Opinion
& Comment
Do Not Ignore Reality
Last weekend, a prominent member of Fatah's military wing in
Shechem was killed by the IDF. His surviving friends went
around demanding that the stores in the area close down
during the funeral. One owner of a butcher store refused to
close, and he was shot dead on the spot.
There are several armed militias in Shechem. Some are
financed by the Palestinian Authority and others by Syria and
Iran. The only law that has any real force there is the law
of the jungle.
Since the Palestinian Authority was set up about ten years
ago, the rule of law, the moro malchus, has been none
too strong. For example, those suspected of collaborating
with Israel were murdered, often in public, on the basis of
unsupported denunciations. Hundreds of such cases have been
recorded over the years and it is clear that many were about
settling scores that have nothing to do with Israel.
Everyone knows that if a Jew is unfortunate enough to take a
wrong turn and wind up by accident in a Palestinian area, he
is liable to die a very cruel death. It has happened several
times and almost happened other times. That is not the result
of organized murder, but the spontaneous reaction of ordinary
Palestinians, presented with an "opportunity" to murder they
do not usually have.
This savagery does not begin nor does it end with the
Palestinians. It is found all over the place, and it is not
even directed only at the West. Islamic extremists wipe out
entire villages in Algeria, men, women and children. The
media do not notice unless a Westerner is also hurt. The Al
Qaida attack last Saturday in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia murdered
seven Lebanese, four Egyptians, one Saudi and one Sudanese
out of 17 dead, including five children. The rest have not
yet been identified. Most of the 122 wounded were also Arabs,
including 36 children. Only four Americans were slightly
wounded.
There were several recent calls among Jewish intellectuals in
America and England for a binational state in place of the
State of Israel. But without any ideological presuppositions
(and we attach no religious weight to the State), such
proposals seem to completely ignore the reality on the
ground. They assume that this is a dispute between two
Western peoples, who need only some small push or a change of
leadership in order to join into a good-willed agreement that
will allow the two peoples to live forever after in peace and
harmony.
Not one of the more than 20 Islamic states in the world is a
Western-style democracy with the freedoms that are expected
throughout the Western world. In most of them the governments
are autocratic, whether controlled by a monarch, a dictator,
a president, a mullah or an army officer. The Arab norms of
war and fighting are vastly different from the Western norms
-- as are their norms of peace.
We are in favor of peace and against war. We are in favor of
agreements, even with our enemies, if that will prevent
bloodshed. But we are convinced that it is important to
remain realistic and not to hold out false hopes that have no
chance of implementation in our lifetimes. We must not forget
who our enemies are, and we must try to remind the rest of
the world.
No one wants peace more than we, but we can live without it
and we are prepared to suffer the arrows of our enemies until
the coming of Moshiach, if necessary.
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