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Many Israelis are understandably hugely troubled by the pictures and accounts of Palestinian extremists attacking or lynching Israelis, where there is often not an ounce of sadness on the face of the perpetrator but rather a look of happiness, almost ecstasy. They are frightened of Palestinian extremists looking to detonate bombs to purposefully kill women and children.
If you were Israeli, would you not start doubting whether the Palestinians are humane people, or even human people? Do they not care for human lives? How come they rejected the July 2000 deal offered by Ehud Barak which was the most generous offered since 1967 – that would have ended all the violence? From the point of view of some Israelis, it seems so evident that the Palestinian Authority and a large proportion of the people have no interest in peace but simply want to fight a war and win it. Unfortunately, this war costs lives. And even if Israel yields and provides a state of Palestine, who is to say this wont be the beginning of the end of Israel? Some Middle-Eastern leaders have stated that the only time the conflict is over is when Israel doesn’t exist any more. So added to the suicide bomber threat that Israel has to face on a daily basis, there is the immense dread of a nuclear, biological or chemical attack if one or more of these countries decide to practise what they preach. From the Israeli point of view, the violations of the peace process have always originated from the Arab side, and the inclinations of the fundamentalists in the Muslim world to go to war against Israel have little to do with the Palestinians, but are aimed simply at obliterating Israel. A state of Palestine would further weaken the Israeli position, enabling their enemies to have an effective launching-point for renewed terrorism against Israel, under the pretence of “national” or “religious” liberation. The religious pretence to exterminate Israel used by some Islamic fundamentalists is scarily reminiscent of that used by Nazis to kill millions of innocent Jews in World War II.
And at this point it is worth remembering that the state of Israel was created in the first place as a haven for Israelis following the Holocaust, many of whose lives had been shredded by the greatest single example of prejudice and ethnic cleansing the world has ever seen. Israelis do not ever want to face this sort of tragic mass-murder of the most demonic order again.
There is a deeper problem which must be approached, however. Some Israelis, and indeed many others in the Western world, see the conflict as an example of a “resurgent medievalism” which seeks to create fear and pain in those who don’t “believe”. We certainly hear many people in various Muslim and Arab countries offering themselves as “martyrs”, hoping to enter paradise by taking their lives for the “greater good of Islam”. Any educated person would know that Islam does not preach this philosophy any more than Christianity and Judaism, and that Islam has suffered more from fanatical misinterpretations recently than the other mainstream religions. However this “Islam-misinterpretation” as I call it is nonetheless very frightening for the Israeli people. These “martyrs” believe that they are only carrying out Allah’s will by killing. This leads some more fundamentalist pro-Israelis to believe in a “clash of civilization”, between the Islamic world and the Western world. I believe this is true to an extent in that the Western world has no such example of “martyrs”. However personally I think this clash of civilizations has as much to do with the economical and social unbalance the world is facing today where the Islamic world is very much suffering as a result, and one has to question why such a clash has come about in the first place. This Islam-misinterpretation present throughout many of the governments and terrorist groups in the Middle causes ordinary Israelis to worry further as they realise that according to such a philosophy killing, and never diplomacy, is considered a virtue.
Anti-Semitism is a very distressing and real phenomenon, and the Jewish people have learned over time that they need to stick together and defend themselves. This is why the state of Israel is so important to them – it is their Promised Land, where they are in control. Israelis feel they have achieved a democracy, and they can at least be proud of their representative parliament where Palestinians are present as well. For them, the conflict in the occupied territories is threatening all that they have achieved.
The occupied territories today are what Palestinians call home. They are the remains of what once was not so long ago. They are not a pretty sight. According to the UN 64% of Palestinians are below the poverty line. Poverty is not easy for us in the Western World to comprehend, as most of us have never suffered from it. People who do are constantly reminded about it and it affects every aspect of their life. However, this is not the only reason why some Palestinians are “driven” to commit the worst act known to man….
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N Gadd
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Feedback I have received N Gadd | Jun 5th, 2002
After receiving much feedback from many people about this article, I must say that there are a few striking omissions that I have made and these will be addressed before the second version, because I agree with them completely.
Firstly, it is increasingly evident that the first steps for peace have to be taken by the Palestinian Authority and that only when the terror networks are destroyed can anything positive happen.
Also, a very important issue is that in many Palestinian schools there is substantial hate-mongering, and blaming of all of the Palestinians' problems on the Israelis. Clearly the brainwashing of the Palestinian youths is another huge problem.
Looking at both sides, I have also forgotten to mention the dehumanization which allows either side to not feel guilty when they are committing all sorts of crimes. This is much more pronounced in the case of the Palestinian suicide bombers who think they are serving a just cause by murdering innocent civilians, or carrying out actions which are for the greater good, but we must also mention the prominent Israeli politicians such as Ehud Barak who make statements like "all Arabs are liars", a racist dehumanization which is the pretext of so much discrimination.
Other mistakes N Gadd | Jun 5th, 2002
I have been reliably informed by one of my friends who is a Zionist that Zionism is not expansionism (which is what I have equated it with in my essay) but rather the legitimate desire for a safe Israeli homeland. Hence I must apologize for this error.
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