Why Do Arabs Hate Israel?
Brigitte Gabriel speaks out on FLAME (scroll down from the letter at top for the entire piece):
I was raised in Lebanon where I was taught that the Jews are evil, Israel is the devil, and the only time we will have peace in the Middle East is when we kill all the Jews and drive them into the sea.When the Muslims and Palestinians declared jihad on the Christians in 1975, they started massacring the Christians city after city. I ended up living in a bomb shelter underground from age 10 to 17, without electricity, eating grass to live, and crawling under sniper bullets to a spring to get water.
It was Israel who came to help the Christians in Lebanon. My mother was wounded by a Muslim shell and was taken into an Israeli hospital for treatment. When we entered the emergency room, I was shocked at what I saw. There were hundreds of people wounded, Muslims, Palestinians, Lebanese Christians, and Israeli soldiers lying on the floor. The doctors treated everyone according to their injury. They treated my mother before they treated the Israeli soldier lying next to her. They didn't see religion, they didn't see political affiliation; they saw people in need and they helped.
For the first time in my life, I experienced a human quality that I know my culture would not have shown to their enemy. I experienced the values of the Israelis, who were able to love their enemy in their most trying moments. I spent 22 days at that hospital; those days changed my life and the way I believe information, the way I listen to the radio or to television. I realized that I was sold a fabricated lie by my government about the Jews and Israel, which was so far from reality. I knew for a fact that if I were a Jew standing in an Arab hospital, I would be lynched and thrown to the ground as shouts of joy of "Allahu Akbar" (God is great) echoed through the hospital and the surrounding streets.
I became friends with the families of the wounded Israeli soldiers, one in particular--Rina--whose only child was wounded in his eyes. One day, I was visiting with her and the Israeli army band came to play national songs to lift the spirits of the wounded soldiers. As they surrounded his bed playing a song about Jerusalem, Rina and I started crying. I felt out of place and started walking out of the room, and this mother held my hand and pulled me back in without even looking at me. She held me, crying, and said, "It is not your fault." We just stood there, crying, holding each other's hands.
What a contrast between her--a mother looking at her deformed, 19-year-old only child and still able to love me, the enemy--and a Muslim mother who sends her son to blow himself up to smithereens just to kill a few Jews or Christians.
The difference between the Arabic world and Israel is a difference in values and character. It's barbarism versus civilization. It's democracy versus dictatorship. It's goodness versus evil.
...Because the Palestinians have been encouraged to believe that murdering innocent Israeli civilians is a legitimate tactic for advancing their cause, the whole world now suffers from a plague of terrorism, from Nairobi to New York, from Moscow to Madrid, from Bali to Beslan.
They blame suicide bombings on the "desperation of occupation." Let me tell you the truth. The first major terror bombing committed by Arabs against the Jewish state occurred 10 weeks before Israel even became independent. On Sunday morning, February 22, 1948, in anticipation of Israel 's independence, a triple truck bomb was detonated by Arab terrorists on Ben Yehuda Street in what was then the Jewish section of Jerusalem. Fifty-four people were killed and hundreds were wounded.
Thus, it is obvious that Arab terrorism is caused not by "desperation" or "occupation," but by the very thought of a Jewish state.
So many times in history in the last 100 years, citizens have stood by and done nothing, allowing evil to prevail. As America stood up against and defeated communism, now it is time to stand up against the terror of religious bigotry and intolerance. It's time for everyone to stand up and support and defend the State of Israel, which is the front line of the war against terrorism.
A beautiful article. Thanks for posting it.
kishke at June 30, 2010 12:39 PM
Thanks for sharing this.
Western Civilization is currently damaging itself due to our pc refusal to make value judgments about truth vs. untruth, good vs. evil, excellence vs. inferiority. Few will stand tall and declare Islam to be false and evil; will stand tall and declare Arab tribal culture to be inferior. Truth exists. We must search for it, and we must not be shy about doing so. Upon this, our future depends.
Separately, I have reasoned that Arafat, in 2000, when offered 90% of all his demands by Ehud Barak at Camp David, rejected Barak's offer b/c Arafat's ultimate goal was to drive Israeli Jews into the Mediterranean.
Shelby Steele suggests another motive for Arafat: to have accepted Barak's offer would have resulted in Arabs being forced "to forego hatred as consolation and meaning". Steele also mentions Arabs being forced to forgo victim status as explanation for lack of modernity.
I would reshape this last assertion, and here's why: Islam and tribalism, in many areas of life, actively oppose modernity. Therefore, I would say foregoing victim status would force Arab Muslims to forgo a beloved explanation for why Islam is not currently dominating the world, i.e. would force Arab Muslims into a reckoning about the supposed infallibility of the Koran and the Hadith, as well as into a reckoning about the continued viability of many tribal principles and values which are centuries old and are revered.
Arafat had two choices:
1] peace, and the inevitable religious and tribal reckonings which would follow; or
2] instigation of war.
Arafat feared the reckonings, and chose instigation of war. It's as simple as that. If, as consequence of war, Israeli Jews were eventually driven into the Mediterranean? Bonus! Thank goodness Arafat, the smiling lying evil murderous corrupt animal-sex pervert, is dead.
Shelby Steele:
Steele has more essay at the link, and it is smart stuff.
gcotharn at June 30, 2010 12:40 PM
I'll second kishke:
That was wonderfully written and thank you for posting it.
cornerdemon at June 30, 2010 12:52 PM
Just finished reading "Nomad' by Ayaan Ali, which very much echos this article. There is a culture of blind violence and hatred in Islam that cannot be overcome at this time, due to the way Islamic children are treated and taught.
Think about it. You take a man who is perfectly willing to have someone carve his 11 year old daughter's genitals up with a rusty Pepsi can, or run her over himself in a 7-11 parking lot because she wears jeans, and then you expect him to be rational about his religion?
Until we are willing to say out loud, in public, that Islam is a culture of irrational violence, and then take steps to change that culture when people from Islamic nations immigrate to the West, the hatred will continue to grow and spread.
UW Girl at June 30, 2010 2:16 PM
Amy Alkon
http://www.advicegoddess.com/archives/2010/06/30/why_do_arabs_ha.html#comment-1728303">comment from UW GirlAbsolutely, UW Girl. I hope you'll recommend the book far and wide, so people will get acquainted with the truth about Islam as opposed to what they'd prefer to believe about it.
Amy Alkon at June 30, 2010 2:30 PM
I think gcotharn is right about the damage Western Civ does to itself by essentially refusing to defend the very things that make it special vs. other cultures. Perfect? No, but on balance it has benefited the world far more in the last few centuries than any other culture I can name.
As for Arafat, his motives may be exactly as described, but I venture one additional explanation for his actions: Greed. There's a lot of money to be made from looting international aid, which would not be as forthcoming to a stable country at peace with its neighbors. For a select few, victimization pays handsomely.
Some guy at June 30, 2010 5:22 PM
arafat would have been flush with international aid had he signed. The reason he didn't was very simple ... unlike Peres, Arafat, etc, he was not willing to die to do the right thing, and he would have been killed sure as the sun rises in the east.
ron at June 30, 2010 5:41 PM
oops make that sadat, not arafat
ron at June 30, 2010 5:43 PM
Arafat had grown rich, very rich, by skimming monies provided to the Palestinian Arabs. A real peace would have threated that income stream.
I R A Darth Aggie at July 1, 2010 7:22 AM
For one contrary point of view I suggest this link:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/01/opinion/01kristof.html?_r=1&hp
There is lot of blame to go around for the violence & acrimony between Israelis and Palestinians/ Arabs/ Muslims. Israelis are not injured innocent victims in this bitter conflict.
Nothing compelled Israelis to settle the West Bank like they have. Israelis unilaterally did so of their own volition. Many Israelis think the West Bank is theirs, plain and simple.
One sad thing about this conflict is that Israel's advocates know exactly how to play Democrats and Republicans against each other, so that considerable aid to Israel by the U.S. gov't goes on decade after decade, regardless of what Israel does. Thus, Palestinians, Arabs, Muslims and disinterested parties correctly perceive that the U.S. gov't is biased in favor of Israel. I say this as an agnostic American citizen without a drop of Arab or Jewish blood in me.
Iconoclast1956 at July 1, 2010 7:06 PM
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