwise you are just kicking the proverbial can down the proverbial road. Our administration either has a destructive foreign policy or none at all — depending on how you want to look at it. Or maybe even both at the same time, if that’s possible. The incredibly rapid rise of the Islamic State (ISIS) should have put paid to the notion that Obama has even a remote notion of what to do. One of the most laughable things that the above mentioned Mr. Gordon said in his speech in Tel Aviv the other day was his assurance to the Israelis that “America has your back.” Someone should have stood up and asked him if he was drawing a red line.
Which brings me to a last point. I know some on the right are often frustrated by Benjamin Netanyahu. I think you are making a mistake. I think he has done an admirable job, considering he has to deal constantly with the administration of an American president whose fecklessness boggles the mind and who clearly hates him on top of it. How’d you like to have to deal with that?
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