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| Latest ISIS beheading, Peter Kassig (NY Daily News) |
As much as I am opposed to settlement building right now, (for reasons I’m not going to get into here) they are not the real impediment to peace. Anyone who has been paying even the slightest bit of attention would see the proverbial ‘Elephant in the Room’. Which is radical Fundamentalist Islam.
As I have said many times, I am in favor of making peace with the Arabs and am willing to pay a price for it. My reasons are simple. I want to see an end to the hostilities. I want to see an end to terrorists blowing themselves up in crowded areas in Israel. I want to see an end to rockets being fired at her. I do not want to see any more Jews being tortured and butchered; kidnapped or maimed.
I want there to be peace between two peoples so that each can get on with their lives without fear. Without one people subjugating another. Without one people needing to resort to harsh measures against the other for security reasons. I want that to end and am willing to pay the price of even an Oslo Accord type solution if that would guarantee a peace between 2 peoples sharing a border. A peace similar to what the United States has with Canada.
But as I have also said, that is currently a pipe dream so remote that it is pure folly to even suggest it.
But the nations of the world – including the United States (under the leadership of the Obama administration) think that it is still possible even in today’s terrorist climate. If only Israel would stop building settlements and ‘take chances’ for peace - they say.
This ‘song and dance’ may have made sense to the world pre 9/11 (Although not to those of us who knew what radical Islam was long before that – Israel having had its share of suicide attacks.) After 9/11 however, it should have been obvious to everyone what the real impediment to peace is. It is not settlements. It is the mindset of the devout Fundamentalist Muslim in the Arab world. It is from their ranks that the 9/11 terrorists were recruited. One may recall all the rejoicing in the Arab street after 9/11. It was the devout Burka clad Muslim women that were handing out candy to children while the masses were cheering in the street.
It should have been clear then that Israel’s existence was not the real issue. That Islamic fundamentalism was. And for a while I thought the all of the American people would finally get it… and understand what Israel’s needs are all about and why they need to take the security measures that end up being so harsh on the Palestinian people.
Unfortunately not long after 9/11 some started saying that if not for Israel none of this would have happened. The Muslim extremists only attacked the US on 9/11 because of its support for the Jewish State. That it was Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians under its occupation that caused 9/11. While most Americans did understand the truth, there were plenty of people that somehow ignored it and simply painted Israel as occupying tyrants that were torturing the poor helpless and innocent Palestinian underdog for simply existing.
This is the mindset of some of academia. Universities are filled with Palestinian academics and their sympathizers who preach hatred of Israel to their students. It is also the mindset of the BDS movement that advocates Boycotting, Divestment from, and Sanctioning the State of Israel because of their treatment of Palestinians.
Thankfully the majority of the American people aren’t buying it. Support for Israel is at nearly an all time high. We can probably in part ‘thank’ ISIS for that. This morning we learned yet again of another ISIS beheading of an American citizen: Peter Kassig. What was his crime? He went to Syria to help feed the refugees of war. He even converted to Islam under captivity. But ISIS didn’t care. They wanted to kill another American to continue to teach the United States a lesson. That was made clear in a video of a man clad in black whose face was completely covered threatening to advance ISIS forces into America and do it here. That was accompanied by another video of mass beheading of Muslim captives.
It is interesting to note that these videos actually attract fighters to ISIS. One may wonder how a brutal system like this could attract anybody. There are many reason I suppose. Like the romantic image of the underdog fighting for a cause. But one cannot discount the religious motive of some of their recruits. That is the scariest motive of all.
Religious motivation is very powerful. People sacrifice their lives for it. That is how suicide bombers are recruited. They are dying for the sake of sanctifying God in the holy cause of righting the world for God.
How will the world be ‘righted’? It will be done by establishing a caliphate. A caliph is a successor to Mohamed that will rule - tasked with assuring Sharia (Islamic) law will be implemented and followed to the letter. Laws like cutting off the hands of a thief… or stoning women who cheat on their husbands. And other such niceties.
They view the non Muslim world as degenerate and worthy of destruction unless there are conversions to Islam. This is their ultimate goal. All is fair in pursuit of it. That is what makes them so tough to defeat. They don’t care if they die or how many innocent people they kill along the way.
Hamas, Hezbollah, and other Jihadists are no different. While their tactics have not been quite as brutal as ISIS (yet) that doesn’t mean they don’t have the same goals. (Although the brutality has not quite matched ISIS, it has still been petty brutal. Ask the families of the 3 kidnapped and slaughtered Israeli teens that eventually precipitated last summer’s Gaza war.) This is why they will never recognize the state of Israel and will continue to fight it until they win back all of ‘Palestine’.
Fundementalist Muslim clerics preach it from their mosques all over the world. Increasingly so. They always have been. Israel must perish. Its existence is a theological impediment to Islam.
Does any sane person think that if Israel stops building settlements that these people will say, ‘OK, let’s make peace now and allow a Jewish state to exist in our midst’?! This does not mean I support new building in the settlements. I don’t. What it means is that the fundamentalist goals of destroying Israel will not change. Clerics will still be preaching it to the ever increasing population of devout Muslims.
And yet these clear facts seems lost on those who say that Israel should take chances for peace. It is one thing for the rabid Palestinian academic and his willing accomplices in the university to preach that to the gullible student that has no understanding of the issues. But for a US government to not realize the folly of pursuing peace under these conditions? That is mind boggling!
Even more inexplicable is that some of the nations of the world normally friendly to Israel have unilaterally recognized a Palestinian State! By doing this they have given succor to Israel’s enemies and fodder to ISIS. Bashing Israel is right up their alley because a strong Jewish State in their territory (the Middle East) is ultimately the biggest impediment of all to establishing a caliphate there. And then eventually marching on to the rest of the world toward that goal.
ISIS has shown the world what radical Fundamentalist Islam is capable of. It has promised more of the same until their ultimate goal is reached. I can’t understand why the rest of the world doesn’t look at what ISIS does and realize what Israel is up against.
And they want Israel to make peace even with a Hamas and a Hezbollah that is right on its borders threatening annihilation?!! That would almost be like telling the United States to make peace with ISIS. And ISIS is nowhere near its borders. Come on world. Wake up!