February 2002
February 4, 2002 The "Pal-Kal" Method and the "Os-Lo" Method
February 7, 2002 I Am Ashamed
February 11, 2002 Yesterday
February 20, 2002 An Important Message to Prime Minister Sharon
February 20, 2002 Moetzet Yesha Waking Up?
February 24, 2002 Bar Mitzva Speech
February 26, 2002 Why the Muslims Misjudged Us
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Jerusalem, February 4, 2002
The "Pal-Kal" Method and the "Os-Lo" Method
The following is a translation of 2 parts of Nadia's latest weekly radio
show on Arutz 7.
Nadia has a program in Hebrew on Arutz 7 every Thursday from 10:05 a.m. to
11:00 a.m., Israel time, which can be heard at 98.7 fm and 1539 am, and at
http://www.israelnationalnews.com
The architects and implementers of the "Pal-Kal" method were arraigned
after the collapse of the Versailles hall in which 23 people who were
present at a wedding were killed. Now the police is recommending that those
primarily responsible for the disaster be charged with manslaughter, and
the others with negligent manslaughter.
We ask: if this is the law regarding the "Pal-Kal" method, that caused the
death of 23 people, what about the architects and implementers of the
"Os-Lo" method -- a method in which Israel gave weapons and cities of
refuge to murderers? The "Os-Lo" method has already killed more than 600
people!
The punishment for manslaughter is 20 years imprisonment and for negligent
manslaughter, 3 years imprisonment. Prof. Ariel Bendor of Haifa University
was quoted in "Yediot Aharonot" regarding the difference between
"manslaughter" and "negligent manslaughter." He gave his explanation in
reference to the collapse of the Versailles wedding halls. We, of course,
relate to what he said in order to attain an estimate of how many years
Shimon Peres and the other criminal Oslo architects must sit in prison.
Prof. Bendor writes:
"The main difference between manslaughter and negligent manslaughter is
that it is possible to convict someone of manslaughter only if he was aware
of the possibility that his conduct would result in death. It is not
sufficient that the defendant should have known that his actions were
liable to result in victims, rather, it must be proven that the defendant
thought of this possibility, but nevertheless performed the actions that
caused death. Even if the defendant was apathetic to the results of his
actions, or even if he hoped that in the end no harm would be caused, he
may be convicted of manslaughter on condition that he was aware of the
possibility of death."
It clearly emerges from this statement that Shimon Peres and the other
architects of Oslo are guilty of manslaughter. They undoubtedly were "aware
of the possibility of death" when they gave Arafat and his killers the guns
and the cities of refuge. It is known to us that the Oslo architects
related to the possibility that their deeds were likely to result in the
death of Jews. It should be recalled that stormy demonstrations were held
at the time, under the slogan: "Don't Give Them Guns!" Yitzhak Rabin and
Shimon Peres related to these demonstrations - denigrating them - and
promised that if the guns would be directed against us, Israel would return
to Area A and take the guns back. This is clear proof that they "thought of
this possibility."
But those who prefer not to be severe with the architects of Oslo will
agree that they are at least guilty of negligent manslaughter. Prof. Bendor
writes about this:
"In order to obtain a conviction for negligent manslaughter, it suffices to
convince the court that a reasonable person would have had to anticipate
the possibility of harm, and therefor refrain from the actions that
resulted in death. The conviction is for the unreasonable conduct by
itself, despite the defendant's not having conceived of the results of his
actions."
As regards the "Versailles" disaster, the State Attorney's Office will
undoubtedly accept the recommendations of the police and place on trial the
group of guilty ones. Not so regarding the crime of the Oslo accords. Not
only are we not talking about placing the architects- implementers of Oslo
on trial, to the contrary: they are the ones who run the country and
continue forward, as if nothing happened in the past year and a half.
When we look at what is happening in the Knesset, we could erroneously
gain the impression that the supporters of the criminal "Os-Lo" method had
won the elections. One small example: on Wednesday, January 30, the Knesset
rejected a draft proposal raised by MK Michael Kleiner to abrogate the Oslo
accords. The draft proposal was rejected by a vote of 32 opposed to 10 in
favor. Those opposing the abrogation of the Oslo accords included the Likud
ministers Rubi Rivlin and Tzipi Livni, and MK Ze'ev Boim.
I simply cannot understand this. Firstly, how can someone be a member of
the Likud, and at the same time oppose the abrogation of the Oslo accords?
And the second question: how did it happen that only 10 MKs supported the
draft proposal? Where were all the members of the national camp who, at
demonstrations, deliver lengthy speeches against the Oslo accords, but when
the time comes to vote against them, are not present in the plenum?
I want to tell you, I have a bad feeling. I have a feeling that they are
cooking up something for us behind our backs. They are giving us the
feeling as if the Peres-Sharon government doesn't know what it is doing. As
if there is chaos, a powerless government.
But I tell you that the Peres-Sharon team really knows quite well what they
are doing and to what they aspire.
When one follows the news and reads between the lines, a uniform line that
looks more or less like this becomes clear: Ariel Sharon, and even Shimon
Peres, have despaired of reaching an agreement with Arafat. They therefore
are making every effort to de-legitimize him and to eliminate his personal
rule - and I emphasize: personal. The attacks against him are meant to
silence and calm the national public: "Here, we are doing something" /
"Arafat is under siege in Ramallah" / "Don't worry" / "We destroyed the
helicopters" / and so on.
And on the other hand, at the same time, they are permeating us with the
following message: Arafat is indeed the bad guy, but there are others
around him who are "good guys." With them we want to reach an agreement.
With them we are willing to establish a Palestinian state in the heart of
Eretz Israel.
And there is proof: instead of eliminating the entire infrastructure of
the PLO Evil Authority - something that President Bush would understand and
accept after the last wave of terror attacks - there is talk about the
erection of a Berlin Wall in Jerusalem; in other words: the partition of
Jerusalem.
Instead of announcing, as George Bush announced, that "there are no
negotiations with terrorists," we read in Maariv from Tuesday, January 29:
"Despite the disappointment, the U.S. is renewing its diplomatic efforts.
The Americans are examining the possibility of adopting the Peres-Abu Ala
package that was recently renovated in a series of meetings held by the two
in Israel and in Europe, in order to turn it into an agreed-upon diplomatic
plan with American support and international backing. The Americans are
seeking to determine if Sharon is a partner to Peres's plan, within the
context of which the Palestinians will receive "a state now," without
determining its final boundaries."
And, to our shame, the answer came two days later, on Friday, February 1,
in an exclusive interview granted by the Prime Minister to Maariv:
"Question: Will you accept an agreement within the context of which you
will agree to recognize an independent Palestinian state? Sharon's answer:
"We are speaking of a lengthy process, but in the end, there will be a
Palestinian state. It will be a demilitarized state that will have a police
force to maintain public order. It will have to give up the arms it
possesses, but a Palestinian state will eventually arise. I am prepared for
painful compromises. I am willing to relinquish parts of Eretz Israel, and
this is a painful compromise."
"Question: Ariel Sharon is willing to relinquish parts of Eretz Israel!?
Answer: "For true peace I am willing to persuade people and relinquish
parts of Eretz Israel."
Ariel Sharon is very quickly implementing his leftist philosophy in
practice: on Saturday night of the Torah portion of Yitro [February 2], we
read in YNet that Ariel Sharon has met in person with Abu Ala and Abu
Mazan, in a meeting that lasted three and a half hours.
All those who voted for Sharon in the elections read these things and are
shocked and angry. Ariel Sharon has become the poodle of Shimon Peres.
Ariel Sharon is betraying his mandate. Ariel Sharon is betraying his
voters. Ariel Sharon has officially joined the gang of Oslo criminals. We
issue a call here to all the members of the national camp in the government
and in the Knesset: Bring down this government, this very day, a government
that perpetuates the bloody and suicidal process of the "Os-Lo" method.
Whoever remains in this government is a partner to the crime against the
Jewish people in its land.
Today, Every Arab Is a Potential Murderer
This tactic of accusing Arafat for everything is a smart one. We are being
deceived, and we are led to believe that Arafat does not represent the
majority, that the majority of the Palestinian Arabs want peace, and as
soon as there will be another leadership, we will be able to reach an
agreement with them. The reality has shown that this conception is false
and extremely dangerous.
True, there are Arabs who want only to go to work and return home with
their livelihood, and nothing else. These are the "nice Arabs," as the
members of the Local Council in Efrat (the town in which I live) explain to
me when I warned that we went too far in giving Arabs entrance permits to
Efrat. Arabs walk around freely among us on foot/by car/on donkeys/in
taxis/on bicycles. "Nadia, they are good Arabs," they explain to me.
This may be so. But we all know that the day may come in which the members
of the PLO Evil Authority will turn to that "good and nice" Arab and tell
him: "Listen, pal, we hear that you work for Jews. We suspect that you are
collaborating with them. We therefore want to see if you are really loyal
to your leadership, the PLO Authority. Prove your loyalty by conducting an
attack against the Jews for whom you work. If you don't agree, we will kill
your family." What will this poor Arab do? Yes, poor. Of course he will
conduct the attack against the Jews. This certainly happened with the GSS
informer who blew himself up with his operators a few days ago in Taibe.
And this will happen with others.
In these days, we cannot trust any Arab. Even though there are people
among us who know "good and nice" Arabs, we do not know what is happening
with them and what they are capable of doing in order to survive in their
despotic regime. Not to mention, of course, all the thousands who volunteer
and want to blow up Jews.
The age of innocence is over. The time of insane "liberalism" is over. I
remember how we once demonstrated near Efrat after Arabs murdered Jews in
a shooting attack. We blocked the road to prevent the movement of Arab
vehicles. And then a Red Crescent ambulance arrived and wanted to go
through. This didn't make an impression on me. Together with my fellow
women, we sat down in front of the ambulance and wouldn't let it pass. We
demanded that the IDF open the doors and check the ambulance. Some of our
people came to us and said, "Nadia, this is not nice. There are rules that
we, too, have to follow. Ambulances cannot be stopped." What sick naivete.
My readers, the Arab enemy transfers weapons and ammunition in these
ambulances. The woman who carried out the attack in Jerusalem last week was
a Red Crescent volunteer. She entered Jerusalem on the strength of her Red
Crescent documents. And we, in our innocence, let her enter. Our "humanism"
cost us much Jewish blood and more fresh Jewish graves. The time has come
to understand that we are at war. And in a war, anyone who belongs to the
enemy camp is suspect. Every Arab who goes around among us is a potential
murderer -- every woman, every man, and every child. Up until now, we
related to them as innocent until proven otherwise. From now on, we must
relate to them as enemies. That is to say: every Arab is suspected of being
a terrorist.
What you will read now will not sound nice. But what can be done? I prefer
to not be nice and save Jews, than the other way around. The time has come
to do everything so that the Arabs will feel that they are not wanted among
us. An Arab is waiting at a bus stop in Jerusalem or in any other city, and
wants to get on the bus? Don't let him!
An Arab woman wants to enter a post office, a grocery store, a bank in
Jerusalem or in any other city? Don't let her! Let them feel for themselves
what it's all about. Let them go shopping in Ramallah or in Gaza.
For it cannot be that, at the very same time as Arab terrorists blow
themselves up in our shopping centers, massacre Jews, with broad support
among the Arab public, that other Arabs continue to do their shopping among
us, as if nothing happened!
It is important for us to understand that it is not only the Arab
leadership that is corrupt, not only Arafat is guilty. Arafat represents
the people. If the common people do not rise up against its leadership, the
majority apparently identifies with the hatred toward Israel as a whole,
and with the fierce desire to eliminate Israel and commit massacre after
massacre of Jews. These are not human beings. They are monsters.
As Shaul Goldstein, the head of the Gush Etzion Regional Council, wrote in
Maariv on Wednesday, January 30:
That Was the Last Straw for Me....
They announced on the radio: "This time it was a female suicide bomber ...
in her twenties ... a student"
An additional "accomplishment" for those who recruit the agents of Satan,
and once again, I felt the urge to vomit. Like then, almost a year ago, the
cursed morning when they informed me that they found the youths from Tekoa.
In the first second I thought they were alive and had only disappeared for
a short while, as is usual at their age. But the next words pierced my
brain like an ice pick: "Both were found dead in a cave not far from Tekoa."
My first instinct was not to believe. I thought: Who would want to harm
Yosef and Kobi, the fourteen-year-olds?
Everyone has a memory of when he lost his innocence, his trust. This
happened to me at that moment: in a single instant the future of
coexistence between these murderous scorpions and the members of my people
was irreparably shattered. For ten years I learned to live with them. We
were together in many moments of sadness and of joy, visits on Id- el-Fitr,
Id el-Adha, on Sukkot and Pesah, consolations on the death of a father,
assistance with one kind of medical treatment or another. I always thought
that we could live together, even in this rotten area. For ten years I
thought that we, "the people," would succeed where governments and rulers
had failed, we would succeed in showing that peace is not of the brave, but
rather of simple neighbors. But two evil shepherds, with just stones in
their hands, succeeded in shattering my hopes.
Since then, with every terrorist attack, with every reading of their
educational materials, I draw further and further away from the public that
is erroneously called the Palestinian people. If this is a people - then
its place is not among the family of peoples. It is a collection and rabble
of an incited and murderous mass, and it should be kept away from our
settlements and from our citizens, until individuals will rebel against
their corrupt leadership which has inscribed evil and death on its banner."
There is no need to add to these strong words by the head of the Gush
Etzion Regional Council.
Nadia Matar,
Co-chair
Women in Green
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Jerusalem, February 7, 2002
I Am Ashamed
After hearing last night's news about the murder of Miri Ohana
(45 years old) and her daugther Yael (10 years old) I simply cannot
function.
An Arab terrorist monster entered the yishuv of Hamra in the
Jordan Valley dressed as an Israeli soldier and started shooting.
His purpose was as usual: killing as many Jews as possible.
He knocked at the Ohana's door; Miri saw it was an Israeli
soldier....opened the door and he started shooting.
Murdering her and her dear daugther Yael.
I am sick to my stomach.
No- not from what the Arab murderer did.
We know what the Arab enemy is about.
They are sick monsters who have no qualms murdering and
butchering Jewish women, men, children and babies.
No surprise there.
I am sick to my stomach from Israel's non-response.
I am sick to my stomach that the Arabs are performing pogroms
against us and our Judenraat government does not do anything
about it.
I feel like screaming GEVAAAAAAAALT!!!
Ribono shel Olam.....let me put it in big letters:
A JEWISH MOTHER AND CHILD HAVE BEEN MURDERED IN
THEIR HOME!!!! AND NOBODY CARES!!!!! NOBODY REACTS!!!
No- the murder did not occur in Austria, not in Poland, not in Nazi
Germany.....the pogrom occurred right here: in Israel.
In the so-called "independent state of Israel".
And the Israeli government does nothing about it.
Only in Israel Jewish blood is cheap.
Oh yes....do not worry.
I am sure that the IDF will get permission to bomb one or two empty
buildings in Shechem . And Sharon will give his usual bla-bla about
what a bad boy Arafat is. But the truth is that NOTHING normal is
being done about it.
And that is why I feel so sick.
I am so ashamed.
I am so ashamed that we have a government that does not react
when Jewish mothers and daugthers are being butchered.
I am so ashamed that we have leaders who do not react when Arab
murderers butcher guests at a Bat-Mitzva celebration.
I am so ashamed that we have a people who allow this government
to continue to function. A people that allow this government to lead
us like sheep to the slaughter.
Any normal people would rise up and revolt.
I am so ashamed because I lied to my children.
I mistakenly told them that after the Holocaust, the Jews came to
Israel and created an "independent" state. A state where Jews will
always be safe because the IDF will never allow the enemy to harm
the Jewish People again.
And now we see that all we accomplished was to create a little
nebech ghetto called "Israel" on a small part of biblical Eretz
Yisrael. At the head of this ghetto we have again a corrupt-criminal
leadership, ruled by ghetto-minded shameful Jews - a leadership
that cares more about what the "paritz" in Europe and the U.S. will
say than about Jewish lives.
I feel sick to my stomach and I am ashamed.
But then I read about the little heroes among the Israeli people:
the busdriver who, together with a passenger, overtook the terrorist
on the Maaleh Adumim bus and prevented another massacre;
the history teacher who, on miluim, endangered his life and
caught a PLO truck full of missiles ready to be shot at our main
cities.
I read about those little heroes and I feel there is hope.
IF and that is a big IF:
IF the Jewish people will rise up NOW and go to the streets en
masse demanding that we will not allow these pogroms to occur
without completely destroying the terrorist infrastructure and
expelling the Arab enemy - if the people will do so....
there is hope for a better future.
IF the people will rise up and bring down this criminal government,
there is hope to find a new leadership that will not be ashamed.
A leadership of proud Jews that will declare: Eretz Yisrael belongs
to the Jewish People and only to the Jewish People.
On the other hand - if the people continues to be silent-
then we only deserve what we get.
Nadia Matar
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Jerusalem, February 11, 2002
Yesterday
By
Naomi Ragen
One of the reasons I write this information down and send it out to you is
because I really do believe that all those who love Israel and the Jewish
people, whether they are themselves Jewish or not, are part of one great
family.
The only way that a family stays close, is for all members to understand
and experience what the others do. Divided by great distances not only of
land but of mentality, information, and experiences, I hope in some way to
help us bridge those yawning gaps, to make those great leaps, with these
missives, typed in my little office in the hills overlooking my beloved
Jerusalem.
Perhaps it is a mistaken belief, but one I subscribe to nonetheless, that
any good, decent, reasonable person who hears and sees and understands what I
do, sitting here, would draw the same conclusions I have about events and our
attitudes towards unfolding history.
And so, with your permission, I should like to tell you about what I saw,
heard and understood yesterday, February 26, 2002.
The news told me this: A suicide bomber got on a bus in French Hill , a
bus with fifty people coming from Jerusalem to Maaleh Adumim (near the Dead
Sea). His coat was zipped up, and his hand was playing with something in his
pocket. The bus driver asked him where he was going. He would't answer and
sat
down in the back. The driver called out to him again, seeing strange wires
dripping out of his coat. A passenger approached him, grabbing his hand
out of his
pocket. The driver made a dash for the nearest IDF checkpoint and called
out to
the soldiers, who boarded the bus, got punched in the face by the bomber
before eventually subduing him.
Had it been me, I would have thrown the bastard into a ditch and
machine-gunned him until he exploded. But not our soldiers. Our soldiers
risked their
lives to hold his hands still until the sappers undid the belt, then exploded
the belt n a ditch. I saw that explosion on tv. It would have incinerated
that
bus.
Then on the news I saw a truck that had been stopped at a checkpoint. It
was going from one Arafat -controlled town to another . The IDF seached it
and found rocket launchers hidden inside bags of flour. Rocket launchers
capable of exploding in the center of Israeli towns. I heard our Minister of
Defense, Labor party MK Ben-Eliezer, say that if they attack our towns with
these
launchers, then its a whole new ball game.
And I thought: You had the Karin A, Mr.Ben- Eliezer. You have this
truckload on its way. Only when x number of Israelis are lying dead are
you going
to go in there and put a stop to this? Only then is there a new ball game?
Then I heard CNN report about Arafat's letter to Mr. Bush, in which he
said he didn't know anything about the Karin A, but took responsibility
anyhow.
He wrote about all the ways he was trying to subdue the extremists. I heard
Colin Powell talk about the need for Israelis to cool down the situation. A
little later, I saw film footage of Mr. Arafat giving a speech in Arabic in
Ramallah. He said this, no, actually he chanted it, smiling: "We will send
a million
suicide bombers to Jerusalem. We will send a million suicide bombers to
Jerusalem." His entourage grinned. The crowd chanted back. I saw a CNN
advertisement for it's new Arabic CNN, and finally understood what the
past two years of CNN pro-Arab propaganda was meant to facilitate.
Congratulations
Mr. Eason Jordon! You and your fellow CNN money grubbers would sell your
grandmothers for some filthy lucre! Real, patriotic Americans! I hope
Ted Turner is happy.
I was pretty tired by nightfall, but couldn't sleep. My son was watching
tv and I joined him. There's been another "piguah" (attack) he told me. I
hurried to my computer to find the on-line Hebrew news. A terrorist had
entered the
home of farmers in the Jordan Valley and murdered a 51 year- old mother and
her handicapped eleven year old daughter. (Not that it makes any difference,
but this was Jordan Valley, not West Bank, and so Reuters should't be calling
it a "settlement." Tel Aviv is also, according to that, a "settlement." A
soldier guarding the community was murdered. Five other soldiers wounded.
I heard planes overhead. I heard sirens. I looked across at the Arab
village that faces me, wondering if they would suddenly be taking Arafat's
incitement to heart, wondering if I really should get a gun.
I finally went to sleep.
I'll let you know what happens today.
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Jerusalem, February 20, 2002
An Important Message to Prime Minister Sharon
Two days ago, Ahuva Amergi was killed by an Arab terrorist. In the same
incident, Moshe Saperstein one of our members who lost a hand and an eye in
the Yom Kipper War, was shot and wounded in another car. These murders and
shootings are a daily occurrence here in Israel. Up to now, the measures
taken by Prime Minister Sharon and Defense Minister Ben-Eliezer in response,
have been totally inadequate. Their actions have not prevented a
continuance of such terror. The murders and maiming of civilians,
children, women and men, as well as of our soldiers, go on relentlessly.
The morale of the Jewish People is at an all time low. The despair with our
government's policies is mounting.
What is disturbing is that these acts of Arab terror have the overwhelming
support of the Arab population both within Israel, and in Gaza, Judea, and
Samaria. Not a day goes by without the reports of the Arab populace
praising the suicide bombers as martyrs. There is real rejoicing by them
over murders of Jews, whether it be at the direction of Arafat, or the
Palestinian Authority, or by the Tanzim, the PLO, Hamas or the PLFP. Yet
President Bush, and Prime Minister Sharon as well, go along with the fairy
tale notion that the Arab populace is not to blame! In fact they promise
large scale economic aid to them. No doubt as a reward for their inhumane
behavior?
It is a fact that such widespread Arab violence could not continue without
the support and cooperation of the whole Arab population. Yet the Israeli
Prime Minister, fearful of what he believes would be negative media and
world reaction, is hesitant to visit punishment on this civilian Arab
population. Instead, he chooses empty building as targets in response to
the killing of Jews. If that is not sad enough, advance warnings are given,
so that no Arab will be injured in the course of the bombings.
Women In Green invested a great deal of effort in traveling throughout
Israel to foster the election of Arik Sharon as Prime Minister. Today, they
regret having done so. Mr. Sharon has not provided the leadership that
Israel sorely needs. Although he mouths empty phrases and threats to the
Arabs, he has not effectively dealt with the Arab terror that is rife in our
Land today.
He has done nothing effective in retaking the guns which his Foreign
Minister, Shimon Peres, was instrumental in providing the Arabs under Oslo.
He has done nothing about destroying the infrastructure and offices of the
terrorist groups, the PLO, Hamas and the PLFP, and arresting their
respective leaders. Although he attributes each act of terror to Arafat, he
does not destroy the physical buildings in which Arafat personally resides,
and which symbolize his leadership in his war against Israel. Arafat
continues to extol as holy martyrs the suicide bombers who murder Jews. He
is an incurable terrorist and should be dealt with accordingly.
Jews are still not allowed by the Muslims to visit their holiest site, the
Temple Mount. Despite GSS (Israel's Security Agency) recommending that Jews
should be permitted to do so, the Prime Minister has failed to carry out
this proposal. Irreplaceable artifacts continue to be destroyed by the
Muslims, to wipe out historical proof of the First and Second Temples' prior
existence. Moreover, Sharon does nothing to prevent Muslims banning Jews and
Christians from praying on the Temple Mount.
If Mr. Sharon is not prepared to provide the kind of strong and imaginative
leadership that Israel needs, he should, in the interest of Israel's
continued
existence, step down and call for new elections!
Ruth and Nadia Matar
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Jerusalem, February 20, 2002
Moetzet Yesha Waking Up?
This morning (Wednesday February 20th)
a delegation of Women in Green went to
Karnei Shomron to pay a shiva call
to the 2 families (Shatski and Amar)
whose 14 year-old children were
butchered by an Arab terrorist last Saturday night.
This Sunday we will go to Ganei Tal in Gush katif to pay
a shiva call to Ahuva's family.
Ahuva Amergi, HY"D, mother of 2 little children (2 and 4 years old)
was brutally murdered by an Arab terrorist who shot at her car
when she was driving home.
Anybody wanting to join us, please e-mail.
We send our wishes of Refuah Shlema to our dear friend Moshe
Saperstein, who was wounded in his hand and leg in the same
terrorist attack in which Ahuva and two other Jews were murdered.
The Sapersteins are long-time Women in Green activists. A few
years ago they moved from Jerusalem to Neve Dekalim in Gush
Katif and have always been staunch fighters for Eretz Yisrael.
Rachel spoke beautifully on Arutz 7 yesterday and gave us all
strength when she said that terror will not scare us
away from our Land.
Women in Green have been demonstrating weekly, for months,
against the policy of restraint of the Sharon-Peres government,
mainly focusing on the threat of the creation of an additional
terrorist Arab State in the Land of Israel.
We are happy to hear that Moetzet Yesha has finally woken up
from its hybernation and has called for a demonstration tonight,
Wednesday, February 20th at 6:45 pm, next to the PM's residence
(Paris square) in Jerusalem.
Women in Green urge people to join this demonstration. We hope
that this time Moetzet Yesha's demonstration will not be a pareve
one; but that they will be very firm, calling upon the national camp
to bring down this bloody Oslo government.
Ruth and Nadia Matar
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Jerusalem, February 24, 2002
Bar Mitzva Speech
Because we feel the Women in Green are our extended family,
I wish to share with you the translation of my speech to our dear
Yehuda, who became Bar-Mitzva last week.
Nadia Matar
BS"D
Yehuda -
Thirteen years ago, your father and
I drove to the Hadassah-Mount Scopus
Hospital. After twelve hours of
exhausting labor pains - without
anesthetics - your father's face
froze. I will never forget his
expression, one of deep concern. He
jumped out of his chair and went to
call the doctor. The monitor showed
that you were in severe distress, and
it was decided to immediately perform
an emergency Caesarean section. For
some reason, the operating room was
located on a different floor, within a
few seconds my bed was rolled into the
main corridor, and running madly, the
doctor pushed me towards the elevator,
shouting loudly, "Make way," "Make
way."
Every second was important for your
health, in order to save you.
I remember how I prayed: "Please, O
G-d, please, O G-d, protect our child,
give us a healthy and whole child."
And today I stand here, very
emotionally,with Abba, and we thank
Hashem, she-hekhiyanu - who has kept
us alive, sustained us, and brought us
to this time.
And here you sit - thirteen years
later, and, Barukh Hashem, thanks to
God, you are beginning your way in the
adult world. I am certain that, once
again, you feel some distress. For the
truth is, you are in an environment in
distress. You and all your friends
your age, do not have a normal
childhood.
What kind of childhood is this, to
go to school in a bulletproof bus, for
fear of shootings?
What kind of childhood is this, when
you go with your mother and your
sister to the center of Jerusalem to
buy a suit for your Bar Mitzvah, and
you are witness to a terrorist attack
in the heart of the city? All alone in
a bus from the Clall building to
Efrat, on Jaffa Road, you hear the
shots by the Arab terrorist; you see
the wounded on the pavement, and you
immediately turn to a stranger on the
bus and ask to call me, to reassure
me: "Mother, I'm fine, don't worry -
they's shooting at us on Jaffa Street,
but I'm on the bus, I'm ok."
What kind of childhood is this, to
wake up every morning and receive from
your mother and father a report on the
number of Jews who were murdered the
preceding evening, and to see your
father take your smaller brothers to
kindergarten, because Mother is once
again rushing off to a funeral or to
organize a demonstration against the
government's policy of restraint?
I am certain that you and those your
age feel a certain distress. You
surely ask yourselves the questions:
"Who am I and what am I?" "What am I
doing here at all?" "Who needs this?"
"Why don't we pack all our bags and
leave here?"
In my humble opinion, the Torah
portion of Terumah, that you read so
well, answers all these questions. It
explains from where we came, and to
where we are going.
Your portion is in the Book of
Exodus. And as is quoted in the book
The Talks of Rabbi Zvi Yehudah, the
Book of Exodus is concerned with the
great matter of the creation of a
people.
This people appears with threefold
sanctity: the Exodus from Egypt - the
Revelation at Sinai and the Giving of
the Torah - and the proximity of the
Shekhinah, the Divine Presence, as it
is written: "And let them make Me a
sanctuary that I may dwell among
them." That is to say, this lengthy
journey of the Exodus from Egypt, of
going forth from slavery to freedom,
the grueling journey in the
wilderness, the Giving of the Torah,
all of this, everything, is for the
supreme goal: "And let them make Me a
sanctuary that I may dwell among
them." In other words, the goal is to
reach the highest level: to be a holy
people in the holy land.
And the reason, Yehuda, why you see
so much distress around you, the
reason, in my opinion, is that we have
a leadership that has forgotten that
this is our goal. They have forgotten
that we must be a holy people in the
holy land. And, mainly, they have
forgotten that these two elements are
bound together, and cannot be
separated. It is not possible to be a
holy people without all parts of the
holy land. And it is not possible to
establish a state in the holy land
without conducting it in a true Jewish
manner, according to Jewish tradition.
The moment that you forget what it
is to be a Jew, and what is your role
in the world, then you find yourself
in distress, and you cannot maintain a
national life. If we forget why we
came here, then we truly will not know
how to answer the Americans and the
Europeans when they tell us that we
are "occupiers." If we will not know
what is our right to this land - then
we will also not know how to fight
terror. A people with a leadership
that has lost its Jewish roots finds
itself in distress.
But, with God-s help, we will find
our way out of the distress. We will
find our way out of the distress when
we will have a leadership that will
combine, and protect, the people of
Israel, the Torah of Israel, and the
Land of Israel. A leadership whose
slogan will be: to be a holy people in
the holy land. And, Yehuda, you must
be asking yourself: "What does turning
the people of Israel into a holy
people have to do with me?" And the
answer is that you, Yehuda, as you
have arrived at the age of mitzvot,
you join all those who are trying to
take us all out of this distress. It
is your task to work, to do your part,
so that we will be a holy people in
the holy land.
What must we do to be a holy people?
Each and every one of us must work on
himself, so that the Shekhinah, the
Divine Presence, will dwell among us.
As it is quoted in that same book, The
Talks of Rabbi Zvi Yehudah, G-d
descends to us and dwells among us -
the Divine Presence within us must
hold onto the Ark/the Table in the
Sanctuary/the Altar/ the Menorah, the
candelabrum - the artifacts that are
fashioned by man, by means of our
Divine service and by our observance
of the commandments. That is to say,
by each and every Jew's observance of
all the commandments, he elevates the
people in holiness.
To be a whole Jew, Yehuda, is to be
a Jew who observes the Torah and the
commandments in Eretz Israel. Once I
read an article by someone who said
that instead of writing in the
national anthem "li-hiyot am hofshi,
to be a free people in our land," we
should have written, "to be a holy
people in our land." For to be a free
people in our land could be understood
incorrectly. You could, erroneously,
have thought that "to be free" is to
do whatever you please. But this is
incorrect. A person who does what he
feels like: smokes as much as he
wants, shoots up drugs because he
feels like it, eats as much as he
wants and what he wants, does not help
those around him, because he doesn't
feel like it. In truth, he isn't free.
He is enslaved to his desires.
The people of Israel went forth from
slavery to freedom. How did it go
forth to freedom? It accepted the
Torah, the commandments, the
framework, the limitations. The Torah
tells us what is permitted and what is
forbidden. Like in a diet: if a person
does not follow the instructions of
his diet, his weight will go up and
his health will decline. So it is with
the commandments - they are the
instrument to turn us into a healthy
people, a holy people. Whether this is
kashrut, the Jewish dietary laws, the
Shabbat, the doing of kindnesses or
the giving of charity, or the honoring
of one's father and mother - the Torah
is a way of life.
As you explained so finely when you
guided your class in the Temple
Institute:
Within the Holy of Holies, inside,
is the Ark, the Ark of Testimony, that
is the mind and the heart of the
Temple. The power of the Holy of
Holies also comes from the Menorah,
and also from the Table. The Menorah
symbolizes the spiritual, and the
Table symbolizes the material. Torah
and service in Eretz Israel. This is
the Holy of Holies.
Yehuda, you have the privilege, that
is also a challenge, to live in a
period in which the responsibility to
bring this generation out from the
spiritual weariness, from the
distress, from the confusion, rests
upon you and those of your age. Our
generation, that of the adults, did
ascend several levels of sanctity, in
'48 and in '67 when they established
the Jewish state and returned to
Judea, Samaria, and Gaza. But that
very generation is now descending in
holiness when it allows the political
leadership to capitulate to the enemy.
You have the ability to establish a
new generation of proud Jews in Eretz
Israel. Jews who are not afraid to
say: "The Land of Israel for the
people of Israel according to the
Torah of Israel." Yes, these words
sound a bit intimidating, but
remember: "It is not incumbent upon
you to complete the work; but you are
not free to desist from it."
Your father and I are very proud of
you. In the recent months you have
shown that you possess tremendous
willpower. We wholeheartedly hope that
you ascend further and further as a
proud Jew, from one level to the next,
to the Holy of Holies, and that you do
so with joy, with ardor, with passion,
with the flame of love, like the flame
of the Menorah in the Temple, the fire
of love of the people, love of the
Torah, and love of the Land.
A Jew is like the flame of a candle.
The flame of a candle always burns
upwards. May it be His will that you
and your fellows continue with the
torch of the light of the Torah, and
light many candles in Israel.
Dear guests, we are so happy and
moved that you have come to rejoice
with us in our celebration. As a
symbolic mark of our love for you, we
are giving each of you a candle in the
shape of the walls of Jerusalem, in
the hope that together - both children
and adults - we will preserve the Ner
Tamid, the eternal flame, until the
complete redemption, until the
rebuilding of the Temple and the
coming of the Messiah, speedily in our
days, Amen.
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Jerusalem, February 26, 2002
Why the Muslims Misjudged Us
They hate us because their culture is backward and corrupt.
BY VICTOR DAVIS HANSON
The Wall Street Journal
Monday, February 25, 2002 12:01 a.m.
Since September 11, we have heard mostly slander and lies about the West
from radical Islamic fundamentalists in their defense of the terrorists.
But the Middle Eastern mainstream--diplomats, intellectuals and
journalists--has also bombarded the American public with an array of
unflattering images and texts, suggesting that the extremists'
anti-Americanism may not be an eccentricity of the ignorant but rather a
representative slice of the views of millions.
Egyptian Nobel Prize-winning novelist Naguib Mahfouz reportedly announced
from his Cairo home that America's bombing of the Taliban was "just as
despicable a crime" as the September 11 attacks--as if the terrorists'
unprovoked mass murder of civilians were the moral equivalent of selected
air strikes against enemy soldiers in wartime. Americans, reluctant to
answer back their Middle Eastern critics for fear of charges of
"Islamophobia" or "Arab smearing," have let such accusations go largely
unchecked.
Two striking themes--one overt, one implied--characterize most Arab
invective: first, that there is some sort of equivalence--political,
cultural and military--between the West and the Muslim world; and second,
that America has been exceptionally unkind toward the Middle East. Both
premises are false and reveal that the temple of anti-Americanism is
supported by pillars of utter ignorance.
Few in the Middle East have a clue about the nature, origins or history of
democracy, a word that, along with its family (constitution, freedom and
citizen), has no history in the Arab vocabulary, or indeed any philological
pedigree in any language other than Greek and Latin and their modern
European offspring. Consensual government is not the norm of human politics
but a rare and precious idea, not imposed or bequeathed but usually
purchased with the blood of heroes and patriots, whether in classical
Athens, revolutionary America or more recently Eastern Europe. Democracy's
lifeblood is secularism and religious tolerance, coupled with free speech
and economic liberty.
Afghan tribal councils, without written constitutions, are better than
tyranny, surely; but they do not make consensual government. Nor do the
Palestinian parliament and advisory bodies in Kuwait. None of these faux
assemblies are elected by an unbound citizenry, free to criticize (much
less recall, impeach or depose) their heads of state by legal means, or
even to speak openly to journalists about the failings of their own
government. Plato remarked of such superficial government-by-deliberation
that even thieves divvy up the loot by give-and-take, suggesting that the
human tendency to parley is natural but is not the same as the formal
machinery of democratic government.
Our own cultural elites, either out of timidity or sometimes ignorance of
the uniqueness of our own political institutions, seldom make such
distinctions. But the differences are critical, because they lie unnoticed
at the heart of the crisis in the Muslim world, and they explain our own
tenuous relations with the regimes in the Gulf and the Middle East. Israel
does not really know to what degree the Palestinian authorities have a real
constituency, because the people of the West Bank themselves do not know
either--inasmuch as they cannot debate one another on domestic television
or campaign on the streets for alternate policies. Yasser Arafat assumed
power by Western fiat; when he finally was allowed to hold real and
periodic elections in his homeland, he simply perpetuated autocracy--as
corrupt as it is brutal.
By the same token, we are surprised at the duplicity of the Gulf States in
defusing internal dissent by redirecting it against Americans, forgetting
that such is the way of all dictators, who, should they lose office, do not
face the golden years of Jimmy Carter's busy house-building or Bill
Clinton's self-absorbed angst. Either they dodge the mob's bullets or
scurry to a fortified compound on the French coast a day ahead of the
posse. The royal family of Saudi Arabia cannot act out of principle,
because no principle other than force put and keeps them in power. All the
official jets, snazzy embassies and expensive press agents cannot hide that
these illegitimate rulers are not in the political sense Western at all.
How sad that intellectuals of the Arab world--themselves given freedom only
when they emigrate to the United States or Europe--profess support for
democratic reform from Berkeley or Cambridge but secretly fear that, back
home, truly free elections would usher in folk like the Iranian imams, who,
in the manner of the Nazis in 1933, would thereupon destroy the very
machinery that elected them. The fact is that democracy does not spring
fully formed from the head of Zeus but rather is an epiphenomenon--the
formal icing on a pre-existing cake of egalitarianism, economic
opportunity, religious tolerance and constant self-criticism. The former
cannot appear in the Muslim world until gallant men and women insist upon
the latter--and therein demolish the antidemocratic and medieval forces of
tribalism, authoritarian traditionalism and Islamic fundamentalism.
How much easier for nonvoters of the Arab world to vent frustration at the
West, as if, in some Machiavellian plot, a democratic America, Israel and
Europe have conspired to prevent Muslims from adopting the Western
invention of democracy! Democracy is hardly a Western secret to be closely
guarded and kept from the mujahideen. Islam is welcome to it, with the
blessing and subsidy of the West. Yes, we must promote democracy abroad in
the Muslim world; but only they, not we, can ensure its success.
The catastrophe of the Muslim world is also explicable in its failure to
grasp the nature of Western success, which springs neither from luck nor
resources, genes nor geography. Like Third World Marxists of the 1960s, who
put blame for their own self-inflicted misery upon corporations,
colonialism and racism--anything other than the absence of real markets and
a free society--the Islamic intelligentsia recognizes the Muslim world's
inferiority vis-à-vis the West, but it then seeks to fault others for its
own self-created fiasco. Government spokesmen in the Middle East should
ignore the nonsense of the cultural relativists and discredited Marxists
and have the courage to say that they are poor because their populations
are nearly half illiterate, that their governments are not free, that their
economies are not open, and that their fundamentalists impede scientific
inquiry, unpopular expression and cultural exchange.
Tragically, the immediate prospects for improvement are dismal, inasmuch as
the war against terrorism has further isolated the Middle East. Travel,
foreign education and academic exchanges--the only sources of future hope
for the Arab world--have screeched to a halt. All the conferences in Cairo
about Western bias and media distortion cannot hide this self-inflicted
catastrophe--and the growing ostracism and suspicion of Middle Easterners
in the West.
But blaming the West, and Israel, for the unendurable reality is easier for
millions of Muslims than admitting the truth. Billions of barrels of oil,
large populations, the Suez Canal, the fertility of the Nile, Tigris and
Euphrates valleys, invaluable geopolitical locations and a host of other
natural advantages that helped create wealthy civilizations in the past now
yield an excess of misery, rather than the riches of resource-poor Hong
Kong or Switzerland. How could it be otherwise, when it takes bribes and
decades to obtain a building permit in Cairo, when habeas corpus is a cruel
joke in Baghdad, and when Saudi Arabia turns out more graduates in Islamic
studies than in medicine or engineering?
To tackle illiteracy, gratuitous state-sanctioned killing, and the economic
sclerosis that comes from corruption and state control would require the
courage and self-examination of Eastern Europe, Russia, South America, even
of China. Instead, wedded to the old bromides that the West causes their
misery, that fundamentalist Islam and crackpot mullahs have had no role in
their disasters, that the subjugation of women is a "different" rather than
a foul (and economically foolish) custom, Muslim intellectuals have railed
these past few months about the creation of Israel half a century ago, and
they have sat either silent or amused while the mob in their streets chants
in praise of a mass murderer. Meanwhile millions of Muslims tragically stay
sick and hungry in silence.
Has the Muslim world gone mad in its threats and ultimatums? Throughout
this war, Muslims have saturated us with overt and with insidious warnings.
If America retaliated to the mass murder of its citizens, the Arab world
would turn on us; if we bombed during Ramadan, we would incur lasting
hatred; if we continued in our mission to avenge our dead, not an American
would be safe in the Middle East.
More disturbing even than the screaming street demonstrations have been the
polite admonitions of corrupt grandees like Crown Prince Abdullah of Saudi
Arabia or editor Abdul Rahman al Rashed of Saudi Arabia's state-owned Al
Sharq al Awsat. Don't they see the impotence and absurdity of their veiled
threats, backed neither by military force nor cultural dynamism? Don't they
realize that nothing is more fatal to the security of a state than the
divide between what it threatens and what it can deliver?
There is an abyss between such rhetoric and the world we actually live in,
an abyss called power. Out of politeness, we needn't crow over the relative
military capability of one billion Muslims and 300 million Americans; but
we should remember that the lethal, 2,500-year Western way of war is the
reflection of very different ideas about personal freedom, civic
militarism, individuality on the battlefield, military technology,
logistics, decisive battle, group discipline, civilian audit and the
dissemination and proliferation of knowledge.
Values and traditions--not guns, germs and steel--explain why a tiny Greece
of 50,000 square miles crushed a Persia 20 times larger; why Rome, not
Carthage, created world government; why Cortés was in Tenochtitlàn, and
Montezuma not in Barcelona; why gunpowder in its home in China was a
pastime for the elite while, when stolen and brought to Europe, it became a
deadly and ever evolving weapon of the masses. Even at the nadir of Western
power in the medieval ages, a Europe divided by religion and fragmented
into feudal states could still send thousands of thugs into the Holy Land,
while a supposedly ascendant Islam had neither the ships nor the skill nor
the logistics to wage jihad in Scotland or Brittany.
Much is made of 500 years of Ottoman dominance over a feuding Orthodox,
Christian and Protestant West; but the sultans were powerful largely to the
degree that they crafted alliances with a distrustful France and the
warring Italian city-states, copied the Arsenal at Venice, turned out
replicas of Italian and German canon, and moved their capital to European
Constantinople. Moreover, their "dominance" amounted only to a rough naval
parity with the West on the old Roman Mediterranean; they never came close
to the conquest of the heart of Western Europe.
Europeans, not Ottomans, colonized central and southern Africa, Asia and
the Pacific and the Americas--and not merely because of their Atlantic
ports or ocean ships but rather because of their longstanding attitudes and
traditions about scientific inquiry, secular thought, free markets and
individual ingenuity and spontaneity. To be sure, military power is not a
referendum on morality--Pizarro's record in Peru makes as grim reading as
the Germans' in central Africa; it is, rather, a reflection of the amoral
dynamism that fuels ships and soldiers.
We are militarily strong, and the Arab world abjectly weak, not because of
greater courage, superior numbers, higher IQs, more ores or better weather,
but because of our culture. When it comes to war, one billion people and
the world's oil are not nearly as valuable military assets as MIT, West
Point, the House of Representatives, C-Span, Bill O'Rilley and the G.I.
Bill. Between Xerxes on his peacock throne overlooking Salamis and Saddam
on his balcony reviewing his troops, between the Greeks arguing and
debating before they rowed out with Themistocles and the Americans
haranguing one another on the eve of the Gulf War, lies a 2,500-year
cultural tradition that explains why the rest of the world copies its
weapons, uniforms and military organization from us, not vice versa.
Many Middle Easterners have performed a great media charade throughout
this war. They publish newspapers and televise the news, and thereby give
the appearance of being modern and Western. But their reporters and
anchormen are by no means journalists by Western standards of free and
truthful inquiry. Whereas CNN makes a point of talking to the victims of
collateral damage in Kabul, al-Jazeera would never interview the mothers of
Israeli teenagers blown apart by Palestinian bombs. Nor does any Egyptian
or Syrian television station welcome freewheeling debates or "Meet the
Press"-style talk shows permitting criticism of the government or the
national religion. Instead, they quibble over their own degrees of
anti-Americanism and obfuscate the internal contradictions of Islam. The
chief dailies in Algiers, Tehran and Kuwait City look like Pravda of old.
The entire Islamic media is a simulacrum of the West, lacking the
life-giving spirit of debate and self-criticism.
As a result, when Americans see a cavalcade of talking Middle Eastern heads
nod and blurt out the party line--that Israel is evil, that the United
States is naive and misled, that Muslims are victims, that the West may
soon have to reckon with Islamic anger--they assume the talk is
orchestrated and therefore worth listening to only for what it teaches
about how authoritarian governments can coerce and corrupt journalists and
intellectuals.
A novelist who writes whatever he pleases anywhere in the Muslim world is
more likely to receive a fatwa and a mob at his courtyard than a prize for
literary courage, as Naguib Mahfouz and Salman Rushdie have learned. No
wonder a code of silence pervades the Islamic world. No wonder, too, that
Islam is far more ignorant of us than we of it. And no wonder that the
Muslims haven't a clue that, while their current furor is scripted, whipped
up and mercurial, ours is far deeper and more lasting.
Every Western intellectual knows Edward Said's much-hyped theory of
"Orientalism," a purely mythical construct of how Western bias has
misunderstood and distorted the Eastern "Other." In truth, the real problem
is "Westernism"--the fatally erroneous idea in the Middle East that its
propaganda-spewing Potemkin television stations give it a genuine
understanding of the nature of America, an understanding Middle Easterners
believe is deepened by the presence in their midst of a few McDonald's
franchises and hired U.S. public-relations firms.
That error--which mistakes ignorance for insight--helps explain why Osama
bin Laden so grossly miscalculated the devastating magnitude of our
response to September 11. In reality, the most parochial American knows
more about the repressive nature of the Gulf States than the most
sophisticated and well-traveled sheikh understands about the cultural
underpinnings of this country, including the freedom of speech and inquiry
that is missing in the Islamic press.
Millions in the Middle East are obsessed with Israel, whether they live
in sight of Tel Aviv or thousands of miles away. Their fury doesn't spring
solely from genuine dismay over the hundreds of Muslims Israel has killed
on the West Bank; after all, Saddam Hussein butchered hundreds of thousands
of Shiites, Kurds and Iranians, while few in Cairo or Damascus said a word.
Syria's Hafez Assad liquidated perhaps 20,000 in sight of Israel, without a
single demonstration in any Arab capital. The murder of some 100,000
Muslims in Algeria and 40,000 in Chechnya in the last decade provoked few
intellectuals in the Middle East to call for a pan-Islamic protest.
Clearly, the anger derives not from the tragic tally of the fallen but from
Islamic rage that Israelis have defeated Muslims on the battlefield
repeatedly, decisively, at will and without modesty.
If Israel were not so successful, free and haughty--if it were beleaguered
and tottering on the verge of ruin--perhaps it would be tolerated. But in a
sea of totalitarianism and government-induced poverty, a relatively
successful economy and a stable culture arising out of scrub and desert
clearly irks its less successful neighbors. Envy, as the historian
Thucydides reminds us, is a powerful emotion and has caused not a few wars.
If Israel did not exist, the Arab world, in its current fit of denial,
would have to invent something like it to vent its frustrations. That is
not to say there may not be legitimate concerns in the struggle over
Palestine, but merely that for millions of Muslims the fight over such
small real estate stems from a deep psychological wound. It isn't about
lebensraum or some actual physical threat. Israel is a constant reminder
that it is a nation's culture--not its geography or size or magnitude of
its oil reserves--that determines its wealth or freedom. For the Middle
East to make peace with Israel would be to declare war on itself, to admit
that that its own fundamental way of doing business--not the Jews--makes it
poor, sick and weak.
Throughout the Muslim world, myth and ignorance surround U.S. foreign
policy toward the Middle East. Yes, we give Israel aid, but less than the
combined billions that go to the Palestinians and to Egypt, Jordan and
other Muslim countries. And it is one thing to subsidize a democratic and
constitutional (if cantankerous) ally but quite another to pay for slander
from theocratic or autocratic enemies. Though Israel has its fair share of
fundamentalists and fanatics, the country is not the creation of clerics or
strongmen but of European émigrés, who committed Israel from the start to
democracy, free speech and abundant self-critique.
Far from egging on Israel, the United States actually restrains the Israeli
military, whose organization and discipline, along with the sophisticated
Israeli arms industry, make it quite capable of annihilating nearly all its
bellicose neighbors without American aid. Should the United States withdraw
from active participation in the Middle East and let the contestants settle
their differences on the battlefield, Israel, not the Arab world, would
win. The military record of four previous conflicts does not lie. Arafat
should remember who saved him in Lebanon; it was no power in the Middle
East that brokered his exodus and parted the waves of Israeli planes and
tanks for his safe passage to the desert.
The Muslim world suffers from political amnesia, we now have learned, and
so has forgotten not only Arafat's resurrection but also American help to
beleaguered Afghans, terrified Kuwaitis, helpless Kurds and Shiites,
starving Somalis and defenseless Bosnians--direct intervention that has
cost the United States much more treasure and lives than mere economic aid
for Israel ever did. They forget; but we remember the Palestinians cheering
in Nablus hours after thousands of our innocents were incinerated in New
York, the hagiographic posters of a mass murderer in the streets of Muslim
capitals, and the smug remonstrations of Saudi prince Alwaleed to Mayor
Rudy Giuliani at Ground Zero.
Saudi and Kuwaiti Westernized elites find psychological comfort in their
people's anti-American rhetoric, not out of real grievance but perhaps as
reassurance that their own appetite for all things Western doesn't
constitute rejection of their medieval religion or their 13th-century
caliphate. Their apologists in the United States dissemble when they argue
that these Gulf sheikhs are forced to master a doublespeak for foreign
consumption, or that they are better than the frightening alternative, or
that they are victims of unfair American anger that is ignorant of Wahhabi
custom.
In their present relationship with the terrorists, these old-fashioned
autocrats are neutrals only in the sense that they now play the cagier role
of Franco's Spain to Hitler's Germany. They aid and abet our enemies, but
never overtly. If the United States prevails, the Saudis can proclaim that
they were always with us; should we lose a shooting war with the
terrorists, the princes can swear that their prior neutrality really
constituted allegiance to radical Islam all along.
In matters of East-West relations, immigration has always been a one-way
phenomenon. Thousands flocked to Athens and Rome; few left for Parthia or
Numidia unless to colonize or exploit. People sneak into South, not North,
Korea--in the same manner that few from Hong Kong once braved gunfire to
reach Beijing (unless to invest and profit). Few Israeli laborers are going
to the West Bank to seek construction jobs. In this vein is the Muslim
world's longing for the very soil of America. Even in the crucible of war,
we have discovered that our worst critics love us in the concrete as much
as they hate us in the abstract.
For all the frothing, it seems that millions of our purported enemies wish
to visit, study or (better yet) live in the United States--and this is true
not just of Westernized professors or globetrotting tycoons but of
hijackers, terrorists, the children of the Taliban, the offspring of
Iranian mullahs and the spoiled teenage brats of our Gulf critics. The
terrorists visited lap dancers, took out frequent-flier miles, spent hours
on the Internet, had cell phones strapped to their hips and hobnobbed in
Las Vegas--parasitic on a culture not their own, fascinated with toys they
could not make, and always ashamed that their lusts grew more than they
could be satisfied. Until September 11, their ilk had been like fleas on a
lazy, plump dog, gnashing their tiny proboscises to gain bloody nourishment
or inflict small welts on a distracted host who found them not worth the
scratch.
This dual loathing and attraction for things Western is characteristic of
the highest echelon of the terrorists themselves, often Western-educated,
English-speaking and hardly poor. Emblematic is the evil genius of al
Qaeda, the sinister Dr. Ayman al-Zawahiri. He grew up in Cairo affluence,
his family enmeshed in all the Westernized institutions of Egypt.
Americans find this Middle Eastern cultural schizophrenia maddening,
especially in its inability to fathom that all the things that Muslim
visitors profess to hate--equality of the sexes, cultural freedom,
religious tolerance, egalitarianism, free speech and secular
rationalism--are precisely what give us the material things that they want
in the first place. CDs and sexy bare midriffs are the fruits of a society
that values freedom, unchecked inquiry and individual expression more than
the dictates of state or church; wild freedom and wild materialism are part
of the American character. So bewildered Americans now ask themselves: Why
do so many of these anti-Americans, who profess hatred of the West and
reverence for the purity of an energized Islam or a fiery Palestine, enroll
in Chico State or UCLA instead of madrassas in Pakistan or military
academies in Iraq?
The embarrassing answer would explain nearly everything, from bin Laden to
the intifada. Dads and moms who watch al-Jazeera and scream in the street
at the Great Satan really would prefer that their children have dollars, an
annual CAT scan, a good lawyer, air conditioning and Levis in American hell
than be without toilet paper, suffer from intestinal parasites, deal with
the secret police, and squint with uncorrected vision in the Islamic
paradise of Cairo, Tehran and Gaza. Such a fundamental and intolerable
paradox in the very core of a man's heart--multiplied millions of times
over--is not a healthy thing either for them or for us, as we have learned
since September 11.
Most Americans recognize and honor the past achievements of Islamic
civilization and the contribution of Middle Eastern immigrants to the
United States and Europe, as well as the traditional hospitality shown
visitors to the Muslim world. And so we have long shown patience with those
who hate us, and more curiosity than real anger.
But that was then, and this is now. A two-kiloton explosion that
incinerated thousands of our citizens--planned by Middle Easterners with
the indirect financial support of purportedly allied governments, the
applause of millions, and the snickering and smiles of millions more--has
had an effect that grows not wanes.
So a neighborly bit of advice for our Islamic friends and their spokesmen
abroad: topple your pillars of ignorance and the edifice of your
anti-Americanism. Try to seek difficult answers from within to even more
difficult questions without. Do not blame others for problems that are
largely self-created or seek solutions over here when your answers are
mostly at home. Please, think hard about what you are saying and writing
about the deaths of thousands of Americans and your relationship with the
United States.
America has been a friend more often than not to you. But now you are on
the verge of turning its people--who create, not follow, government--into
an enemy: a very angry and powerful enemy that may be yours for a long,
long time to come.
Mr. Hanson, a military historian, is author most recently of "Carnage and
Culture" (Doubleday 2002) and a contributing editor of City Journal, in
whose Winter issue this article appears.
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