To The Editor, Portsmouth (NH) Herald:

Robert Azzi wrote a compelling fictional narrative about the Arab-Israeli conflict last week in your Sunday pages . He intertwines incremental excrement with indisputable fact to give the illusion of rigorous righteousness. This is brainwashing, not analysis.

Azzi reports that “Palestinians see resistance as their only option...” but omits the very well documented and far more pertinent fact that Palestinians see resistance to the State of Israel’s mere existence as their underlying imperative. And he deliberately fails to note that long before there was an Israel, the Arabs of that region were killing Jews in fulfillment of the dominance theology by which they have spread their culture.  The notion of Israeli “occupation” as the source of Arab violence is an inversion of cause and effect. Such deceptions are intended to disguise historical, long-standing Arab aggression and to create an undue sympathy for the endless Arab efforts to destroy the Jews of Palestine - ignoring for the moment the coeval violent hostility of Muslims toward Copts & other Christians, Baha’is, Animists, etc.  Azzi deliberately distracts attention away from this fundamental theological animus which is the underlying cultural source of recent on-going Arab violence against the Jews of Palestine. That violence predates the establishment of Israel by almost seventy years, and predates the “occupation” by ninety. This is not “resistance” in any normal, meaningful application of that word. It represents the Arabs’ racist refusal to permit equal rights - or any rights, really - to any non-Muslims wherever they can impose their theological supremacy.

Since the western world has imbibed two millenia of antisemitism inspired by the Church and offspring churchettes, Muslims have recently found it practical and effective to play upon that latent hostility to brainwash the already antisemitic Western nations into assisting in the clearly articulated Islamic agenda to “...Kill the Jews, wherever you find them!”. This early Muslim injunction has reappeared in edicts of the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem (Hitler’s recruiter and ally) and is enshrined in the Hamas Charter. It has been enthusiastically acted upon by generations of Arab Muslims - who centuries ago invented the yellow badge to abuse Jews long before they passed that concept on to the Nazis.

There are so many deceptions in Azzi’s representations. I’ll address just a few:

Azzi reports that operation Cast Lead “...happened in part because of the failure to get Shalit released.” He omits mention of the more than 8,000 missiles launched against Israel - might that not have been an important trigger? Azzi’s resents that Israel takes necessary actions to halt these murderous assaults because the aggressors haven’t yet been able to kill an equal number of Israelis. If there is a fault to Israel’s response, it is that she has not acted strongly enough, for her citizens continue to be regularly killed and maimed by the aggressor Arabs.

Azzi refers to the PLO as “moderates”. Yet the PLO has repeatedly refused to negotiate with Israel, and their charter still calls for the destruction of the State of Israel. The only difference between the PLO & Hamas is that Hamas is more honest and direct in the Western media.

Then Azzi so touchingly refers to “few hands which don’t have blood on them...”. Such an even-handed appraisal of aggressor and victim.  It’s as though the Allies & the Axis were equally culpable in the massive casualties of WWII. Azzi would have us believe that Arabs unjustifiably attacking and killing Jews (and Christians, and even their co-religionists) are somehow less guilty than those Jews and others defending themselves against such attacks. That might be true if we were in the 7'th Century, when different social values prevailed. But the world’s moral codes have been inching ever forward against acceptance of murder as a method of dispute resolution. Except in the Middle East.

Azzi says “Negotiate with Palestinians as neighbors and equals...” Isn’t that what Israel tried to do even before she was established? Didn’t the UN urge Britain to create “two nations, one Jewish and one Arab” because the Arabs wouldn’t stop killing the Jews? Didn’t the Arabs murder Arab leaders who tried working with nascent Israel? Didn’t the Khartoum conference - still unrepealed - insist on the “Three No’s” which continue to dictate Arab policy regarding Israel? And didn’t Israel make increasingly generous, indeed unprecedented offers to the PLO on separate formal occasions only to have Arafat refuse to even respond, much less to counteroffer? And hasn't Abbas been the one who refuses to merely meet with Israeli leaders, even after Israeli concessions have been made? Azzi has the problem backwards. It’s the Palestinians who refuse to negotiate, much less negotiate as neighbors and equals.

Azzi cleverly inverts reality to make the aggressor Arabs appear to be sympathetic victims, and to mis-characterize desperate Israeli defense of her citizens as unjustified violence. This is a burgeoning and successful new front in the Arab war against Infidels and modernity. Israel is merely the most visible point of engagement. Nothing has changed since the Arab conquests which led to the Crusades, save that some Arab aggressors now wear business suits and tunnel within Western societies with clever persiflage. The results will be just as bloody, however, unless Westerners abandon their odd prejudices and react with prudent self-interest in support of Israel and ultimately for the salvation of all modern society. Failing that, our grandchildren will all be facing Mecca and bowing to Allah five times a day.

Response to hostile Egyptian's criticism

I never claimed that Israel was perfect - unlike Egypt, I suppose? As to massacres - it's pretty easy to itemize the couple of Israeli actions likely to be seen as massacres, while the Arab attacks on children, women, and doctors is so lengthy that nobody could make a list. This is a question of moral balance, not moral perfection. On balance, Israel has been a far more ethical, moral, humanistic, and compassionate nation than have any of the Arab/Persian aggressors. It is the trend that matters, not the deceptions which roll so readily from the tongues of the long-lived aggressor Muslims who have never accepted modern morality and still hold values which have not evolved since the 12'th Century. "The rest of the world" is only the Christian west, brainwashed by the barbarism of Christianity, from which Islam derives. "Christ is peace" was the mantra of Christian warfare throughout Europe and the Middle East. After Arabs attacked Europe and the Christians responded with the Crusades, the Christians taught Islam the motto "conversion or the sword". And Islam has never forgotten that vile notion, though much of Christianity has moved on to more compassionate and tolerant viewpoints. So, yes, much of the west - but nowhere else - is hostile to Judaism and therefore to Israel, not for cogent reasons, but due to the latent antisemitism of 2100 years of Church antisemitic dogma. And of course there is also the huge anti-Israel apparatus of 1.3 billion Muslims, all hostile to Israel because Islamic troglodytes are willing to blow themselves up to capture Israel and retake Andalusia. THAT is where the violence originates, and that is why is is spread. A few regrettable incidents over 130 years of Jews defending themselves - and those incidents deplored by all Jews - hardly compares to the endless travesties of Muslims killing everyone around them, and their Muftis not only refusing to condemn those violent and unjustifiable acts, but actually praising them and often encouraging them - like the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem leading mobs to kill Jews during the 1920's & '30's - THAT is unconscionable. But only if you live in the 20'th century. Or even the 21'st. With much of Islam still glorying in the conquest mentality of the 12'th century, it's easy to see that one wouldn't want to acknowledge the truth. When you MUST believe something or be killed, that's pretty strong encouragement to believe the lies of your society. If you lived in a free, modern society, then you'd be free to examine reality and understand and accept alternative explanations of history which are considerably more accurate than your present perceptions.

I regret, though, that you are probably right. Humans are mostly dumb. There's no question that vile, vicious, and wildly selfish leaders are more likely to arise in the Middle East, and that such people will kill many in their pursuit of their own power and profit. That bodes ill for Israel and for all liberal, modern democracies. There must be a reason that democracy has not ever taken root in the Middle East, despite the system having evolved geographically so close, in Greece. There is something in the culture that prizes greed, violence, and selfishness more than warmth, hospitality, and compassion. While it's a horrible tragedy, sometimes people have to recognize that certain realities are inevitable.

I suppose you could get the UN to repeal the Law of Gravity, just as they continue to pass other messages of idiocy. The hostility of the West, as you put it, largely reflects a basic failure of society - people are dumb, dumb, dumb. That, coupled with the native flaw in democracy - that 57 Muslim nations can always outvote Israel in the UN, whether they are right or wrong, and they are always wrong - leads to a strong and totally unjustified bias in public opinion. The illusion that the UN is a rational and fair institution is achieved because it is democratic. But that perception is horribly flawed, though it does produce the result you love - lots of people blame Israel for Muslim aggressions. An awful lot of people are extremely dumb, like I said.