Listen to what the Palestinians Say
The Officers and the Board of Directors of JINSA offer their heartfelt condolences to the families of the sailors killed aboard the USS Cole, and wishes for a complete and speedy recovery to the injured.
The Officers and the Board of Directors of JINSA offer their heartfelt condolences to the families of the sailors killed aboard the USS Cole, and wishes for a complete and speedy recovery to the injured.
Terrorism against Americans was entirely predictable. In fact, the people who were prepared to do it told us they would do it. The American government, however, has shown an alarming tendency to assimilate and act on information that corresponds to its existing beliefs, and ignore information that clashes. When Arafat says he wants “peace,” we listen. But when he calls for jihad, we chalk it up to excessive rhetoric. When he says he will “negotiate,” we listen. But when he demands Palestinian sovereignty in Jerusalem, we claim he will settle for less. When Arafat says he will participate in the “peace process,” we listen. But when he tells children that Palestine must be liberated with their blood, we claim he doesn’t mean it.
Arafat, the Palestinian Authority’s television commentators and paid religious authorities, as well as Osama Bin Laden, Islamic Jihad and Hizballah bluntly tell their adherents who the enemy is. It is us. They tell their followers what to do about it. And they mean it.
In his sermon Friday in Gaza, Dr. Ahmad Abu Halabiya, of the PA-appointed “Fatwah Council,” started his screed against “the Jews.” He said, “They are the ones who must be butchered and killed, as Allah the Almighty said, ‘Fight them: Allah will torture them at your hands, and will humiliate them’ We fight in the path of Allah, and kill and be killed. It will not stop for Clinton or for the old hag Albright… Have no mercy on the Jews, no matter where they are, in any country. Kill those Jews and those Americans who are like them – and who stand by them – they are all in one trench against the Arabs and the Muslims – because they established Israel here, in the beating heart of the Arab world, in Palestine. They created it to be the outpost of their civilization – and the vanguard of their army, and to be the sword of the West.”
Multiply it time and again and you have the underpinning of hatred for the West – of which Israel and the United States are the primary symbols.
Reuel Marc Gerecht, a former Middle East specialist in the CIA, wrote recently, “American exceptionalism – the ironclad belief that our secular tradition of toleration, moderation and compromise can transcend the religions and animosities of older societies – has led us to see others as we would want them to see themselves. This naivete, complemented by the naivete of many on the Israeli left, who also downplay and deride religion as the defining feature of people’s lives, has provoked the Middle East’s present strife far more than Ariel Sharon’s visit to the Temple Mount. A quick read of the Arabic press, particularly the Palestinian press, with its calls to holy war and slogans of ‘Death to the Jews,’ ought to give pause to those who still believe that with just one more Israeli concession. the Arab world would convert what it calls ‘Jewish Crusaders’ into legitimate neighbors.”
If the US would pay attention to the Arab world when it speaks to its own people in its own language, American interests – and American soldiers – in the region would be far better protected.
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We note with sadness the passing of Gen. James V. Hartinger, USAF (ret.), a participant in the JINSA Flag & General Officers Trip to Israel.