Jewish Intifada

"Israeli soldiers and police officers stormed a disputed building ..in ...Hebron,, dragging out 250 young settlers....Activists responded with ..attacks on Israeli forces and Palestinians......settlers rioted, setting fire to at least 3 Palestinian houses and burning 9 cars."
Associated Press and NY Times, Dec. 5, 2008.

It took some 600 Israeli soldiers and police to evict the settlers, who had been ordered to vacate the four-story house by the Israeli Supreme Court. Settlers claim to have bought the house from an Arab, but apparently could not produce a valid deed.

Incidents of Jewish violence, against both Arabs and Israeli security forces, have been reported in recent months. These acts are both foolish and reprehensible, and portend more serious trouble ahead.

My sympathies are with the Israeli soldiers, who were carrying out the legitimate orders of their government in enforcing a court decision. Although no doubt some of the soldiers are sympathetic to the goals of the settlers, they carried out their responsibilities professionally, and with notable restraint, considering the violence they encountered. So far both the IDF and the settlers have avoided the use of deadly force against one another, but violent conflicts tend to escalate; and there is the real prospect of Jews killing other Jews if the resistance to eviction orders continues.

What are the settlers thinking, if they are thinking? Do they not realize that they ultimately depend on the Israeli Army for their own security in the West Bank? How dare they hurt the soldiers that are protecting them? These acts are bound to create animosity toward the settler movement among the soldiers they are fighting; since most Israeli families have a member in the military, attacks on the soldiers may turn the majority of the country against the settlers!

From the press reports, it appears that Jewish attacks on local Palestinians were unprovoked, but many Arabs responded by throwing rocks at both settlers and Israeli soldiers. We know that the Palestinians hate Israel, and especially the settlers, but why inflame their hostility? Why provide a pretext for attacks on Israelis? How long will Palestine Authority (PA) security forces stand idly by while Arabs are harmed? If they try to protect their brethren, will there be armed clashes will Israeli forces? The fragile co-operation between Israeli and PA security forces is seriously endangered by these events.

Palestinians are likely to avenge these attacks, either on the settlements in the West Bank or inside Israel . Morevoer, Israeli Arabs may also be impelled to turn against their Jewish neighbors. Trouble begets trouble.

As bad as all this is right now, the future looks even worse. After the Israeli elections, the new government will resume negotiations with the PA over the establishment of a Palestinian state in the West Bank. (1) Since this "Two-State Solution" to the Arab-Israeli conflict has been endorsed by the present Government of Israel, the Quartet (2) and the Arab League, it is hard to believe that those opposed to such a state will prevail. The PA wants all settlers to leave the area, but there is no reason for Israel to agree to such a demand. The price of a Palestinian state must include acceptance of a substantial Jewish population, which must enjoy all the rights of citizenship that Arabs living in Israel have today. But this can only work if there is peace between Arab and Jew in the West Bank, and Jewish violence is every bit as destructive of this goal as is Arab violence.

If Israeli leaders are contemplating evicting all Jewish settlers from the West Bank, as they did from Gaza, and before that from Sinai, the resistance in Hebron should serve as a "wake-up call." There are hundreds of thousands of Jews living in the West Bank; the exact number depends upon where you draw the line between that land and Israel. Removing that large a number by the labor-intensive, non-lethal, methods used so far in Hebron and Gaza would take the entire Israeli Army, including reserves. Since the Army is also needed to guard the Egyptian, Lebanese, and Syrian borders, deploying it in this manner is not practical.

Suppose that the Israeli Army withdraws from the West Bank and the bulk of the settlers remain. If the PA forces then try to evict them, they will face far more fierce and lethal resistance than the IDF faces now. Their will be no restraint on the use of deadly force by either side. The result could be horrendous, and could trigger another Middle East war.

The only hope for a peaceful resolution to this imbroglio is for all sides to exercise restraint: the settlers must obey Israeli law and co-operate with the Army, the Palestinians must forgo revenge and accept the permanent presence of Jews in their country, and the Israeli leadership must abandon the idea of forcing the settlers out of their homes.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

(1) Gaza is a "de-facto" independent Arab state right now, but no one wants to recognize this. Re-uniting Gaza with the West Bank under a single government is about as likely as Bangladesh rejoining Pakistan.

(2) The United States, Russia, the European Union and the United Nations.

Why Target Jews?

"Muslims hate Jews because the Jews killed Muhammad."
John Foster Dulles, US Secretary of State (1953-58)

"Islam is a religion of Peace."
President George W Bush

The massacres in Mumbai (formerly Bombay), India, last week stunned and horrified the world. From the lone surviving terrorist Indian authorities have learned that the carnage was the work of Lashkar-e-Taiba, a Muslim extremist group operating in Pakistan with ties to Al Qaida. Although created by Pakistani intelligence to fight against Indian rule in Kashmir, the group was banned by Pakistan in 2002. (1)

Pakistani leaders have denied any responsibility for the attack, and I believe them. The current government is pro-Western, and has tried to improve relations with India. The unfortunate truth is that the government of Pakistan does not control large sectors of its own territory (especially those bordering Afghanistan), and disloyal soldiers in its own army are allied with the terrorists.

Apparently, there were only about ten killers (2) in the gang that attacked Mumbai, yet they managed to kill at least 174 people, wounded hundreds more, and almost destroyed the Taj Mahal Hotel. Most of the target buildings were filled with hundreds or even thousands of people: a train station, major hotel, and a cafe. If the Lushkar terrorists were trying to kill as many people as possible, why send two of them (about 20% of the strike force) to the Chabad House, where there were only about eleven people (3) ?

I contend that Lashkar leaders had a special goal of killing Jews, worth far more to them than much larger numbers of other victims. This is part of a pattern seen in other Al Qaida-related attacks on Jewish targets in Tunis and Istanbul. One of the reasons that the World Trade Center in New York was targeted on Sept. 11, 2001, was that Arab terrorists knew that thousands of Jews worked there. (4)

Some may attribute the lethal hatred toward Jews among Muslims to the "Palestine Question," but I believe that the Israel-Arab dispute is only part of the motivation. For the source of this hatred, let us look into the book that all Muslims venerate: The Quran. (5)

For example, verse 2:61 states "They (the Jews) disbelieved in Allah's revelations and slew the prophets wrongfully." The Quran goes on to speak of punishing the Jews for usury and cheating people out of their money in verse 4:161 : " We have prepared a painful punishment." Verse 5:60 says that Allah transformed some Jews into "apes and pigs" to punish them for violating the Covenant. Books of quotations of Muhammad (hadiths) written after his death include orders to "Kill any Jew who falls into your power!"

Although not all Muslims are devout, those who join jihadist groups like Lashkar most certainly are, and they take the words of the Quran as a literal guide to life. These quotations, and similar ones from the Quran and the hadiths, have been used by Muslim preachers to incite hatred toward the Jews, the State of Israel, and by extension, those who befriend the Jews.

It is only fair to note that the New Testament portrays Jews who did not accept Jesus, especially community leaders (the Pharisees), as responsible for his crucifixion. Christians have persecuted Jews for two thousand years because of this . Although Nazism was not a Christian doctrine, there can be no doubt that Christian anti-Semitism inculcated the hostility toward the Jews of Europe that enabled Christians to carry out Nazi orders without guilt.

Since the end of World War II, major Christian denominations (especially the Catholic Church) have downplayed the Jews' role in the Crucifixion, and condemn anti-Semitism. This transformation has not occurred in the Muslim world, however, and the ancient verses of the Quran that denigrate the Jews continue to motivate the criminal acts we see today.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

(1) Associated Press, December 1, 2008.

(2) Nine were killed, and one was captured. It is possible that some terrorists escaped.

(3) Including the nanny and the boy she saved.

(4) Most people who worked at WTC escaped before the towers collapsed, but hundreds of NY firefighters (of whom very few were Jewish) were killed when they fell.

(5) All the Quaranic verses quoted here are translations from The Legacy of Islamic Antisemitism: From Sacred Texts to Solemn History by Andrew G Bostom (Prometheus Books).