Israel vs. Nietzsche, Marx, Foucault and Derrida

Halkin thinks there's more to media bias than anti-Semitism, ignorance, anti-colonialism, anti-Americanism:

The 1960's and 70's, after all, saw not only the entrenchment of the Israeli occupation, but also the rise of postmodernism—and postmodernist thought is intrinsically hostile to much of what Israel is about.

...[it is] the belief that the eternal verities that had concerned thinkers in the past were neither eternal, veracious, nor worth thinking about unless they could be pressed into the service of temporal, that is, political causes...beginning with Nietzsche and Marx, 19th- and 20th-century European thought was becoming increasingly instrumental, so that instead of a determinable something known as "truth," there were only, to use a contemporary term not yet fashionable in Benda's day, competing "narratives."

What seemed a deplorable trend to Benda has now become the regnant ideology of our times. And this is bad for Israel, because the Zionist narrative, as gripping as it may seem to those who tell it as their own, is not, when set against the Palestinian narrative that opposes it, terribly convincing in an age that has a short attention span and distrusts the claims of history.

...For most contemporary intellectuals, this is a narrative that quite simply does not have what it takes. At best, it is put by them on a par with its Palestinian rival, so that one ends up with a "meta-narrative," two contradictory versions of history between which it is impossible and unnecessary to choose because they are ultimately equal and symmetrical. Here is a people that has suffered and here is a people that has suffered; here is one with great traumas and here is one with great traumas; here a lost homeland has been repossessed and here a possessed homeland has been lost; here and here is the inability to recognize the "Other," making both sides brutal and murderous with rage and hatred. [emphasis added]

Given that Israel is now faced not only with a whole host of enemies that we already were familiar with but also the prevalent philosophical movement of the 20th and 21st centuries, what is Israel supposed to do? How do you combat an argument that can claim to be fully articulated and understood by a bumper that says "Free Palestine"?

Halkin thinks he has the answer to countering the effects of this philosophy--hasbara:

But to think of hasbara as merely public relations is to take only the ground-level view. Israel's battle to make its case heard and understood is part of a larger battle to assert the importance of history and historical truth in a world in which they no longer matter very much. It is even, one might say, part of the battle against the intellectual betrayals of postmodernism itself.

In that sense, unless hasbara is conceived of as truly explaining, and not just as PR, Israel will continue to lose the war for public opinion. In the long run, the truth is its most reliable weapon, even if it is one that can only be wielded effectively by those willing to risk self-inflicted wounds. For if the truth is, generally speaking, on Israel's side, it may not be so in every case, and the temptation to tailor it when it is not, which hasbara has not been free of, is the temptation to resort to propaganda. And in a war of Jewish propaganda versus Arab propaganda—or, if one prefers, of Jewish versus Arab narratives—the Arabs will always win. They are simply much better at it. The first rule of warfare is to fight on the ground that is most advantageous to oneself.

So it will be a clash between Israel's truth and the Palestinian's propaganda at a time that--according to Halkin--we are dealing with journalists "who are forced to concentrate on the dramatic and superficial at the expense of the in-depth and explanatory" writing in "an age that has a short attention span and distrusts the claims of history".

John Stuart Mill once said:

Indeed the dictum that truth always triumphs over persecution, is one of those pleasant falsehoods which men repeat after one another till they pass into commonplaces, but which all experience refutes.

And this was before the UN!

Technorati Tag: Israel and Postmodernism and Media Bias.

What a Month of Islamist Terrorism Has Wrought

Now that we're into February, we can take a look at January and see what the Islamists have been up to. They've been doing more than just making a fuss over Danish cartoons.

According to TheReligionofPeace.com, Islamist terrorists have been very busy. Based on their list, there was a terrorist attack every day of the month of January with the exception of January 12th. Details on each attack are available at their web site.

17 countries were attacked by Islamist terrorists: Afghanistan, Algeria, Bangladesh, Chechnya, Egypt, India, Indonesia, Ingushetia, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Pakistan, Philippines, Russia, Tajikistan, Thailand, and Yemen.

619 people were killed.
796 people were injured.

Last year during January 2005:
583 people were killed.
847 people were injured.

Why wasn't any of this front page news?

Technorati Tag: Terrorism and Islamist and Islamism.

Implications of Amona

Reflecting on the situation in Amona, Israel Perspectives writes:

In the State of Israel, Judaism is no longer the official religion, and Israel is no longer the Jewish State. The powers-that-be in the State of Israel (the government, media, Supreme Court, academia...) now worship at the Temple of the Rule of Law.

...For nearly 2,000 years Jews throughout the world prayed for a return to the Land of Israel and to reestablish Jewish sovereignty there. They did not pray for a return to the Land of Israel out of a desire to live in a country that was guided by the "rule of law" or to live in the "only democracy in the Middle East", but to return home to the Land of Israel where they could live proudly, as Jews, in their ancient and eternal homeland; to live in a place where no Jew would be discriminated against for living as an openly proud Jew and where no Jew would need to live in fear.

Zion Report adds:

No doubt the secular Zionist movement failed us, but we should have expected as much. Without an unabated love for Hashem and without the belief that our covenant is the very tie that binds us to the land, what good is Zionism?

If your basis for the love of the land is historical, your love will fade away. But if your love for it based upon Torah, your love will last forever.

Though this week's Jewish Press apparently was published without being able to include coverage of what is going on in Amona, it does have an article that bears on the terrible outbreak of violence there.

In Orthodox and Israeli: When the Two Don't Mix, Avraham Shmuel Lewin writes about the religious/non-religious divide. He quotes Aaron Klein, Jerusalem bureau chief for WorldNetDaily and a co-host of ABC Radio's national John Bachelor Show--who finds that when wearing a kippah he is often stopped at checkpoints because he is suspected of not being a real journalist, but without a kippah he passes through easily:

Asked to explain the institutionalized anti-religious practices he's encountered, Aaron replies, "It's the new nature of the cultural war in Israel. The great divide used to be the so-called right wing versus the so-called left wing. Essentially, whether or not to give up land to the Palestinians. Now the mask is coming off and the real battle is starting to be waged openly – religious nationalism versus anti-religious post-Zionism.

"More simply, is Israel supposed to be a Jewish state based on religious ideals or will it be a state like all others that just happens to be comprised mostly of Jews? At its core, it is what all the land withdrawals and proposed land withdrawals are about, and it's what my 'yarmulke problems' are about. That is the fight I am witnessing here. The victor will determine the future of Israel and the Jewish people."

Thought Klein argues that the true nature of the divide is only now coming out into the open, Lewin concludes his article with a 1959 letter to Israel's first prime minister, David Ben Gurion, from the Lubavitcher Rebbe:

It was once fashionable in certain circles to suggest that the Jewish religion and religious observances are necessary for those living in the Diaspora – as a shield against assimilation. But for those who can find another "antidote" in the place of religion, particularly for those living in Eretz Israel, within their own society, where the atmosphere, language, etc. (apparently) serve as ample assurances, the Jewish religion was superfluous – what need had they to burden themselves with all its minutiae in their daily life? But the trend of developments in Eretz Israel in the last seven or eight years has increasingly emphasized the opposite view: That however vital the need for religion amongst Diaspora Jewry, it is needed even more for the Jews in Israel. One of the basic reasons for this is that it is precisely in Eretz Israel that there exists the danger that a new generation will grow up, a new type bearing the name of Israel but completely divorced from the past of our people and its eternal and essential values; and, moreover, hostile to it in its world outlook, culture and the content of its daily life; hostile – in spite of the fact that it will speak Hebrew, dwell in the land of the Patriarchs and wax enthusiastic over the Bible. [emphasis added]

Cabinet Minister Roni Bar-On asks, in defense of the actions taken by soldiers at Amona:

"What is more traumatic than a country losing its ability to enforce the law, to carry out the decisions of a sovereign government in Israel?"

The answer: a country losing its soul.

Technorati Tag: Israel and Amona.

Lessons I Learned While Dating

First House of Joy reflects on the realization that an old boyfriend is also a blogger.

Then A Whispering Soul wonders about crazy things people do for love.

Next Soccer Dad writes about the magic of a stuffed animal--and my prediction at the time. (see comments)

Everyone has a story (or more) to tell. Here's some things I learned while dating the woman who would become my wife:

1. The Shadchan who set us up was her Rabbi...and my former chevrusa.

Lesson #1: It always pays to have a good chevrusa--you never know how it will pay off later on down the line.

2. Because she lived in Cincinnati and I lived in New York, we 'dated' a lot on the phone. On our first date, I learned with her the daf I was teaching my 6th grade Gemara class the next day.

Lesson #2: When dating, it pays to try something different.

3. On our next phone date we did a New York Times crossword puzzle together instead.

Lesson #3: When dating, it pays to try something different--but don't overdo it.

4. When she came to New York for the first time (ever), she was amazed at how beautiful New York City looked at night from the sky. When I took her by car to where she would be staying, I got lost in Harlem.

Lesson #4: Given the choice between breaking the man's code of never asking for directions or ruining the evening (and possibly putting yourselves in danger), men are allowed to break the code.

5. We got engaged on Purim while in Cincinnati. We told the shadchan at the seudah at the shul where he is the Rav, and he announced it to everyone there. Everyone burst out laughing and refused to believe him. He had to announce it a second time on Shabbos before people realized he was not kidding.

Lesson #5: The Rabbi's believability in the eye's of his congregants decreases in direct proportion to the size of the Mickey Mouse nose he is wearing at the time.

Go figure.

Curiouser and Curiouser: Curious George

In The Dark Side of Dr. Seuss, I ended half jokingly:

I may have to stick to "Curious George"--a metaphorical expose of America's capitalist exploitation of Third World Countries.

But John J. Miller seems to agree. In his article "Curious George Goes Hollywood: Will the movie be too politically correct?", he writes first about the political correctness of the movie as opposed to the book:

Consider how the first book violates our modern codes of political correctness. Rather than an eco-tourist, the Man in the Yellow Hat is a gun-toting poacher. When he first spots George, he says, "I would like to take him home with me." So he sets down his goofy hat as a lure. As George investigates, the man sneaks up from behind, pops him into a bag, and takes him home. Then George becomes Caliban with a twist: The man doesn't teach his simian sidekick how to curse, but he does show him how to drink booze and smoke a pipe.

There's something to be said for keeping liquor and tobacco products out of movies aimed at children, but the new film's whitewashing will go much further: The trailer makes clear that although the man still wears a yellow hat, he's also an unarmed naturalist. There's no snatch-and-grab, either. Instead, George mistakes the hat for a banana and follows the man across the ocean as a stowaway.

But there's more to it than that. While the original book might not be interpreted as "a metaphorical expose of America's capitalist exploitation of Third World Countries", there actually are those who believe they have delved into the dark underbelly of the Curious George narrative:

Earnest literary types have interpreted the first book as a barely disguised slave narrative. Have you considered that the man's weird outfit could be a send-up of a colonial officer's uniform? Or that George is brown and lacks a tail? (Lots of monkeys are brown and most species have visible tails.) Or that he is abducted against his will from Africa and brought across the sea to a foreign land where he engages in high jinks when the master is away?

In college I majored in Comparative Literature and wrote a paper comparing Dostoevsky and the Gemara--but based on this, I guess I will never be an 'earnest literary type'.

By the way, the story of the lives of the authors, Margret and H.A. Rey, is pretty interesting too:

In 1940, the Reys, who were German-born Jews living in Paris, fled on bikes as Hitler's army marched down the Champs-Elysees. They carried only a few items with them, including an early Curious George manuscript. (Their refugee travels, which ultimately took them to New York by way of Spain, Portugal and Brazil, are recounted in a picture book published last September: "The Journey That Saved Curious George," by Louise Borden.)

Now that would make an interesting movie.

Technorati Tag: Curious George.

A Piece of Our History

There's something about reading about a piece of history in a newspaper instead of in a book. When you read an old newspaper--I'm talking decades, not something you used to wrap up the Pesach dishes last year--it can make something that did not happen in your lifetime more real, and when it brings up facts that you were not aware of and opens up your eyes to what life was like so that it is more than just a 2-dimensional fact on paper.

Elder of Zion does this in his post Building an economy under fire - The Jews of 1939, where he combines jpg's of some articles in Jewish Palestine of the 1930's with his own commentary. He writes:

The Palestinian Arab economy is very interesting. It is wholly dependent on the one nation that it wants to destroy. According to the CIA World Factbook, when the second intifada started 100,000 Palestinian Arabs lost their jobs. Since they have no independent economy, the Palestinian Arabs went to the West begging for funds to pay for bogus "policemen" and pay them off to pretend to no longer be interested in terror.

No one seems to ask the question: why have the Palestinian Arabs, who have been there for decades, failed to build up any sort of decent independent infrastructure and economy on their own?

Many would answer that Israeli military actions have devastated any chance that Palestinian Arabs may have had to build such an infrastructure. This theory assumes that it is impossible to build something permanent in uncertain times, that one cannot expect people to think far ahead when they have to worry about today.

Let me introduce you to the Palestinian Jews of the 1930s.

If you have not been properly introduced yet, you should take the opportunity.

Technorati Tag: Israel and Palestine.

Denmark and The Cartoon Defense

I don't know what to make of this.

There have been a number of posts at Little Green Footballs on the subject of European newspapers coming to the defense of the publishing of cartoons depicting Mohammed:

First: Spine Sighted in France

France enters Muslim cartoon row.

A French newspaper has reproduced a set of Danish caricatures depicting the Prophet Muhammad that have caused outrage in the Muslim world.

France Soir said it had published the cartoons to show that “religious dogma” had no place in a secular society. Their publication in Denmark has led to protests in several Arab nations.

Responding to France Soir’s move, the French government said it supported press freedom - but added that beliefs and religions must be respected.

Considering the tremendous pressure Denmark has been under because of the cartoons, this is pretty impressive.

But wait, there's more: German Papers Print Mohammed Cartoons

Don’t look now, but backbones seem to be springing up all over Europe: Germans print Muhammad caricatures.

Italy and Spain too

The Times Online has an article on: Six newspapers reprint Muhammad cartoons, which includes this piece:

In an accompanying commentary, the editor of France Soir, which is in financial difficulties and has a readership of around 60,000, said he would never apologise for the decision to publish. Serge Faubert wrote: "Enough lessons from these reactionary bigots!

"There is nothing in these incriminated cartoons that intends to be racist or denigrate any community as such. Some are funny, others less so. That’s it. That is why we have decided to publish them," he added. "No, we will never apologise for being free to speak, to think and to believe."

At first I saw this as a great thing, that it was the beginnings of a sign that Europe might be reaching a point where it would realize that democracy means the freedom of speech and not the freedom to prevent others from speaking about things you don't like.

By the same token though, here were these newspapers proudly showing what they were made of by publishing cartoons--but why did they not have the same 'courage' to address the terrorism of Hamas, the murder of innocent women and children?

But of course there is courage in publishing the cartoons, considering the outrage of Moslems, the threats of violence and boycotts. It really is no small thing.

So it was with no real surprise that considering what was at stake, the following post later appeared on LGF: French Editor Fired for Mohammed Cartoons.

According to the BBC:

But late on Wednesday its owner, Raymond Lakah, said he had removed managing editor Jacques Lefranc "as a powerful sign of respect for the intimate beliefs and convictions of every individual".

Mr Lakah said: "We express our regrets to the Muslim community and all people who were shocked by the publication."

The president of the French Council of the Muslim Faith (CFCM), Dalil Boubakeur, had described France Soir's publication as an act of "real provocation towards the millions of Muslims living in France".

So much for Mr. Faubert
...and "lessons from reactionary bigots"
...and "being free to speak, to think and to believe"

But at least not all the newspapers are caving, according to the BBC article:

Other papers stood by their publication. In Berlin, Die Welt argued there was a right to blaspheme in the West, and asked whether Islam was capable of coping with satire.

"The protests from Muslims would be taken more seriously if they were less hypocritical," it wrote in an editorial.

La Stampa in Italy, El Periodico in Spain and Dutch paper Volkskrant also carried some of the drawings.

Europeans probably has to learn to stand up to the Moslem pressure in their own countries before there is any possibility of them being much real help to Israel. I hope it won't be a long wait.

If you haven't seen it yet, LGF also links to Tom Gross, who has "Cartoons from the Arab World" which illustrate the Moslem view of the proper balance between freedom of speech and "real provocation."

Other posts here on the topic of the Danish cartoons:

o The Danish Cartoons and the Hijacking of Islam 2/8/06
o The Timing of the Danish Cartoon Riots 2/8/06
o Comparing the Danish Cartoons to Der Sturmer? 2/7/06
o Translation of the Danish Moslem Delegation Letter 2/6/06
o The Anti-Denmark Riots: Has Pallywood Gone Global? 2/5/06
o Cartoon Irony 2/5/06

Technorati Tag: Denmark and Islam and Cartoons.

Does Hamas Put the "Fascist" in Islamofascist?

In his article, "Palestine's Willing Executioners", Jonah Goldberg refers to Daniel Jonah Goldhagen's controversial book, "Hitler's Willing Executioners", whose theme is that the German people themselves and their German culture contained within it an "exterminationist" version of anti-Semitism that was just waiting to be ignited, independent of the fascism of the government that came to power. Not every fascist regime in history has been bent on the murder of Jews:

Goldhagen's thesis was overstated but fundamentally accurate. There was something unique to Germany that made its fascism genocidal. Around the globe there have been dozens of self-declared fascist movements (and a good deal more that go by different labels), and few of them have embraced Nazi-style genocide. Indeed, fascist Spain was a haven for Jews during the Holocaust.

Following World War II, one view to explain what had happened in Germany was the "victimhood view"--the German people were themselves 'occupied' by the Nazis and so were to be seen as victims of the Nazis as well.

But Goldberg is not impressed by such an interpretation:

But variations of the don't-blame-the-people thesis have been around for a long time far outside of Germany. Democracy can be wonderful, but some of its boosters across the ideological spectrum assume that all democratic outcomes are good outcomes, and that's nonsense. The Left historically has located political morality in the interests and desires of the masses, therefore pronouncing it heretical to blame "the people" for evil deeds. In order to be evil, it seems, causes must be "hijacked" by small cabals of bad guys.

Michael Ledeen has an article, "When People Freely Choose Tyranny: It's Still a Loser" that expands on this concept of political morality. This concept of the "morality of the people" that made it possible to excuse the masses has also been used to excuse revolutionary governments, regimes, and small cabals as well:

It's not easy for modern intellectuals to accept the true nature of the Islamofascists, because of the long-discredited but still popular theory that revolutions are a good thing, and are invariably a righteous eruption against social and economic misery inflicted by greedy oppressive governments. In that view, revolutions are signs of progress, another step along the road to modernity.

Such a left/liberal view that can excuse regimes as well as the masses--so prevalent in the world--ensures a sympathetic view of whatever course or measures the Palestinian Arabs take. It would help explain the ease with which terrorists morph into freedom-fighters. Arafat's success was in creating the mythos of the "Palestinian People"--the Palestinian masses that could be forgiven even when the leaders they followed were terrorists. Given this worldview, Israel remains the occupier-perhaps regardless of her borders.

And as accepted as the regimes are by the world, they are even more welcome by the masses who bring them into power. Making the masses happy is done according to a time-honored formula claiming to be corruption-free and making the trains run on time--something that was way beyond the ability of the ruling Fatah party. Rather, Goldberg thinks that

looked at through the eyes of many Palestinians, it probably looked a lot like the Weimar government did to many Germans: institutionally corrupt, ineffective, and tainted by humiliating concessions to foreign powers and occupiers. (People forget how much the League of Nations carved up Germany - and how much it rankled Germans).

While Fatah certainly was corrupt and ineffective, I'm not clear if Goldberg sees Fatah per se as having been "tainted by humiliating concessions to foreign powers and occupiers," or rather sees this as the overall emotion that has been reinforced in Palestinians. After all, Abbas seemed to have done quite a good job of avoiding the need to keep his part in any agreements that provided for Israeli concessions. But this does leave open the idea that the West learned a lesson from how the League of Nations treated Germany and misapplied it to the Palestinian Arabs.

Bottom line, Goldberg does not find the new Hamas regime hard to define, nor secret in its motives. The key is what they would do if they had the means. Thus Hamas is a:

terroristic, irredentist, militant organization dedicated to restoring national pride at the expense of exterminating millions of people, who just happen to be Jews. This was no secret, and it is a form of condescension bordering on infantilism to assert that the Palestinians didn't know what they were voting for. If the new government had the means, it would be Palestine's willing executioners.

So how do we deal with regimes such as Hamas. On a theoretical level, according to Ledeen, there have historically been 2 causes for the downfall of such regimes:

Revolutionary regimes have fallen both because their own people turned against them, and because they were defeated on the battlefield. In each case, the revolutionary ideology was discredited. We humiliated the fascist revolution in the Second World War, and fascism was drained of its mass appeal. We do not know how European fascism would have ended (or indeed if it would have ended) if the Axis had won the war

Having been brought to power by popular demand, Hamas need not fear the former. As for the latter point-defeat on the battlefield, Hamas has nothing to fear from that corner either. Amir Taheri has pointed out:

For a war to be won, it is not enough for one side to claim victory. It is also necessary for one side to admit defeat. Yet in the Arab-Israeli wars, the side that had won every time was not allowed to claim victory, while the side that had lost was prevented from admitting defeat. Why? Because each time the United Nations had intervened to put the victor and the vanquished on an equal basis and lock them into a problematic situation in the name of a mythical quest for an impossible peace.

If Israel not only is not allowed to be victorious in the wars it wins--whether on the battlefield or against terrorists--but must continually make concessions, instead of defeating the regime, it is only given a new lease on life.

Good news. On a more practical level, Ledeen believes that Islamofascism is already losing--the Iranian people loathe their own government, the Iraqis voted for the religious blocs but then renegotiated the division of power, several recent polls show al Qaeda's popularity sinking. He attributes this to 4 factors:

1. "the failure of the terrorists to drive us out of the Middle East"
2. "the recognition by most people that the terrorists, from al Qaeda to Hezbollah (that is, from Sunni to Shiite), are evil and must be defeated"
3. "the near-universal conviction that the Islamic Republic of Iran is not the sort of place where one should want to live"
4. "the desire for freedom"

That's all well and good. But how much of this actually applies to Israel's situation? Let's see:

1. Israel is not allowed to defeat the terrorists who want to destroy her
2. Neither Arafat nor Fatah were recognized as evils that must be defeated and Hamas at best is considered a party that merely needs to be moderated
3. Since the Palestinians voted in such large numbers for a party that wants to impose Sharia, apparently Palestinian Arabs don't share the world's view of Iran.
4. Well, one out of four ain't bad.

There has been a lot of reaction to President Bush's State of the Union Address the other night. Rich Lowry reacts to it and Bush's statement of Middle East policy, noting a lot that he agrees with--and one thing with which he does not:

Bush said the only way to defeat the terrorists is through offering a better vision, namely a "hopeful alternative of political freedom and peaceful change." True. This is an ideological struggle.

He said raising up a democracy requires more than elections. True. We are getting reminders of this fact all over the place at the moment.

He said, "Democracies in the Middle East will not look like our own, because they will reflect the traditions of their own citizens." True. No one should be surprised that religious parties do well in deeply religious societies.

So far so good. Where I got off the bus was when he said, "liberty is the right and hope of all humanity."

...People might not affirmatively yearn for oppression, but they can certainly value and desire all sorts of things more than freedom, at least freedom as we would define it. We have just seen that in the Palestinian elections. A lot depends on how you interpret them, but it certainly seemed that the Palestinians valued the destruction of their neighbor, national (or pre-national) honor, and religious chauvinism more than freedom.

In general people can desire order, power, fealty to religious faith, ethnic pride, and/or sexual purity more than freedom. Which it is very important to remember when you're trying to re-make foreign societies. [emphasis added]

And that makes the Palestinians 0-for-4 in Ledeen's factors for the fall of Islamofacism. Which is why 'Palestine' should not be mentioned in the same breath as countries such as Iraq and Afghanistan.

Crossposted at Israpundit

Technorati Tag: Israel and Hamas and Terrorism and Facism.

How Do You Say Chutzpah In Arabic?

So Hamas wants Israel to change its flag? A number of bloggers have noticed.

ConservaJew believes "This world is bloody nuts. BLOODY. NUTS."
Crossing the Rubicon notes the chutzpah.
Smooth Stone notes the silence in response to Hamas' demand.
Bookworm Room points out that Hamas doesn't know the difference between the Euphrates and a Tallis.

But chutzpah is like Chinese food--it's hard to stay full.
Here are 2 more demands, as pointed out by Little Green Footballs:

Hamas Demands Return of Seville to Islam
Muslim Charity Claims Taj Mahal (from July 2005)

And then there is the Holocaust Conference that Iran will be hosting.
(see schedule here)

And the year is still young.

Technorati Tag: Hamas and Islam.

Hamas Improves on the Arafat Model

There was a time, when Arafat was in charge, that it was frowned upon for leaders of countries dependent on Western aid to come right out in public and say that their goal was to destroy Israel. Arafat's technique was to say one thing in public in English for international consumption and something else in Arabic for his Moslem audience. The West was so eager to believe in Oslo that even when Arafat's words in Arabic were translated into English, you could hear the creaking sound as people bent over backwards to justify and explain what Arafat really meant.

But today you don't even have to go to the trouble. Take Hamas for example. If you phrase things just right, then like looking at a Rorshach ink blog, the listener can hear what he wants to hear. The Jerusalem Post quotes a Hamas spokesman and even does us the favor of explaining what he's supposedly saying:

Sheikh Adnan Asfour, one of the political leaders of Hamas in the West Bank, said Hamas did not want to destroy Israel or remove it from the map.

"Hamas recognizes Israel as a fact on the ground," he said. "But we don't recognize the legitimacy of its occupation."

But Asfour didn't say that Hamas did not want to destroy Israel. All he said is that Israel's existence is a fact, but does not think its occupation of Palestinian land is legitimate. Does this imply that he--or Hamas--is ready to live with Israel or have given up on the idea of destroying it?

Further:

Asfour reiterated his movement's willingness to accept a Palestinian state within the 1967 boundaries and to reach a long-term cease-fire with Israel.

"That way the Israelis would be able to guarantee their security and we would also be able to live in security," he said. "Let's leave the conflict to future generations to resolve."

Even assuming that the Hamas definition of a Palestinian state matches Israel's definition--including agreement on what the capital of this Palestinian state will be--how is leaving the issue to future generations anything more than a Hudna? How long is "long-term"--is it as long as it takes a child with a gun to be old enough to learn how to fire a rocket?

And Hamas has more than one spokeman:

Another Hamas representative, Anwar Zaboun, said negotiations with Israel were not haram (forbidden by religion).

"It's forbidden to make concessions on our rights," he said. "But negotiations and discussions are not sinful."

Anyone notice that Zaboun just said that it's OK to negotiate and discuss but not to concede anything? Just what does that leave to negotiate? Apparently Zaboun and Abbas went to the same school of negotiation.

Then there is Khalid Mish'al, whom The Guardian informs us is head of the political bureau of Hamas, but neglects to mention that he is one of Israel's most wanted terrorists (hat tip Conservajew). Mish'al assures us:

Our message to the Israelis is this: we do not fight you because you belong to a certain faith or culture. Jews have lived in the Muslim world for 13 centuries in peace and harmony; they are in our religion "the people of the book" who have a covenant from God and His Messenger Muhammad (peace be upon him) to be respected and protected. Our conflict with you is not religious but political. We have no problem with Jews who have not attacked us - our problem is with those who came to our land, imposed themselves on us by force, destroyed our society and banished our people. [emphasis added]

The nonsense about "peace and harmony" is easily disproved by the documentation at jewishvirtuallibrary.org that gives a history of the Moslem persecution of Jews.

As a side note: to minimize the history of Moslem persecution and murder of Jews by contrasting it to the Holocaust is like pointing to the murder of over 3,000 innocent people on 9/11 and ignoring the non-Moslems murdered and injured by Islamists in 2005 alone in Afghanistan, Algeria, Bangladesh, Chechnya, Dagestan, Denmark, Egypt, Ethiopia, France, India, Indonesia, Ingushetia, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Kabardino-Balk., Kosovo, Kuwait, Lebanon, Mauritania, Nigeria, Pakistan, Palestine (Jebaliya and Gaza City), Philippines, Qatar, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Scotland, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, Thailand, UK, and Yemen.

Numbers alone are not the issue--it is the persistant hatred, persecution and murder by Islamists.

(Actually, if we count only non-Moslems the number is less since we would have to exclude the Palestinian Arabs killed by Hamas in 2 "work accidents".)

In any case, while it is awfully nice of Mish'al to bring up how Jews are refered to as "the people of the book" in Islam, he does seem to have forgotten that based on the Koran, Moslem clerics teach that the Jews Are the descendants of apes, pigs, and other animals--as documented by MEMRI.

One last point made by Mish'al--that Jews are to be respected and protected. The typical reader of the article might assume that the protection Mish'al is refering to is from outsiders; actually it is protection from the Moslems themselves. The American Thinker points to an interview last year with yet another Hamas spokesman:

Interviewed by Wall Street Journal reporter Karby Legget (and published in the December 23-26 edition The Wall Street Journal), Hassam El-Masalmeh, who heads the Hamas contingent at the municipal council of Bethlehem, confirmed the organizations plan to re-institute the humiliating jizya, a blood ransom Qur’anic poll-tax (based on Qur’an sura [chapter] 9, verse 29), levied traditionally on non-Muslims vanquished by jihad, and forced to live under Islamic Law (the Shari’a). Under the Sharia’s regulations, either the non-Muslim infidels must convert to Islam, or they pay the jizya—classically, in a humiliating public ceremony which often involved blows to the head or neck—and their life and belongings are protected. The nature of such “protection” is clarified in this definition of jizya by the seminal Arabic lexicographer, E.W. Lane, based on a careful analysis of the etymology of the term:

The tax that is taken from the free non-Muslim subjects of a Muslim government whereby they ratify the compact that assures them protection, as though it were compensation for not being slain.

Mish'al is merely giving Jews an invitation to go back in time to classical Islam when non-Moslems, Jews and Christians, were treated as second-class citizens--dhimmis.

As long as there are Western leaders and journalists who are predisposed towards a positive or sympathetic view of Islamist terrorists in their guise as freedom-fighters or politicians, it becomes that much easier for Hamas to pursue their goals. After the obligatory expressions of shock and disapproval are done with, excuses can always be found by the West to pursue policies that ultimately will do no one but Hamas any good. Just watch.

Crossposted at Israpundit

Technorati Tag: Hamas and terrorists and Dhimmis.