Hat tip to Stand With Us
Khaled abu Toameh is an Israeli Arab Palestinian who writes for the Hudson Instititute. He is pro-Israel, and, thus, is called a traitor by many of his own people. In the below article he describes the jubilation that occurred in much of the Arab world over the recent fires in Israel, which claimed some 40 lives.
http://www.hudson-ny.org/1715/palestinians-peace
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From the article, "The overwhelming majority of talkbacks that appeared on the Web sites of these three powerful media organizations in the past few days showed how many Arabs and Muslim continue to dream about the destruction of Israel."
Many people don't realize that in the 1400 year history of the Muslim Jewish relationship, it is hard to find an episode that centers on territory. It is Judaism existing and offending Muslim conceits. They tolerate Jews when they are poor, weak, and defenseless but with he vibrancy and economic success in the center of Islam, they are filled with rage and jealousy.
Most of the Palestinian refugees originally migrated to Israel from neighboring Arab countries to profit from the regional economic boom created by the well-educated European Jews who arrived in the early 20th century. Their ties to the land are that shallow.
The Muslim hateful pathology of 14 centuries described in this article fuels the conflict.
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Although these murderous voices are loud and intemperate, it seems they do not speak for "the Arab world," since the Palestinian Authority, and the governments of Egypt and Jordan, DID send firefighting teams to help Israel. The fact that there ARE Arabs denounced as "traitors" for providing this aid is a rather hopeful sign. The author of the linked piece is an idiot if he finds it strange that the Saudi royal family would countenance viciously anti-Jewish rhetoric. They were indulging in same long before Hamas or al Qaeda were twinkles in some mullah's eye.
I suspect that if a fire of similar proportions had raged in the Soviet Union thirty years ago, plenty of American voices would have been loudly praising God for this divine punishment of godless communism. Of course the State Department wouldn't have been talking like that.
Bottom line though, when two antagonists have found cause to kill each other, individually or en masse, for fifty years plus, with or without good cause, on either or both sides, peace is not achieved by expecting everyone to hold hands and sing Kumbaya together. Nor is it achieved when both sides become instantaneously virtuous, or find long-awaited virtue in each other.
Peace is generally achieved by leaders on both sides recognizing, "Oh hell, we can't make them disappear, they can't make us disappear, let's split the difference and get on with our lives." That's all anyone should look for as prerequisite to peace negotiations.
Findalis, you have your lucid moments, but this is downright wierd:
"they not only do speak for the Muslim world (Not just the Arab world.)."
You have written in such haste that you have tripped over your own words. Who are you to speak for "the Muslim world"? Just exactly who are "they" and what credentials to "they" have to "speak for" the "Muslim world" - as if that is any more homogenous than "the Christian world."
Incidentally, although I was not raised in a Jewish synagogue, nor is my ancestry uniformly Jewish (particularly not my mother), anyone with a disposition to kill all the Jews would undoubtedly include me, my Welsh, Dutch, English, Scottish, Cherokee, and probable African ancestry nothwithstanding.
You are indulging in two parallel courses of circular logic. First, because you pronounce someone to be a spokesperson for "the Muslim world," therefore "the Muslim world" indeed endorses what these spokespersons say, because you have annointed them as spokespersons for "the Muslim world."
Second, because YOU find it convenient to consider Muslims a homogenous band of people united by Groupthink, therefore they are, therefore any Muslim you can quote saying horrendous things represents the thinking of all Muslims. I am acquainted with a few Muslims in Milwaukee, including the owner of my favorite middle eastern restaurant, and I have sat at lunch after my niece's graduation with a Muslim family (none of whom were wearing a hijab, much less a chador). How many individual Muslims do you know personally?
Miggie, you too are writing fiction to supply yourself with a convenient historical chronology to reinforce your own prejudices.
Jews were honored as allies and valuable subjects by several caliphates, because they cheerfully cooperated with Muslim invasions of Christian territory where Jews had been brutally suppressed (Muslim conquest of Jerusalem reopened the city to Jews, for example), and as scholars who contributed to the flower of science and philosophy. Medieval Muslim hostility to Jews centered primarily among the Fatamid (Shia) caliphs and the Almohades, both of whom developed mystical reasons, not economic ones, for hostility to Jews. That didn't stop Jews having an honored status in the Ottoman empire later on.
For economic resentment against Jews, look to the history of European Christianity, not the Caliphates.
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