Yesterday, for a few minutes in my car, I listened to Rush Limbaugh who, though arrogant at times, is always very knowledgeable. A Canadian caller was complaining about what he felt was the Canadian and U.S. media's bias towards Israel and, although he acknowledged that he was anti-Israel, he categorically denied that he was anti-Semitic. Limbaugh, very calmly, raked him over the coals for this obvious contradiction, and with good reason.
Because you can't be both, dude! If you are 'anti-Israel' you are decidedly 'anti-Semitic'! You can not claim that you support the Jewish people and on the other hand believe that Israel has no right to exist. People conveniently forget, whether through ignorance or hatred, that the United Nations was instrumental in creating the State of Israel in 1947 (1947 UN Partition Plan), and that, historically speaking, the Jews have as much right to live in that region as anyone else. The history of the Holy Land, and who might have lived there first, is open to interpretation. We will never know the answer for sure, so one side or the other laying full claim to those lands is unquestionably wrong.
What we do know, however, is that the Holy Land is biblically important to Jews, Christians and Muslims alike, and though I'd like to think that, in a civilized world, they could all peacefully co-exist, this will never happen as long as the Muslims continue to foster and embrace their hatred for all people and things non-Muslim. The call for the annihilation of the Jews (or for that matter Christians and all other non-believers or Kafirs, as they are called) is rife in the teachings of the Koran and in the mainstream Arab media. To witness how profoundly deep that hatred runs, watch some of the videos on Palestinian Media Watch or read about the Palestinian penchant for preaching hatred of the Jews here. For decades the west has tried to broker some form of peace agreement in that region, to no avail. The reason no-one has ever achieved this goal is because the Muslims in that region will never agree to live in peace with the Israelis. At a mosque in Tehran, Ismail Haniyeh (the Palestinian prime minister) vowed this past Friday that his Hamas-led government will never recognize Israel.
And it's not just the Palestinians who openly exhort destruction of the Jewish people. There are many other middle-eastern countries including Iran's Ahmadinejad who has called for Israel to be wiped off the map. This virulent hatred for Jews begins in early childhood, where children as young as 3 are taught that Jews are 'pigs' and 'apes' and that "The day of judgment will not arrive until Muslims fight Jews, and Muslims will kill Jews until the Jew hides behind a tree or a stone. Then the tree and the stone will say: 'O Muslim, O servant of God, this is a Jew behind me. Come and kill him.' Except one type of a tree, which is a Jew tree. It will not say this." You find this 'loathing' in Saudi Arabian elementary school textbooks, on TV shows, children's cartoons, in newspapers and in mosques. It is constant and unrelenting and prevalent throughout that region.
The anti-Semitic, anti-Israeli faction place all the blame on Israel for the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, as if the Israelis have no right to be there as well, and proclaiming that the Palestinians are victims. But who are the Palestinians anyway? Arafat was born in Egypt, and most of the Palestinians who have migrated to Israeli lands, according to this article, are mostly from other Arab countries, as no other countries seem to want them. And the reason Israel is so coveted by the Palestinians is because the Israelis have transformed their tiny sliver of desert land into an oasis; something the Palestinians don't have. Jealousy breeds resentment and then hatred. Israel is the middle-eastern 'Land of Opportunity'. Most of the Palestinians live in abject poverty, but whose fault is that anyway? Certainly not the Israelis. Arafat was a multi-millionaire with Swiss bank accounts; some claim he was a billionaire and yet his people were kept poor and ignorant for a reason. In fact, many middle-easterners are kept ignorant and poor while the leaders of their countries live in opulence, and it is this ignorance and poverty that gives rise to hatred.
Anti-Semite and anti-Israel Jimmy Carter (at it again) in his new book: Peace not Apartheid, criticizes Israel for its treatment of the Palestinian minority and stupidly likens the building of fences, walls etc. around the West Bank to Apartheid. What he doesn't care to recognize is that the building of these walls is a defensive tactic not a means of oppressing or subjugating the minority population. Israel has never intentionally targeted civilians, unlike the Palestinian suicide bombers who are indiscriminate in who they target. Israelis have every right to protect themselves from potential terrorist attacks, even if that means building fences. Perhaps if there wasn't such hatred directed towards the Jews, and from all sides of their borders, they might not feel the need to protect themselves. But as long as they feel threatened with annihilation, they deserve to do whatever it takes to prevent this from happening, even if that means building barriers to achieve that goal. And Jimmy Carter should stick to building houses (with Habitat for Humanity), which is what he does best.
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