"They Will Always Hate You"

Fouad Ajami--Director of the Middle East Studies Program at John Hopkins University--addresses the issue of the clash between Islam and the West:

I mean, in fact, the great question is, you know, the famous question, why do they hate us? And the Bernard Lewis answer is why worry about it? They will always hate you. What you should worry about is, why don't they fear us? Why don't they take us seriously? I mean, this is the question. [emphasis added]

Ajami is talking about the West in general and the US in particular--but how about Israel?

It really doesn't seem that the Moslem world takes Israel seriously either. It's all very well for Shimon Peres to say in a Reuters interview that the president of Iran should remember that Iran can also be wiped off the map, but how serious can the Moslems take Israel when there are headlines like: Peretz's First Mission as Defense Minister: Destroy Outposts

When I first saw the headline I thought they were talking about destroying the outposts Iran had set up in southern Lebanon to gather intelligence and identify targets in Israel. After all, what better mission for a Defense Minister to organize? Instead, it turns out that:

Only one day into the job, DM Peretz has already set one of his main priorities for the coming months: the destruction of Jewish outposts throughout Judea and Samaria that have been deemed illegal. [emphasis added]

As important as the issue of illegal settlements might be, there is also the issue of setting priorities, and what kind of message is conveyed by the way that Israel sets her priorities. As a result of these sorts of actions:

• Hamas sees no reason to deviate from its already successful strategy
• The West is only encouraged to cajole--and pressure--Israel into more concessions
• Israel's own morale only sinks further and tensions increase
  

Even the US gets it, that there is a psychological component to the war. The US military showed a video of al-Zarqawi wearing tennis shoes and fumbling with a machine gun. Of course, The New York Times--also known as the Haaretz of the US--goes so far as to actually defend al-Zarqawi:

The weapon in question is complicated to master, and American soldiers and marines undergo many days of training to achieve the most basic competence with it. Moreover, the weapon in Mr. Zarqawi's hands was an older variant, which makes its malfunctioning unsurprising. The veterans said Mr. Zarqawi, who had spent his years as a terrorist surrounded by simpler weapons of Soviet design, could hardly have been expected to know how to handle it.

Nebuch.

I suppose we should be thankful that at least The Times refrained from telling us about al-Zarqawi's difficult childhood.

Meanwhile, Olmert had his own problems:

The new ministers pledged their allegiance to the State of Israel one by one – preceded by Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. Olmert was unable to sign with his pen, however, and was given another, which also didn't work. In all, the new prime minister went through four pens before he successfully affixed his name to the pledge to act in Israel's best interests as the head of its government. [emphasis added]

The point is that in the Middle East, image also counts; how Israel is perceived by the Arab world matters.

Has Israel lost focus on why she is hated by the Arab world?
According to Ajami, when dealing with radical Islam, the question boils down to 2 possibilities:

And so do they hate us for what we do? Or do they hate us for what we are?

Israel is locked into the first, forgetting Bernard Lewis' advice:

"Why worry about it? They will always hate you. What you should worry about is, why don't they fear us? Why don't they take us seriously?"

More to the point, why don't Olmert and Kadima take this seriously.

Crossposted at Israpundit

Technorati Tag: Israel and Fouad Ajami and al-Zarqawi and Olmert and Middle East and US and Bernard Lewis.