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.