"The moral difference between Israel & her enemies comes down to understanding the answer to this question: what would each side do if they had the power to do it?"
"For nearly twenty years neither Jordan nor Egypt (which held the Arab lands of Palestine) enabled the creation of a Palestinian state. Indeed the very concept of a 'Palestinian homeland' was only invented after 1967 -- after the Six Day War when Jordan, Egypt and Syria tried to wipe Israel off the map --- and each ended up losing territory to Israel.
"It has all come a long way, in that Israel has since accepted Palestinian sovereignty over Gaza ... withdrawing completely in 2005. This gave the Palestinian Authority a chance to choose peace ... However Palestinians in Gaza did not choose peace, they chose to break away from the Palestinian Authority and give power to Hamas - an Islamist death cult...
"Hamas wants an Islamist theocracy, with no tolerance for other or no religion, no tolerance for political plurality. It promotes martyrdom to children, it promotes traditional submissive roles for women, it promotes death to homosexuals and lesbians and it promotes death to Jews. Its ideal is a totalitarian state of obedience to radical Islamism. It is a death cult, that celebrates the death of innocent people. ... nihilists who are antithetical to any sense of life, to any belief that individuals exist to pursue their own purposes, their own lives, their loves, passions, interests and joy....
"Hamas are enemies of Palestinians, they don't want peace for Palestinians and certainly don't want peace [with] Israel, they want it destroyed....
"There is plenty of room for criticism of Israel's treatment of the Palestinian occupied territories. Ultimately, it will be right only when the Palestinian Arabs in the West Bank and Gaza can govern themselves (in secular states, with liberal democracy, and no ability to wage war against their neighbours) and when Israel respects their right to do so. However, there will be no peace whilst Hamas thinks it is better to kill Israelis than to build an economy and society based on Palestinians producing, trading, living and thriving...
"If you sympathise with Palestinians you will oppose Hamas. If you believe in individual freedom and human rights you'll oppose Hamas. However ... I have yet to see any semblance of an organisation set up by Palestinians supporting a relatively free open liberal democracy; nothing remotely resembling anything like what exists either in Israel, or even other former dictatorships like Bulgaria or Georgia.
"It would be wonderful for Palestine to be free, for there to be a Palestinian Arab state alongside Israel, that shares trade, investment, employment and lives in peace side by side. Some Israelis don't want that, they do want the Greater Israel of the full occupation. A lot more Palestinians don't want that all: they want the Jews pushed into the sea.
"Golda Meir once said 'We will only have peace with the Arabs when they love their children more than they hate us.' Unfortunately, too many of them want their children to be martyrs, and too many useful idiots in the West are happy to support them doing it."
"The moral difference [between Israel and her enemies] comes down to understanding the answer to this question: what would each side do if they had the power to do it?"
4 comments:
I wonder if Israel - once this episode is closed - could work on undermining Hamas-type thinking by opening her borders steadily to Gazans and West Banker citizens to live and work in Israel?
After all, in your posts on immigration, Just a bigoted state and Open Borders are a Trillion-Dollar Idea you've made the point that:
Even the largest countries cannot absorb hundreds of millions of immigrants overnight. True enough, but no reasonable person expects hundreds of millions to come overnight, either. Instead, immigration usually begins slowly and then snowballs.
So if Israel started small - plus denying these immigrants access to Israeli welfare benefits and voting and perhaps even charging them admission fees, and certainly imposing tests about their knowledge and understanding of Israeli civil society and cultural literacy - could it slowly improve things for all sides?
Agree, and I think that has been happening, with the more secular Gazans + West Bankers emigrating, and integrating. (Perhaps leaving behind the barbarian rump to fester, as it has?)
Definitely needs to happen more, as you say, and be more well promoted as THE peaceful strategy.
And as you say, can only happen afterwards. If there is an afterwards.
"The moral difference between Israel & her enemies comes down to understanding the answer to this question: what would each side do if they had the power to do it?"
“I vow that if I was just an Israeli civilian and I met a Palestinian I would burn him and I would make him suffer before killing him. With one hit I’ve killed 750 Palestinians (in Rafah in 1956). I wanted to encourage my soldiers by raping Arabic girls as the Palestinian women is a slave for Jews, and we do whatever we want to her and nobody tells us what we shall do but we tell others what they shall do.” Ariel Sharon, In an interview with General Ouze Merham, 1956.
“I don’t know something called International Principles. I vow that I’ll burn every Palestinian child (that) will be born in this area. The Palestinian woman and child is more dangerous than the man, because the Palestinian child’s existence infers that generations will go on, but the man causes limited danger.” Ariel Sharon, In an interview with General Ouze Merham, 1956.
“I have ordered a complete siege on the Gaza Strip. There will be no electricity, no food, no fuel, everything is closed,” Yoav Gallant, Israeli Defense Minister, 2023.
“We are fighting human animals and we are acting accordingly.” Yoav Gallant, Israeli Defense Minister, 2023.
Fake:
This quote was found on hundreds of Arab Web sites, and indeed, seems to be a a staple of anti-Israel propaganda. It cannot be found, however, in any text book, news article, or published record, nor is there any mention or record of a General Ouze Merham anywhere else. (Another giveaway is that the term “Palestinian” was not in use in 1956. It only came into vogue in the 1960’s.)
Student columnist Mariam Sobh used the quote in her December 11, 2003 Daily Illinicolumn, but later had to apologize.
Summary: Fabricated quote, fabricated source.
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