A rchive Date
[ 08-05-2002 ]
Category
[ International Relations ]
sub-Categoy
[ Palestine ]
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[http://www.canoe.ca/Columnists/downing.html
Hatred fans the flames of terrorism
By JOHN DOWNING -- Toronto Sun
May 8, 2002
It was a generation ago in a Bedouin school in the hills above Bethlehem. Teddy Kolleck told us in the gym that the teachers there taught subtraction by saying how many Jews do you still have if you kill three out of five.
The academic and religious leaders being toured around the Biblical landscape by the famous Jerusalem mayor were scandalized. Yet only one Arab bothered to argue. The rest continued to serve us bitter coffee, as if anti-Semitic arithmetic was no big deal in a school provided by the State of Israel. That stunning example of the indoctrination of Arab children into hating Jews came on the first of my five visits to the Holy Land. It was hardly the only incident over the next 20 years.
I remember the Arab in a messy, East Jerusalem office who shouted at me during a period of relative calm in 1987 that the Jews "are shooting down our kids in the street every day." No, not an overwrought labourer, but a professor, who was also assistant editor of the largest Arab newspaper. He grudgingly backed down when I demanded proof.
He had made a mistake, you see, and delivered his inflammatory lie in English, where he could be challenged by a Westerner. That's a no-no.
The trick is to be cute in English when you're asked if you still want to drive Jews into the Mediterranean and save the threats for articles and telecasts in Arabic. If caught out, complain about the translation.
What is so infuriating about this double-talk, this duplicitous wordsmanship, is that it has worked in conning so many in the West. No doubt there are Israelis whose concern is not just defensive, to gain security for their families, but who are fired with evil, too, and want to slaughter the Palestinians.
Yet the venomous broadsides of death-to-the-Jews threats from the Palestinians and the Arab world have been overwhelming. The lust for Jewish blood drips from the cheers and posters and speeches. Oh, supporters say, they're just getting carried away because of oppression. Yet if Israelis replied in kind, the world would be scandalized, because in semantics and in war, Israelis are held to a higher standard.
Not that you would know that from those who insist there is equivalency in the terrorism faced by Israel, that everything is "even stephen" when it comes to killing each other.
This moral equivalency gambit is to be expected from the Chretien government, since in foreign affairs it has shown an uncanny knack for doing the worst thing.
DISDAIN FOR HOLY PLACES
There was even the perverting of guilt at the end of the siege at the birthplace of Jesus. Just how is it the fault of Israel that Palestinian gunmen and deluded sympathizers, showing their customary disdain for the holy places of other religions, holed up in the Church of the Nativity?
It is obvious why Yasser Arafat wouldn't order them out right at the start, because he hoped the Israelis would look bad in the world press for attacking the great church. Why, it was even possible, Allah be praised, that the Israelis would do extensive damage, and thus further prove to silly Canadian churchmen and pols that they persecuted innocents.
Arafat's indignation last week was shameless, since his men had created the crisis. If he had not let it foment, like all the other terrorism he presides benignly over, he would have endeared himself even more to the United Church and NDP.
My colleague, Lyn Cockburn, called him an "evil little troll" in a recent Sun column, which I thought was overkill and an insult to trolls.
But then I found these malevolent beings were once said to be giants, but legend now has them as dwarfs. Surely, the same shrinkage happens for anyone looking for moral leadership within this sleazy and corrupt despot, who encourages, along with the blood bribes of the Saudis and Saddam Hussein, the homicide bombers who have ruined ordinary life for everyone who tries to live in Israel.
NOT THE ONLY PROBLEM
Unfortunately, Arafat isn't the only problem. If he was removed, it would be like lancing a boil. The main body of trouble would continue. Dan Navesh, an Israeli cabinet minister, said Sunday as Ariel Sharon travelled to the U.S. and his office released a booklet detailing Arafat's alleged financial involvement in terrorism, that this evidence showed "there is no way to achieve peace as long as Arafat is around."
If only it were so. Arafat is gasoline to the firestorm of terrorism, but the blaze won't end if he goes.
It was 20 years ago that those Bedouin kids were figuratively killing Jews as part of their arithmetic, when I visited. The poisoning of young minds has never stopped. As Alan Cairns reported in the April 24 Sun, an Israeli intelligence officer noted elementary schools in the West Bank are filled with posters of suicide bombers, adding Canada might want to re-examine its financial support for this type of education. (Canada denied funding such programs, arguing it only supports legitimate education programs in the West Bank .) At any rate, the textbooks deny the Holocaust. Their maps ignore Israel's existence. A murderous crop has been planted. The Israelis and the world will have to live with the bitter harvest.
Letters to the editor should be sent to editor@sunpub.com. Downing appears Fridays, Sundays
 World Fact Book (CIA)]
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