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Alan Perlman is a resident of the community of Carmel in the Hebron Hills region and a technical writer. Perlman has a master's degree in social work.
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By Alan Perlman
May 23, 2004
For a moment, I had to wonder if the late Rod Serling wasn't somehow scripting, from across the pale, recent Middle East events. From the moronic to the tragic, it seemed as if the Middle East consisted of disconnected alternate universes.
It began with two mass demonstrations, one Arab and one Israeli, on Saturday, May 15th. The Arab demonstration commemorated the secular date of Israeli Independence, or what they call the Naqba, the Catastrophe. The Israeli demonstration was a mass demonstration calling for a withdrawal from Gaza. All well and good. One certainly expects the Arabs to consider Israeli Independence Day a catastrophe, and one certainly expects the Left, which only opposes ethnic cleansings that do not uproot Jews, to call for the removal of Jews from Gaza.
But it was the speeches at those rallies that give pause. The Israeli Right and the Israeli Left see things differently - this is a given. But when you listen - first to the Arabs and then to the Israelis - you've got to wonder in what universe the Israeli Left exists.
First, the Arab speeches. Quoting from the Koran, Arafat told the demonstrators to "find what strength you have to terrorize your enemy and the enemy of God." I think we can guess which enemy Arafat is referring to. Hint: It isn't France or Germany. Arafat then went on to say, "The right of the Palestinians to return to their homes is a sacred and inalienable right..." Use of the word "sacred" is a giveaway that an Arab, not an Israeli Leftist, is speaking. Arafat continued, "This right is heroically defended by the Palestinian people in the face of the Israeli occupation and colonization?" We also know who are the martyrs who heroically defend that right - the suicide bombers and other assorted murderers. Arafat also declared that the occupation of the Palestinian land is doomed to failure and accused Israel of wagging a war of genocide against the Palestinians. He said the Palestinian struggle would continue until the liberation of Jerusalem. Demonstrators shouted, "We say 'no' to all plans that deny the right of return."
Ooh! Ah! The Arabs will not relinquish the right of return, nor will they accept Israeli presence in any land they consider Palestinian. They will continue the struggle until they have liberated all that land, including Jerusalem. Now this is bad news for Israel, and particularly the Israeli Left because it is their homes, the homes built in the pre-67 borders (not those of the settlers), that are built on former Arab villages.
And the Israeli Left, ever aware of the threat they face, rose to the occasion in their "Let's Kick Those Horrible Jew Settlers Out of Gaza" demonstration. Here then are the Israeli speeches. Shimon Peres said, "We must not support a puppet government that follows the delusional ideas of the Right." Got that? The Israeli Right, not Shimon Peres, not Yossi Beilin, not the Israeli Left, is delusional. Referring to the voters in the Likud referendum that overwhelmingly defeated Sharon's proposed Gaza retreat, Peres said, that they are "blocking what 80% of the Israelis want - peace and negotiations with the Palestinians" He continued, "We will not allow that 1% to send us back to war." Apparently, Peres wrote his speech before Arafat delivered his. But he is to be commended for his acute sensitivity in spotting delusion when it rears its ugly head.
Peace Now head, Tzali Reshef, also spoke, "Down with the rule of the settlers! We will not continue to sacrifice our sons for the sake of the settlers." This, or course, comes immediately on the heels of the death of 11 Israeli soldiers in Gaza. But Reshef either errs or lies when he suggests that "our sons" are being sacrificed for the settlers. The Philadelphia corridor, through which weapons are continually smuggled from Egypt to Gaza and where our soldiers died, would need to be patrolled even if not a single Jew lived in Gaza. In fact, the only truly pointless sacrifices of "our sons" were the offerings to the Molech of Oslo which Reshef so piously worships, an idol worship to which over 1000 murdered Israelis have been offered against their will. But you cannot let facts get in the way when you play the crowd. Reshef continued, "for the termination of the occupation, there is a Palestinian partner." You gotta wonder - when the Left talks to the Arabs, do they really share their thoughts? To paraphrase Woody Allen, "Sorry, Shimon and Tzali, but I've got to get back to planet Earth, now."
Just the other day, there was the tragic death of eight Arabs, mostly children, from Israeli fire directed at a derelict building in Gaza. Luckily for the Arabs, the news cameras were there. Israel apologized, of course, but no matter. The cameras once again proved that Israel is ever the blood-thirsty murderer it has always been, especially when it comes to Arab children. Since the initial coverage, additional news seems to have trickled out, most of it either ignored or presented in such a way that it does not detract from the image of Israel as child killers. The news was that these children were part of a demonstration in an area under Israeli attack. And the area was rigged with bombs, one of which apparently went off when hit by the Israeli fire. Oh! I get it! These kids were demonstrating in the equivalent of a mine field, while coincidentally the cameras were rolling. It should be noted that no ranting, raving lunatic Muslim clerics extolled the fact that these children now merited 72 virgins each. Apparently, they only mention the sex-after-death benefit when they send their children to murder Israelis, not when they send them to die before the cameras.
Am I being unfair by suggesting that the Palestinian Authority sent them to die? Perhaps. But how do you explain that when Israel offered to airlift the victims to Israeli hospitals for the best medical care in the Middle East, the Palestinian Authority turned them down? I just cannot shake the feeling that to the Palestinian Authority, they were worth more dead than alive. Cynical? You bet! But I do know that the Arab boy shot in front of the news cameras while he was in his father's arms, at the beginning of the Oslo war, was shot by the Arabs, not the Israelis, and that the Arabs knew darn well when they shot him the damage his death would cause Israel. One dead Arab child in return for all the righteous indignation against Israel - a more than fair trade. And I do know that when Iran suffered a horrendous earthquake, the enlightened mullahs decided to accept all help from all nations except the Zionist entity. Imagine turning down help for your earthquake victims or your injured children because it is being offered by Israel.
Say what you want, the Palestinians (and apparently a great part of the Muslim world), and the Israeli Left are so warped that they are clearly living in some alternate reality. What is simply amazing is that the co-inhabitants of this alternate reality are such poles apart from each other. This alternate reality must really be enormous.
Views expressed by the author do not
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