Wednesday, May 3, 2017

Are we obsessing too much over Palestinian terror?

Sar Shalom

No, I'm not suggesting that we should in any way accept the terror or turn the other cheek as it happens, or as Abbas disburses Euro-American money to its perpetrators. To get at what I'm asking, consider three scenarios:
  1. A bank executive embezzles money to support a local soup kitchen.
  2. A bank executive embezzles money to endow a local chapter of the Aryan Nation.
  3. A bank executive donates from his salary to endow a local chapter of the Aryan Nation.
We should all agree that all three of those are reprehensible or nefarious. However, they are nefarious in different ways. Case 1 involves noble ends pursued by nefarious means. Case 3 involves fully innocent means for a nefarious end. In both cases, it is clear what the public response should be. In the former case, the executive should be censured for his means, and in the latter case for the cause he supports. However, Case 2 presents nefarious means being used for nefarious ends. This presents a challenge in responding because focusing too much on the means allows a perception that the cause might have been acceptable, while focusing too much on the ends allows a perception that the means were not too bad.

Such is the case with the PA. In today's links at Elder of Ziyon, there are 3 articles dealing with reactions to the PA's war against Israel, all dealing with the PA's support for terror. It is true that the terrorism emanating from Palestinian society, with full support from the PA, is nefarious. However, calling attention exclusively to their reliance on terror would be like censuring the executive in Case 2 for the embezzlement in a way that suggests that if he supported the Aryan Nation with his own money that there would have been no problem. In the case of the Palestinians' war against Israel, focusing on terror exclusively suggests that if their objectives were pursued peacefully, such as through BDS, that it would be totally acceptable.

What we need to highlight is, contrary to the PA's useful idiots' belief that the PA's [objective is] to build a free society for the Palestinian people, their goal is to end Jewish self-determination in the Middle East. The reality is that the illegitimacy of the PA's means is deeply connected to the illegitimacy of their ends. If they truly desired nothing more than freedom for their people, Israel would vote for a government that would give it to them. However, Israelis are no longer fooled by Abbas' forked tongue and thus will not willingly cede a more favorable ground from which to pursue an end of Israel, hence the reliance on terror to impose costs for not doing so. One person who does get the significance of the PA's aims is Moshe Sharon. Instead of asking for a demand that Abbas stop paying the terrorists, Sharon asks Trump to tell Abbas to “ 'Go back to Ramallah, stand up in public and give a speech saying the Palestinian people recognize Israel as a Jewish state.' In Arabic.”

Instead of issuing threats over the PA's support for terror and ignoring the denial of the right of the Jews to self-determination, we should issue threats over the PA's denial of the Jews' right to self-determination and complain about their support for terror.

UPDATE: Missing words were added, indicated by brackets.

14 comments:

  1. I agree with this 100%. The diplomatese coming today from the White House is unhelpful. It is said you cannot turn the clock back, but we must. The crux of this war is the Arab rejection of a Jewish state whose existence is supported by the law of nations. This should be "settled science" by now, but so many are misinformed by so many others who are simply lying. We must speak the truth.

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  2. "we are raising our youth, our children, our grandchildren on a culture of peace.” Abbas at the White House today. If the genocidal bastard can lie directly in the face of the leader of the free world what ultimate thing can we expect? The same old same old of course.

    There will never be peace with Palestine until Israel forces it. Continuing to cede any moral authority to someone like Abbas only delays peace.

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  3. Young people and immature older people love a little occasional discord and strife as Orwell pointed out. " “Mr. Hitler has grasped the falsity of the hedonistic attitude to life. Nearly all western thought since the last war, certainly all ‘progressive’ thought, has assumed tacitly that human beings desire nothing beyond ease, security and avoidance of pain. Hitler knows… that human beings don’t only want comfort, safety, short working-hours, hygiene, birth-control and, in general, common sense; they also, at least intermittently, want struggle and self-sacrifice"

    Thus we have SJW's, ISIS, Palestinian Intifadas etc and common goals and aspirations and respect among their groupings. This will continue until they get their asses so beat they PREFER the quite peaceful life; something capitulating will never achieve. They can't be allowed even an ounce of moral authority or they will continue to thrive.

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  4. The Arabs staked out a policy of outwaiting us. They figure if it takes a hundred years it's worth it. Well ok then. Starve slowly and die miserable. Kiss noise.

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    1. They're strategy also involves getting the international community to compel Israel to create conditions that are more favorable for them to impose what they really want. For instance, rockets and mortars from Gaza are nowhere near the threat that rockets and mortars from Budrus would be. However, now they cannot deliver rockets and mortars to Budrus because Israel controls every route they might use to deliver such materiel. They present to the international community that giving control of such routes to them is a matter of "justice." There are too many useful idiots who agree to that concept of "justice," and simply don't care that that would mean that the Palestinians would then be able to deliver whatever rockets and mortars they want to Budrus and thus decide whether or not Ben Gurion Airport is allowed to operate.

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    2. If it's a war they think they can win, have at it. Eventually the gloves will come off. Attack the airport watch every grocery store in Ramallah burn. Attack the power plants and sit in the dark for the next 8 years. Fire 10,000 missiles from Gaza and Lebanon watch 80% of the housing stick disappear. The problem the Israelis have faced is that they don't understand the strategic application of 'proportionate' force.

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  5. Wednesday, the Palestinian flag flew at the White House. F**K that! Methinks I'm souring on Trump just like on all the rest. And I had such high hopes. Silly me.

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    1. I believe that's protocol. But I am disgusted with continuing charade. It's been going for almost 100 years.

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    2. My concern is that Trump will drag Israel into yet another counterproductive "peace process" that will see a shitload of people dead and the promotion of yet more hatred toward Jews with the means of self-defense.

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    3. Yes Mike. He took the bait. Then again, they all do.

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    4. The problem is that he lacks a narrative, the opposite of the problem with Obama. Obama had a narrative that everything revolved around the settlements and that made him impervious to evidence that evacuating the settlements would only provide the Palestinian crusaders with more strategic high ground. Trump's lack of a narrative makes him susceptible to Abbas' forked tongue.

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    5. Trump also said that a resolution is between the parties, that it cannot be imposed from outside. Obama worked to impose a solution. There is a difference. I started reading an ignorant diatribe today at Tablet who wants Israel to retreat to being the "1967 armistice lines." Why doesn't Tablet just hire Arabs to write this stuff? Why do I need to read Arab propaganda coming from the mouths of Jews?

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    6. BTW, Mike, I agree that more "peace processing" in not in order. I think you already know that.

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    7. "Peace Process" started when Shimon Peres discovered that Israel doesn't need any actual territory. It could just be a Facebook page. Land is so passé.

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