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.