A rchive Date
[ 09-03-2002 ]
Category
[ International Relations ]
sub-Categoy
[ Terrorism ]
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[http://www.canoe.ca/Columnists/coren.html
The bottom line on the Middle East
Until the Arab world accepts Israel's right to exist, there can be no peace
By MICHAEL COREN -- Sun Media
March 9, 2005
I've had enough. Of the distortions, the hatreds, the fashionable politics. About Israel and the Middle East. Had enough of the moral equivalents and the double standards. So it's time to make my stand, and prepare for the dark cascade of threatening and abusive e-mails that will surely follow.
The Arab world is almost without exception composed of dictatorships where human rights are suppressed and democracy ignored. Syria, Libya, Iraq and Saudi Arabia are ruled by family or military despots. Egypt persecutes its minorities, suffocates free speech and spreads international anti-Semitism.
The Gulf states are medieval, Lebanon is controlled by brutal Syria while the liberal world says nothing and Iran, while not Arabic but part of the Islamic purview, murders opponents, treats women appallingly and smuggles guns to terrorists so as to kill children.
The Palestinians? They have suffered dreadfully for years now, but have to stop obsessively blaming Israel and look for more complete solutions. The Jewish state was established because the land was, simply, Jewish land. Jews had never left, even though the majority were forcibly removed by the Romans. Jews remained through centuries of Muslim invasion, Ottoman rule and British occupation.
Zionism always existed. It became a more potent political force, however, in the late 19th century because of the mass killing of Jews in Poland and Russia, the persecution in France, Italy and elsewhere. Nothing new, of course. They killed them in England in the 13th century, in Spain in the 15th. Killed them everywhere.
So waves of Jewish immigrants purchased land from local Arabs who didn't even always refer to the region by name.
Palestine was a Roman word for the area inhabited by the ancient Jewish people. More Jews arrived, often with the support of the Arabs, with whom they lived in relative peace. There were even cases of mayors being Arab, deputy-mayors Jewish, and vice versa.
United Nations vote
Then, in the 20th century, the world decides to kill Jews again. Six million this time. After World War II, the United Nations votes to establish Israel, something that would probably have happened earlier if it hadn't been for the war. Contrary to flabby popular thought in some circles, the vote is supported by the Soviet Union and its communist allies.
The United States, on the other hand, opposes Israel only a few years later in the Suez Crisis.
The Jews are given a small territory. But even so, the mighty Arab world invades and swears to make the Middle East Jew-free. A handful of Arab leaders call for coexistence. They are murdered. Israel loses some of what was given to it by the UN, but the world does nothing. Yet the Israelis manage to survive, even with the overwhelming numbers and hardware enjoyed by the Arabs.
Decades of wars, terrorism, refusals to meet and discuss.
Israel holds out its hand but it is slapped down. Each time the Arab world tries to remove the Jews the Jews keep winning. Then come the demands for the conquered land to be returned. Generally, Israel complies, even though victors seldom do so.
Mass slaughter
And now the deliberate mass slaughter of women and children. Crazed fanatics, their heads and hearts distended with venom and ignorance, blow themselves up in pizza restaurants full of young mums and babies, dance clubs packed with teenagers, in the middle of families with babies and grandparents.
No, Israel does not do the same. Of course innocent Palestinians die, and this is an obscenity. But never does Israel deliberately target children. Apart from the ethical filth involved, it would weaken their case. There is a vital difference between the tragic death of an Arab child caught in a crossfire and the deliberate massacre of babies by Palestinian terrorists.
Arab children indoctrinated to hate Jews, forced to play games where they symbolically lynch an Israeli soldier, brainwashed into martyrdom. I've seen the evidence. Sermons in mosques shouting for Jews, all Jews, to be ripped apart. Kids in the front of mobs when they should be at home, women suicide bombers blowing Jewish toddlers apart.
Yes, of course Israel's hands are not spotless and of course the refugee camps are appalling. But as I say, I'm tired of the intellectual trash talk. Stop the terror, seek peace, accept Israel's existence. And raise your children to work plows, not wield swords. Then justice, for all.
Michael Coren is a Toronto-based writer and broadcaster. He can be emailed at info@michaelcoren.com and his web site is michaelcoren.com. Letters to the editor should be sent to editor@sunpub.com
 World Fact Book (CIA)]
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