Khoury’s “cycle of war” in Mother Jones edition of April 19, 2006 would be laughable were it not so serious. Muslims keep killing Jews, as they have been doing since the 1920's under the then leadership of the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, well before Israel even existed. But the Jewish defense of their lives is a “cycle of war”, in Mr. Khoury's biased eyes.

What cockamamie notions he holds. Hamas and the Palestinian government intend to continue bombing and killing Israelis. Khoury acknowledges this in his article, yet according to him Israel should still “negotiate peaceful coexistence”. How does Israel negotiate peace when the aggressor fanatics of this conflict have said constantly, unquestionably, unwaveringly, unmistakably, irremediably, that they will kill the Jews and return the land to Dar Al Islam?

Khoury makes a convincing case that Israel is to blame for this conflict, which of course is the goal of any good propagandist. He refers to Israeli “unilateralism, colonial land grabs, and militarism”. But the reality is that the first three wars against Israel, after she was founded by the UN, were initiated by aggressor Arab states before Israel had captured any significant territory, and before she had any substantial military power. In each of those wars, there was very real question about whether she would survive the attacks by the various surrounding nations. It has only been since the 6-day war that Israel has been forced (under international law, by the way) to administer territories wrested from the aggressor Arabs (territories never referred to as “occupied” when Jordan, Egypt, and Syria occupied them). And it’s clear that Israel would be happy to relinquish territory for peace. She gave back enormous territory, including substantial improvements and oil wells, for peace with Egypt. The fantasy Khoury so deftly flourishes is based on deceptive premises which he skillfully weaves into a falsely sympathetic fabric of anti-Israel lies. That’s what propaganda is all about.

Khoury’s many misrepresentations have a military goal - to make victim Israel appear the bad guy and thus bring more pressure against her from the West. Arab & Muslim irredentists manipulate world opinion to increase pressure on Israel from world bodies already in threat of oil strangulation. They utilize all available resources to improve their ability to extort submission to Arab will.

The problems in the Middle East are much simpler - and at the same time much more complicated - than Khoury admits. The basic problem is Allah, the source of fanatical followers of Islamic concepts of justice. Israel has as neighbors a couple of dozen regimes with populations which have been brain-washed since the time of Mohammed to believe that Allah says that only Islamic Law can prevail in territories once governed by Islam. The corollary and much more complex problem is that these people believe that achieving such theocracy requires murder on scales the West hasn’t seen since... well, as Tom Lehrer put it, “We licked the Germans in 1918, and they’ve hardly bothered us since then.”

On a more complicated level, it is hard for people to be objective about themselves, so the Christian West thinks of themselves as pure and virtuous, while viewing the Arabs as barbaric and beneath contempt. In fact, this arrogance seems to be a source of an odd kind of condescension, where the West overlooks the vicious barbarity of the Arabs while holding other (non-European) populations to a much higher standard of moral behavior. Suicide mass-murders in the Middle East have never even been discussed, much less acted on by the UN, while similar killings in the Balkans have elicited war crimes trials and collective punishment of the Serbs. But I digress.

The basic problem in the Middle East is the special barbarity and the theosophy of world domination espoused by Islam. Powerful as Khoury makes her sound, Israel is basically helpless, knows this, and desperately seeks peace. She is a country of 5 million people, on a tiny patch of largely barren land, facing several hundred million insane Muslims whose philosophy still includes beheading infidels, behanding thieves, murdering wives and daughters who have inadvertently attracted smiles of strangers, and, yes, killing Jews and Christians and Copts, and Hindus, and anyone else - including Muslims of different beliefs - in the name of Mohammed, who thankfully at least isn’t referred to by his followers as “the Prince of Peace”. For Mr. Khoury to publish slick deceptions from highly visible pulpits is to only promote Islamic violence and to further the Arab goal of world conquest. Until such articulate and highly visible spokespeople such as Mr. Khoury can accurately recognize and publicly preach about the real source of conflict in the Middle East - without threat of death for telling the truth - I fear that there is little chance of peace anywhere that Islam holds sway.

President Carter, in his denigration of Israel in TomPaine.com of March 9, 2006, seems to be saying that it’s okay for the Arabs to continue attacking Israel and killing Israelis, so long as Abbas verbalizes with fingers crossed that they will honor their commitment to the Road Map. For Carter cannot possibly be suggesting that the Arabs are seriously interested in peace. Or does “no” not mean “no”? Hamas has made it clear, even in English, that they intend to destroy Israel and kill the Jews. All the other fanatical Islamic groups say the same thing, but they generally do so in Arabic - or Farsi - restraining their speeches in English mostly to platitudes that excite well-meaning people to put more pressure on Israel to commit suicide.

A map of the region showing a Palestine without any hint of Israel was recently on display at the UN, while standing in front of it were senior members of the UN who observed a moment of silence to honor the homicide bombers of various Arab terror groups. This is not ancient history, but 29 November 2005. So when Carter talks of the justice to be brought forth from the UN, one has to wonder what he’s been smoking. Further, the UN resolution Carter holds up with as offering such promise, 242, places burdens on the Palestinian Muslims, not just on Israel. The Arab combatants have never even suggested that they would fulfill their end of that bargain. They are still busy training five-year-olds to be shahids.

After suffering constant war and death from even before her inception, how could anyone possibly fail to understand the strategic necessity for the actions Israel has taken to secure areas around her vulnerably narrow territory until such time as the Arabs stop killing her people? Such actions as fencing and building are reversible, if ever an Arab leadership arises which is willing to seriously negotiate for a real peace. Egypt and Jordan’s peace treaties make it clear that Israel will give up vast territory, expensive improvements, and wonderful oil wells for peace. The obstacle, despite Carter’s assertions, is not Israel’s actions, but the very real determination of the Arabs to retake by force land which is not theirs. Arab actions are grounded in religious fanatacism, Mr. Carter's tragic encouragement of Islamic violence cloaked as peace action is fueled by sophistry from fanatical Islamic propagandists, and further encouraged by naive support from well-meaning but short-sighted outsiders like himself. The issues he has been flogging are symptoms of a conflict which has gone on for more than half a century, and are consequences of, not the cause of that conflict. The aggressor Arab irredentists must be delighted to use his naivete as an additional weapon in their fight to reestablish Dar Al Islam. He appears more than willing to overlook the real source of this conflict by blaming the perennial scapegoat, the Jew of world nations. This will only encourage the Islamic aggressors to continue their ruthless aggression, for they have time, oil money, and the support of dozens of fundamentalist regimes on their side, in addition to many well-meaning but totally wrong-headed individuals. You, Mr. Carter, are working the wrong side of the street.

Leftist Liberals - Naive Footsoldiers Supporting Terrorism

Molly Little’s letter attacking Israel in the NH Gazette issue of 17 June is provocative and sympathetic, but inaccurate and deliberately deceptive. It is certainly noble to want to help the downtrodden. But it is naive and disingenuous to blame the Israelis for the many self-inflicted wounds of Arab societies. And it is remarkably patronizing and obscurant to forgive the Arab and Islamic societies their murderous and barbaric practices while deliberately ignoring the centuries of violence the Jewish Palestinians (and Coptics, Samaritans, Karaites, Maranites, etc.) have endured at the hands of Islamic troglodytes.

Isaac Asimov once responded to an uninformed and myopic assertion, "... when people thought the Earth was flat, they were wrong. When people thought the Earth was spherical they were wrong. But if you think that thinking the Earth is spherical is just as wrong as thinking the Earth is flat, then your view is wronger than both of them put together." Isaac Asimov,The Relativity of Wrong

While some of the specifics of her circumscribed view might be true, her bias is clear and blatant: Ms. Little refers to the "catastrophe" of the founding of Israel by the UN and then to the Goldstein slaughter of Arab worshipers as though that was normal, every-day fare. Sure, the Earth looks flat to the uneducated eye. The life of the Arab Palestinians - the Jews were Palestinians, too, before the UN established the Jewish State - Arab life is difficult. Neighboring Arab states have managed to use the Arab Palestinians as a guilt weapon (as well as cannon fodder) against Israel and the West. But this began with the Jordanian occupation of the West Bank in 1948, and during the two decades of Arab abuse of Palestinian Arabs, do-gooders paid no heed to the horrible conditions which totalitarian Arab occupation imposed. Ms. Little is not interested in even merely acknowledging contextual details which flesh out the circumstances under which Hebron’s citizens’ lifestyles arose. Those details might reveal that the Earth is roundish.

The Jews of Israel live in homes they acquired through inheritance (many Jewish families have lived in Palestine for centuries), or by lawful purchase of land or land and buildings, mostly before the creation of the State. The country of Israel was itself established by democratic action of the UN. She is the only open democracy in the Middle East, and is in fact the only place in the Middle East where an Arab can go to court and expect a fair trial, whether civil or criminal. West Bank Arabs utilize the modern, life-saving medical facilities in Israel and are treated absolutely without discrimination by the Jewish, Christian, and Muslim doctors all practicing together in Israel. Perhaps there are provocations in some of the horrible places like Hevron - don’t forget, this was the town where many Jews were murdered in repeated anti-Semitic massacres instigated by the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem (who spent World War II in Berlin living on a Nazi stipend) well before the State of Israel was established. There is also a war going on, a war not of Israel's choosing. The vastly outnumbered Israelis do the best they can to protect their citizens. The Jews who have returned to Hevron after having families killed and property stolen may have long memories and some animus. But the Israeli government arrests its citizens for committing violence, and has incarcerated Jewish citizens for even planning violence against Arabs. The Palestinians will only arrest the murderer of an Israeli under great pressure from the US, and then they release that person as soon as the heat is off. This does not inspire confidence that the Arabs sincerely intend peace. The Palestinians also ignore "honor killings" (the murder of women for "improprieties" such as being looked at by a passing man), and the Palestinians kill suspected Israel sympathizers brutally and without trial. Do I even need to discuss hand-lopping, beheading, and inter-clan feuds? This is a barbaric culture.

For a self-proclaimed peacenik to justify tolerance of this ingrained violence is patronizing in the extreme. It’s not the twelfth century any more. The world moves on. Japan maintains much of its unique culture, but has adopted modern, tolerant political, economic, and social models. Even China is moving in a humane direction, however glacial that progress. India is struggling to eradicate bride-burning. And even the US might someday acknowledge that all people are human, even gays. Until the idealistic "peace" movements demand humane behaviors of the Arab communities which they now so uncritically defend, we can expect those peace movements to be pawns in the unremitting and unfortunately effective propaganda weapon of the terrorist societies. So the purported peace advocates actually prove to be dangerous soldiers in behalf of the most barbaric, most warlike, most violent, and most destructive societies in the world today. That is a tragic irony.