Posted on 02/04/2003 4:28:29 AM PST by SJackson
 How does the value of an Israeli life become so cheap that we Jews accept the idea that we have to sacrifice hundreds of lives on a yearly basis in order to exist in the state of Israel?
Not many years ago, when one Israeli life was innocently lost, Israelis were shocked and there was a sudden hush in the atmosphere and wonderment in our voices. Why is it that now we think of it as an unavoidable sacrifice, as if there are certain questions for which there are just no answers?
Why was the loss of an Israeli life so inconceivable before and so acceptable now? The answer is that we are living through another version of the same mentality that accepted the idea that a Jew couldn’t help dying in the Holocaust. The idea that a tiny minority of Jews should fight an army of Nazis was so inconceivable that it was unthinkable. It was as if we were assigned to death by the will of G-d for reasons only G-d knew.
When we Jews came to Israel we created this nation with a blazing new mentality. We were offended by our own history of timidity and helplessness. We were full of contempt for the world and an even greater contempt for our own character as inevitable victims, which is why we were able to win the war of Independence against all the Arab armies with practically nothing but willpower and fearlessness.
We acquired not only a new country but also a new mentality and a new confidence in our destiny. Since the Arabs could not tolerate the presence of Jews in their neighborhood, they tried to destroy us whenever they could put an army together. Every time they lost a war they couldn’t understand it — and they couldn’t believe that they wouldn’t win the next war.
Like the Americans in Vietnam and the Russians in Afghanistan, the Arabs possessed such a huge advantage of resources, population and power that they couldn’t accept the experience of defeat by the tiny state of Israel. As we were winning more and more victories we were paying a bigger price and getting more and more tired of victories in the battlefield at the cost of losing so many of our young Israeli lives. We became so weary and fearful of the next possible war, we blinded ourselves into believing all the fraudulent gestures of the Arabs about making peace.
We never realized the extent of our self-delusion until Prime Minister Barak offered the Arabs 98% of what they demanded and was answered with an avalanche of suicide bombers taking more Israeli lives than ever before. Since then we have become involved in futile efforts to solve the problem by retaliating more decisively than ever before — which has served as a great release from our frustrations but has always left us helpless from the next attack from more suicide bombers.
Somehow we have become helpless in the face of death, as if there were no possible solution to this problem. For the first time in 50 years we have again become a lost, confused, helpless and paralyzed people. Somehow we have resigned ourselves to suffer the constant killing of our people, like another but slower Holocaust.
We have paralyzed ourselves by our sickening fear of “World Opinion,” which is why we find it impossible to face one simple fact: We will never win this war unless we immediately threaten to drive every Arab out of Israel if the killing doesn’t stop.
It is no accident that the Arabs are not concerned with public opinion as they kill our people — while we are terrified of public opinion should we dismiss them from our country. Somehow, we have become intimidated into believing that we are obligated to give them a place to live, and that we have no right to throw them out just because they are killing our people.
It is about time we realized that “public opinion” is nothing but publicly expressed anti-Semitism, and that appeasing public opinion makes as much sense as Chamberlain’s appeasement of Hitler.
Jews dying in Israel disturbs world opinion as much as watching your neighbor killing a cockroach disturbs you — even if it doesn’t fill you with pleasure, you certainly don’t feel remorse about it. That is why when suicide bombers kill hundreds of Jews not a word of protest is ever heard, but when we try to defend ourselves by retaliating against our killers the U.N. immediately is called in an emergency session to protect our assassins.
We are brain-dead if we accept the idea that we have to guess which Arab is our next killer. We are not obligated to victimize ourselves by letting the Arabs play Russian roulette with Jewish lives. Israelis are constantly asked the same obnoxious question: “How can you throw the Arabs out — where would they go?” The answer is, if they don’t care whom they kill, why are we obligated to care where they go?
If a gang of killers lived across the street, would you allow them to keep throwing bombs through your window until you found them another apartment? Are we morally obligated to become a real estate agent for every Arab suicide bomber?
We are not obligated to accept a new, slower Holocaust as the inevitable fate of our people. The Jordanians did not take a poll of world opinion, and neither did the Kuwaitis, before they routed the Palestinians out of their countries.
America did not wait for public opinion to take whatever action was necessary to protect itself, and there is no reason why Jews should be afraid to do whatever is necessary to protect the state of Israel. ◙
Jackie Mason is the world-renowned comedic genius. Raoul Felder is a prominent Manhattan attorney.
The Palestinians are fortunate they are dealing with one of the only groups in the world that will not engage in wholesale genocide.
The third alternative would be successful in the short run, very problematic in the long run. The first alternative is simply impossible given what we know now about the Arabs, Palestinians and Moslems. That leaves the second 'Fortress Israel' alternative: chuck the brutes out and build a secure border. Not very pretty choices, but I think Israel is going to have to do some ethnic cleansing.
The expulsion by Croats of Serbs from the Krajina springs to mind. Those were several hundred thousand, and it was less than ten years ago.
Of course as we all know, the EU, the United States, and the rest of the world immediately cut off all trade with Croatia afterward. The country became a pariah state and collapsed in due course. Many hundreds of their civilian and military leaders were placed on trial in The Hague, most trials have already ended in life sentences. The expelled Serbs, of course, are all back in their former homes. Zagreb has been renamed Milograde. The name Croatia is now but a memory.
The next terrorist attack leads to mass expulsion of non-citizens from Arab or terrorist supporting states, and no further immigration from those areas.
Heck, we should be doing that anyway, we've already been attacked.
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#42 Caton 2/3/2003 06:00PM PST
Much to my principle of not speaking ill of a dead
Ah, you have no idea how fondly I remember Lebanon... How fondly I remember those Maronite men --and women!-- that helped me hunt PLO hideouts... you know, those with kids and women hiding behind 'em a 'sniper' that missed me when I was less than 5 meters away, killing instead those same women he was hiding behind... I remember how beautiful Lebanon was, how even those Christian villages that had been destroyed by the PLO had kept in the middle of the ruins some inkling of beauty, some traces of civilization. And those Christians did not want revenge, no, they just wanted to rebuild their churches and their houses, and live peacefully again with their Muslim neighbors. Now most of the surviving Christians have left, to France, Canada, the U.S. or the U.K., chased away by those same neighbors they wanted to live with. Oh, there still are some Christians in Lebanon, that are forbidden to leave and reduced to Dhimmitude... Zia, if you read this, yeah, it's your parents I'm thinking about. Thank G-d we could get your sister out! But we'll try again, I promise. I remember Beirut inhabitants inviting us for lunch, dinner, whatever, bringing us food and sweets and drinks, thankful that we came to protect them from PLO thugs... I remember the bittersweet joy of our allies when Arafat left, how happy they were of getting rid of them all, but how they also asked us why we didn't kill him... I remember the horror in the eyes of those same Maronites after Sabra and Chatila, how they couldn't believe some Christian could be driven mad by his personal losses. No wonder he's now allied with the Syrians... And the way in which we all tried to help out the survivors, and how they spit on our help. I have this memory of a Maronite woman literally covered in spit still trying to bring water and food... Now Israel left Lebanon, and left behind those same people, to be tortured, killed, raped in the Muslim way. I am ashamed of how we turned our back to our allies. Today when I see my Lebanese friends, I feel like I should apoligize. Look, I'm sorry -- I did my best. I was betrayed, too. Oh of course, M. Jew Hater, you don't have any such memories. You have no idea of what are the horrors of war, and you've never, ever been to Lebanon. You just parrot whatever propaganda was spoon-fed to you. I swear Lebanon will be free again, whatever it takes. Then you will be able to visit -- but don't try spewing your hate speech there. Maronites are good people, loving people, but sometimes short of patience. Ah, what the hell... I'm losing my time and feeding a troll. |
Yeah I'm sure that would have worked for England 225 years ago.
I supported the Serbs and didn't want us (Clinton/NATO/EU) to bomb them. Plus I knew, and posted here at the time, that Israel was next on NATO's hit list.
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