Corrupt Saudi Monarchy plans to weaken, conquer Israel

The articles below show how the real plan of the Saudis with Israel. Saudi Arabia is the birth place of Islam, Satan's main strategic tool against the God of Israel -- to rob him of the High Place** from where he wants to rule the world, and his land, promised to the Jews.
Zionsake Editor
** See http://high-places-israel.tripod.com
----- Original Message -----
From: "Editor Zionsake" <editor@zionsake.zzn.com>
To: "President" <President@whitehouse.gov>
Sent: Wednesday, February 27, 2002 8:37 PM
Subject: Saudi pressed US to block Israel from satellite data

Saudi-conspiracy

Dear Mr. President

Judging from the attitude of the Saudi government (below) to press the US to block Israel from satellite data, they have no intention whatsoever to normalize their relationship with Israel. Prince Abdullah is therefore only speaking for himself. Following up on his proposal represents "GRASPING at STRAWS!"

The God of Israel will anyway get his way to settle his Jews on the mountains of Israel (Yesha):
"And I will make them one nation in the Land upon the mountains of Israel..." Ezekiel 37:22

Respectfully
Evn Perach
Jerusalem
-----------------------------------------------------------
From: Middle East Newsline

Saudi Arabia has pressed the United States to block Israeli requests for data from the Pentagon's spy satellites.

U.S. defense sources said Riyad has urged the Bush administration to reject Israel's attempt to obtain a link from U.S. spy satellites. The link seeks to provide the Jewish state with real-time information on any Iraqi missile launches.

Saudi officials have privately assured Arab allies that the administration has agreed to the Saudi request. But the U.S. sources said they could not confirm this.

The Israeli request sought to link its Arrow-2 missile defense system to U.S. spy satellites. The goal was to provide Israel with instant alert of an Iraqi missile attack amid Washington's preparations to topple the regime of President Saddam Hussein.
Middle East Newsline. For a subscription to the full service, please contact Middle East Newsline at: editor@menewsline.com

Michael Widlanski: EDITORIAL OPINION - Saudi Plan - MIDDLE EAST MASQUERADE
Wednesday, February 27, 2002

Camouflage and deception are a strong tradition in the Middle East, and the latest to masquerade as peace-makers are none other than the corrupt Saudi Arabian monarchy.

The latest Saudi effusion does not come from the ground in the form of petroleum, but it is nonetheless crude.

It comes out of the mouth of Prince Abdullah-the man who is the real king of Saudi Arabia, although his half-brother King Fahd is the medically-maintained monarch, clinging to life.

But the tenuous health of Fahd is a good metaphor for the tenuous life expectancy of the entire Saudi royal family with its 5,000-odd princelings, each housed in sumptuous palaces dotting the desert .

The lavish lifestyle of today's Saudi princes is a mockery of the stoic desert ethic and devout Islamic practices preached by the House of Saud and its Wahabi allies who overthrow the previous Hashemite monarchy (which still rules Jordan) in the 1920's.

And it is this same personally corrupt lifestyle-which includes systematic bribery and debauchery-which has so alienated many Arabs inside the Arabian Peninsula and turned them into the soldiers of Osama Bin-Laden fighting against what they see as the "American-supported" Saudi regime .

It is the same hostility to the Saudi royal family that lies behind many of the attacks over the last decade inside the U.S., Saudi Arabia and Yemen-against American and Saudi targets, including the Saudi-"protected" shrine at Mecca. Other targets have included Khobar Towers, American military barracks, the USS Cole, and the World Trade Center (1993).

Many other attacks have been covered up, some with the help of American officials who would like to believe that the Saudi regime helps American interests.

Saudi Prince Abdullah has now authored what has been labeled "an unprecedented Saudi peace plan."

But there are several things wrong with this description:
*--The plan's not new;
*--The plan's certainly not unprecedented;
*--The plan's clearly not Saudi;
*--And the plan's not designed to bring Middle Eastern peace.

In fact, "the plan" is not really a plan at all but a blueprint of total Israeli concessions and vague Arab promises about "normalization" that may follow.

The Saudis themselves offered the same "plan," then called the "Fez Summit Peace Plan" of 1981-82, which was presented at several Arab summits.

King Fahd presented his plan on August 7, 1981, and he re-presented it at the Arab Summit, which basically adopted it on November 25, 1981. And it was again re-adopted at another Arab Summit in Fez Morocco on September 9, 1982. Tom Friedman of The New York Times was in Lebanon at the time, and that might be the reason he does not remember these facts when he presents NYT readers with the "new" Saudi ideas.

But as someone who knows about the differences between lotuses and olive trees, Mr. Friedman ought to have no problems finding the relevant facts on the internet by searching for "Fez" and "Summit" and "plan" or "Fahd" and "plan." Or he could visit the following site: http://www.kingfahdbinabdulaziz.com

(I promise that there really is such a site. - MW)

In fact, the ideas promoted by Friedman are a re-dressing of the Arab position put forward first by Habib Bourgiba of Tunisia, and they were later adopted by other Arab rulers, including Yasser Arafat.

These ideas include total Israeli withdrawal from all territory conquered from attacking Arab armies in 1967, as well as the establishment of an independent Palestinian state under the leadership of the PLO.

These same ideas were championed by Henry Siegman in 1989 and 1990, when Siegman, now a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, was a leader of the American Jewish Congress that heavily funded an Israeli study (the Jaffee Center at Tel Aviv University ) supporting a Palestinian state.

More than a decade later Henry Siegman, writing in The New York Times, is again promoting the same old stuff. And Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres has welcomed the Saudi initiative.

QUESTION: What do Tom Friedman, Henry Siegman and Shimon Peres share with Prince Abdullah and the corrupt Saudi regime?

ANSWER: They have been recently and totally discredited, and they seek some form of rehabilitation.

The Peres-brokered Olso Accords with Yasser Arafat's Palestinian Authority have proven to be an unmitigated disaster.

The "right-wing troglodytes" who said Arafat was a liar and a terrorist were proven right---that is, correct, historically correct and strategically correct, if not "politically correct."

The idea of a Palestinian state-"with a strong Palestinian police force"-- promoted by Peres, Siegman and Friedman has been shown to be a mortal danger to the State of Israel.

As for Prince Abdullah and his graft-ridden family, they have been shown to have coddled the worst terrorists, consorted with them and covered up for them.

There is also plenty of evidence that the Saudis supplied the money for many of the weapons used by Palestinian terrorists against Israel in recent months, in contravention of all Palestinian-Israeli accords. And this includes purchasing the weapons for the "Karine A" arms ship intercepted on the high seas by Israel.

Journalists often look for "news hooks" on which to hang a story.

It's also clear that Friedman, Siegman, Peres and Abdullah want to "get off the hook."

But that's no reason for Israel to let itself get hooked.

© 2002 Michael Widlanski, senior analyst at The Media Line, is a lecturer at The Hebrew University's Rothberg School and a former reporter for The Cox Newspapers and The New York Times. Fuller versions of his articles are available at http://www.themedialine.org

(Return to Archaive#ME)



----- Original Message -----
From:
editor@zionsake.zzn.com <editor@zionsake.zzn.com>
To: "zionsake@holyland-inc" <zionsake-at-holyland-inc@topica.com>
Sent: Thursday, March 21, 2002
Subject:

Ishmael is a 'pere adam,' a wild beast of a man

The article below also refers to the fact emphasized in http://holyland-israel.tripod.com/Hagar-Ishmael.html (another site sponsored by Holy Land Inc.), that Ishmael will be a wild beast of a man, which will cause him to be in constant conflict with his brothers (Shem and Japhet). What is highlighted is the fact that this wildness is actually a curse on Ishmael. That might be why most Christian Arabs remain strongly pro-Palestinian and anti-Semitic. But then, they are mostly traditional Christians belonging to Mary worshiping churches or churches embracing "Replacement Theology" and don't have input from the Holy Spirit of the God of Israel Who reveals His heart about His land Israel and His Jews to believers as it is described in the Bible. Zionsake Editor

Arutz Sheva's Ask The Rabbi
Arutz-7 Israel National Radio <http://www.IsraelNationalNews.com>
6 Nissan, 5762 - March 19, 2002
by Rabbi David Samson. Edited by Tzvi Fishman

To Our Readers:
Arutz-7 is proud to inaugurate a new weekly feature:  Ask the Rabbi.
  Readers are invited to submit questions on Jewish values, law, and
topical issues to Rabbi David Samson at <DearRabbi@IsraelNN.com>.  Please indicate if you wish your name and email address to be withheld.) Ask the Rabbi will be posted every Wednesday at <http://www.IsraelNationalNews.com>.

This week's inaugural column follows:
**THE DANGER OF LIVING IN ISRAEL

QUESTION: Several times during the year, I am invited to speak to groups of yeshiva students from the Diaspora studying in Israel. One of the questions that I am frequently asked is "Is it a mitzvah to live in Israel in a time of danger?" Sometimes, the question takes different forms.  "Is it permissible to live in settlements in Israel where there is a clear danger, for example, Hevron?"  Or, "Is it permissible for my parents to visit me in Israel during the Intifada?"

ANSWER: Before we can give an answer, we have to understand the principle halakhot (Jewish laws) that stand behind these questions.

First, is a Jew allowed to place himself into a dangerous situation in order to do a mitzvah [religious commandment]? Second, is it a mitzvah to live in Israel? Third, what is considered a danger?

In the upcoming weeks, we will be addressing these questions in depth. As an introduction, a story told about the Chofetz Chaim can serve as a background for our halakhic investigation.

The Chofetz Chaim, Rabbi Yisrael Meir HaCohen from Radin, was certainly one of the greatest Torah scholars of modern times. His unparalleled halakhic work, the Mishna Berura, is the definitive compendium of Jewish law. In addition, his writings on good deeds and kindness, Ahavat Chesed, and his treatises on the evils of lashon hara [slander and gossip], the "Chofetz Chaim" and Shmirat HaLashon, show his great piety and saintliness. He is known never to have spoken unfairly about anyone.

The following story is brought down by the revered Rabbi Dichovsky, of blessed memory, in his book, Neot Desha, on concluding a tractate of Talmud. In the introduction, he recounts his visit to the Chofetz Chaim in order to ask him this very same question about moving to Israel at a time of clear and present danger.

We quote: "I saw it proper to record a statement made to me by the most pious of all of the kohanim, the Rabbi of all Israel, the glory of the generation, the holy of all Israel, may he be blessed in memory, in the matter of Aliyah [immigration to Israel].

I asked him about this question, and the following are the details of our encounter. "It was the beginning of the year 1933. There was a group of Torah scholars who had organized themselves to go together to Israel to learn Torah. I too was amongst them, but I had many doubts, because I knew that many of the great gedolim [Torah scholars] of Israel were opposed. The heads of my yeshiva were especially opposed to the idea that yeshiva students would go to Eretz Yisrael, even for the sake of studying Torah. They said that the proper conditions had not as yet been established in order to facilitate Torah study with the proper diligence in the Holy Land, to the same extent that we are able to study Torah in the yeshivot in the Diaspora.

Therefore, I said in my heart, I must not ask my rabbis in this matter, for obviously the answer will be no. "Like Rabbi Zera, who [asked and then] ran away from his teacher, Rav Yehuda, when he wanted to make Aliyah to Israel (Tractate Ketubot, 110B), I decided to go and ask the counsel of the righteous man of our generation, our revered rabbi, and to receive his blessing before I departed. Therefore, just before the Day of Atonement, I journeyed to the yeshiva of the Chofetz Chaim in the town of Radin, where I stayed in the shadow of this great, righteous individual.

This was, as is known, the last Yom Kippur of this special tzaddik, for at the end of the year, in the month of Elul, he was taken to the yeshiva Above, may his merit be a shield to us and all Israel. "In spite of his great physical weakness, Heavenly Providence was with me, and I merited to see him the day after Yom Kippur. I told him my situation, and that I had a good chance of making Aliyah to Israel as a Torah student, but that I had lingering doubts if I would be able to learn Torah with the same diligence with which I was learning now. Immediately, he answered, in his famous sweetness of speech, that there was no room at all for my wariness. Why in the world would I not be able to learn Torah there with absolute diligence - just the opposite would seem to be true, for the Land of Israel, without question, was more conducive for steadfast immersion in Torah. He recited the verse,
'The gold of the Land is good,' (Bereshit 2:12) on which the Midrash says, 'These (the gold of the Land is good) are the words of Torah, for there is no Torah like the Torah of Eretz Yisrael; and there is no wisdom like the wisdom of Eretz Yisrael.' (Bereshit Raba, 16:7)

"Before I could express the rest of the doubts that I harbored - especially the fear of the danger in Israel because of the children of Ishmael who were marauding violently against the Jews, for only a few years had passed since the end of the Hebron Massacre in the year 1929, which made clear to everyone the wild, bestial nature of the Ishmaelites, who with savagery and unbounded cruelty massacred Yeshiva students and showed no mercy even to the women and children - before I was able to confess all of my apprehensions, the Rabbi answered the question himself. "In the following words of Torah, he said: 'The holy Torah tells us regarding Ishmael that he is a 'pere adam,' a wild beast of a man.

It is known that our Torah is eternal, and if it says about Ishmael that he is a wild beast of a man, then Ishmael will remain forever a wild beast of a man. Even if all of the cultured nations of the world will gather together and try to educate Ishmael and transform him into a cultured individual, so that he will no longer be a wild beast of a man, obviously this will be impossible in every fashion or form. They will not be able to do this through any means whatsoever, because he is not capable of being a cultured individual, for behold, the Torah testified regarding him that he is a wild beast of a man. This means that forever, for all eternity, Ishmael is by definition a wild beast of a man. Even if Ishmael will be involved in intellectual endeavor, like being a lawyer, or some similar profession, then he will be a beastly lawyer. If he will study diligently to be a professor, then he will be a beastly professor. This means that the bestiality of Ishmael will never cease.'

"Then the Chofetz Chaim let out a long, painful sigh and said, 'Who knows what this wild beast of a man is capable of perpetrating against the Jewish people in the end of days?'

"Concluding his words to me, he said, 'Nevertheless, fear not - there is no reason for this to prevent you from making Aliyah to the Land of Israel.' "Then he blessed me, saying, 'Go in peace, and the L-rd will bless your path.' 

So I left him, and journeyed in peace to the Holy Land."

Rabbi David Samson is one of the leading English-speaking Torah scholars in the Religious-Zionist movement in Israel. He has co-authored four books on the writings of Rabbi Avraham Yitzchak and Rabbi Tzvi Yehuda Kook. Rabbi Samson learned for twelve years under the tutelage of Rabbi Tzvi Yehuda Kook. He served as Rabbi of Kehillat Dati Leumi Synagogue in Har Nof, Jerusalem, and teaches Jewish Studies at Mercaz HaRav Yeshiva Institutions.

Tzvi Fishman was a successful Hollywood screenwriter before making Aliyah to Israel in 1984. He has co-authored several Torah works with Rabbi David Samson and written several books on Jewish/Israel topics. His two most recent books Days of Mashiach and Tuvia In the Promised Land are available on-line at: <http://www.terrorvictims.com/book.htm>

-
Arab, Muslim big talk

Saddam Hussein bites the dust

Saddam Hussein bites the dust

Muslim big talk to protect to their last drop of blood

(Return to Archive#ME)


Among some Arabs, bitterness reigns

Mona Charen
http://jewishworldreview.com/cols/charen.html
April 15, 2003 / 13 Nisan, 5763

Mona Charen

It was almost a disappointment when Iraqi "Information Minister" Mohammed Saeed Al-Sahaf failed to show up for work last week. He, along with the rest of the Saddamite criminal conspiracy that called itself the Ba'ath Party, simply disappeared. In his final performances, Al-Sahaf's daily press briefings were becoming a Babylonian "Saturday Night Live."

"What American troops at the airport?" he scoffed. There are no Americans at the airport. "What American troops in Baghdad?" he demanded, as a tank made its way down the street a hundred yards away.

It seems funny to us, but of course this fantasy world is all too common among Arab countries reluctant to live with hard facts and truth.

Following the crash of an Egyptian airliner in the United States that was caused by the suicide of one its pilots, the Egyptian media concocted a web of fantastic rumors suggesting that everyone from the Mossad to Jackie Mason had downed the plane. That the evidence pointed clearly to the Egyptian pilot was unacceptable.

After the atrocity of 9-11, many Arabs could not handle the reality that the terrorists involved were Arabs. The Arab press rattled with the disgusting rumor that thousands of New York Jews had not shown up for work at the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001.

During the Six Day War in 1967, the Egyptian and Syrian governments put out so much false information about the crushing defeat they were inflicting upon Israel that they found themselves in a very awkward spot when they pleaded with the United Nations to stop the fighting.

Similarly today, many Arabs are responding with disbelief and confusion to pictures of Iraqis gleefully greeting American soldiers and Marines. The BBC reports that in Saudi Arabia (where coverage of the war has, until now, consisted almost exclusively of wounded Iraqi civilians), some do not believe what they've seen on TV. Hakim al-Saghri, project manager at a banking and investment house, said, "I still do not think they (Americans) have the capital." Regarding the toppling of Saddam's statue, al-Saghri said: "I think it's all made up. ... I know they are not real Iraqis. I think they were brought in from the north to cheer." Ahmed Salem Batmira, an Omani "political analyst" (so The Associated Press labels him), couldn't make sense of the pictures he was seeing. "There must have been treason."

In the Palestinian areas, the mood is not just shocked but mournful. Nael al-Am, a Ramallah grocer, said: "This is a sad day for all the Arabs and Muslims, particularly the Palestinians. ... I invested a lot of money in buying a satellite dish and a new TV set because I wanted to watch the day the battle for Baghdad begins. ... I feel as if a dagger has been stuck in my heart when I see American soldiers strolling in the heart of Baghdad."

And yet the bracing splash of reality was not lost on everyone. Ali Hassan, a government employee in Cairo, told the AP that, "We discovered that all that the Iraqi information minister was saying was all lies." And then he added, "Now no one believes Al-Jazeera anymore."

And speaking of Al-Jazeera, one of its reporters, Dima Khatib, was asked by Larry King if the joyful Iraqi response to American soldiers had surprised her. Her answer: "Yes, I was actually very surprised. ... A lot of my colleagues also were surprised. People are surprised all over the Arab world. Everyone thought the Iraqis were not receiving the Americans and British with smiles and with flowers. Actually, I think the people who were the most surprised are those mothers and wives of men who lost their lives who are from Syria or Lebanon or Egypt or Tunisia or other Arab countries who actually went to Iraq and volunteered to defend the Iraqi people and then, when they saw the reaction of the Iraqi people, they were disappointed in a way because they, well, we thought we sent our men to defend the Iraqi people and look at them -- they are actually very welcoming to the Americans and the Brits."

Those pictures of Iraqis throwing flowers at American and British soldiers will not remake the region overnight. But a giant step has been taken toward peace and freedom.


Comment on JWR contributor Mona Charen's column by clicking here. Purchase her just published book, "Useful Idiots: How Liberals Got It Wrong in the Cold War and Still Blame America First," by clicking here. (Sales help fund JWR.)
Mona Charen Archives

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(Return to Archive Index#Arabs)

A Tunisian Intellectual on:
The Arab Obsession with Vengeance

Special Dispatch - Reform in the Arab and Muslim World
May 4, 2003 No. 499

Lynch crazed Arab showing the blood of a soldier on his hands

In two articles that appeared on the liberal website Elaph(1), Tunisian intellectual Al-'Afif Al-Akhdar analyzed and criticized dominant values in the Arab world. Al-Akhdar, currently residing in Paris, was a regular columnist for the London Arabic-language daily Al-Hayat, but was fired at the instruction of the paper's owner, Saudi Prince Khaled ibn Sultan, for saying during a talk show on Al-Jazeera that Saudi practices such amputating body parts render the regime "barbaric."(2) In the first article, Al-Akhdar sets out the logic and goal of the attack on Baghdad, as "told" by the missiles as they fall on the city; in the second, he looks at deeply rooted thought patterns and values in the Arab world. The following are excerpts from the two articles:

I. 'What Did the Missiles Falling on Baghdad Tell Me?'(3)

"...All the peoples of the world are moving forward along the course of history towards globalization, a society of knowledge, and political modernization - all but you, who race in the opposite direction."

"The Eastern European countries have moved peacefully and with lightning speed from murderous Stalinist totalitarianism to democracy, and from economic backwardness to continuing economic growth that amazed even the most optimistic predictions. As for you, you're moving in rapid steps from backwardness into sub-backwardness, and from poverty into sub-poverty. As population growth and weapons acquisitions increase, economic growth and education decline into degradation. The peoples of mankind are governed by the law of progress, while you are governed by the law of regression."

"You replaced the dictatorship of the Shah for the theocracy of [Ayatolla] Khomeini, from the pores of whose skin the blood was dripping. In Sudan, Hassan Al-Turabi - nicknamed by our media 'the pope of world terror' - turned against Al-Sadeq Al-Mahdi's elected government after he was toppled by free elections, and established on the ruins [of Al-Mahdi's government] a militaristic and bloody Islamic regime, unique of its kind in the annals of this country, that set it back decades in all spheres."

"Febrile and delusional with the solitary, fixed idea of military vengeance for their two centuries of defeat at the hands of the West and Israel, your political and intellectual elites became crippled. [This is] instead of restoring your legitimate rights through negotiation, as is being done by your contemporaries - except for you who are resolved to achieve through terror what others have achieved through diplomacy."

"This insane obsession with vengeance has robbed your minds of the ability to think reasonably. That is why you are incapable of identifying your real problems and defining your political, economic, social, and educational priorities. In contrast to almost all other societies, your societies are... completely closed. We [missiles] are resolved to purge your madness of vindictiveness and [cure] your historical castration complex by lancing your narcissistic, putrid wound..."

"The neutral, and at times even sympathetic, disregard shown by vast sectors of the Baghdad populace and Iraqi intelligentsia - whom Saddam tortured... for 35 years - towards the fall of Baghdad, was an incentive for us [the missiles] to expand our plans to retake [Iraq] and to intervene in the domestic affairs of other Arab capitals as well, since they refuse to open their societies to political and media pluralism and to respect human rights... as long as they consider - like Baghdad did - acquiring WMD so as to ruin their own people, first economically and then politically and militarily. This is what the moronic and despotic Saddam regime did, more than any other regime in the Arab world and the entire world."

'The Missiles Will Force You - as They did Nazi Germany and Militaristic Japan - to Open to Democracy and Moderation'

"We know that your obscurantist religious culture is a terrible obstacle hindering your transition to a society less closed, less oppressive, and less hostile towards the individual, the woman, the non-Muslim, the rational, the modern, and toward life itself. We also know that your political imagination has learned nothing, from the days of Caliph 'Uthman [the third caliph after Prophet Muhammad's death] to the days of Saddam, except for this saying: 'Nothing can remove a caliph except for death or complete heresy' - but not his oppression [of his people]. We, [the missiles] are targeting this obsolete political imagination so as to force it to open to democracy and its helpmeet, moderation. We know that with you, success cannot be guaranteed, but the experience is worth a shot..."

"We would be lying if we told you that we want you to be realistic, rational, open-minded democrats and modernists for love of your beautiful eyes, because on the scale of our values you will always be a mere mustard seed. [No,] we do this for the sake of our strategic interests in the Middle East and in the oil fields, and for the sake of our security - at which you struck [as soon as you realized] you were capable of doing so, with terror and a frantic race to obtain WMD. This is an explosive mixture that we can't let you play with."

"Our decision - that is, bringing you into modernization, against your will and in the service of our interests - suits the interests of important sectors of your enlightened elites and those who listen to them. [These range from] the elites and the people of Iraq to the elite and the people of Iran, who entertain vain hopes of granting civil and human rights to those whom you have deprived of these rights - like the Sunnis in Iran, whom Khomenei considered 'impure' and who are denied all rights, so that even Friday prayer and burial services for their deceased are held in one single mosque in Tehran."

"[Another example is the] Shi'ites of Iraq, outcast although they are the overwhelming majority, and the same discrimination is applied to Shi'ites of Saudi Arabia, whom the jurisprudents of Wahabbi terror call Rawafidha(4) and issue Fatwas prohibiting Sunnis from consuming meat slaughtered by Shi'ites. The same is true also for the non-Muslims whom you have cast into a 'ground-zero' of civil rights. And for women who you degraded to a status half that of men in judicial [affairs] and [in matters of] inheritance, and into nothing at all in matters of civil rights. You even deprived them of the right to drive a car (as in Saudi Arabia) or of the right to a passport without their husbands' permission (as in Jordan and Algiers - although President 'Abd Al-'Aziz Buteflika has formed a committee to prepare a bill on personal status like the law in Tunisia. So, welcome to the club of modernization)."

"Why don't you consider solving your real problems while you squander out of unique stupidity all your material and human resources, thus compounding fourfold this [vicious] circle. Perhaps your fabricated problems have overwhelmed the remnants of your intelligence."

"We have efficiently dealt with a similar crazed obsession with vengeance by means of occupation, in Nazi Germany and in militaristic Japan.  Today, the Germans and Japanese have completely forgotten the idea of wasting their resources for the sake of acquiring conventional and non-conventional weapons. They have learned to allocate their resources wisely so as to modernize their economy, [upgrade] their educational [system], and [improve] their political establishments. Similarly, through bombs, we also dealt with Serbia's madness for ethnic purging and taught it how to play the game of democracy and moderation in statesmanship and how to extradite its Saddam... to the International Criminal Court, to stand trial as a war criminal. And here we are, attempting this same bitter treatment with you, lest perhaps... In any case, this is your last chance, O masters of the missed opportunity..."

II. 'Why Does the Arab Sisyphus Lift the Heavy Rock Only to Drop it on His Own Feet?'(5)

"There are white days and black days in the history of people. Their white days are those that give them their founding myths - that is, historical and symbolical events that shape their collective human imagination, like the [French Revolution's 1789] Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen. There is no substitute for these founding myths in inspiring the [human] imagination and in setting the [peoples'] creative energies in motion."

"The black days are those on which these peoples suffered defeats that they were incapable of absorbing, psychologically or intellectually, in such a way that they could derive the real conclusions. In this situation, people tend to curl up within themselves like frightened snails, to brood about their dark thoughts - their catastrophes and their collective obsession with vengeance - and to use them as a pivot that diverts them to suicidal political and militaristic decisions. [They do this] instead of [using] the same circumstances to elevate themselves by way of dignified and creative collective action, aimed at rehabilitating their self-confidence, and triumphing over those thoughts."

"Throughout modern Arab history, the collective Arab imagination has needed a healthy and inspirational founding myth. Yet this imagination has suffered defeats disproving the Arabs' self-deceiving notions about themselves as 'the best nation that has been delivered to mankind.'[Koran](6) They were struck by impossible obsession with avenging [each of] their defeats, from the days of the Mamluk defeat at the hands of Napoleon Bonaparte in the late 1700s to the defeat of [Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser] Arafat at the hands of [Israeli Prime Minster Ariel] Sharon at the beginning of the 21st century. [This] in addition to two centuries of defeat by [Western] imperialism, that left its open, festering wounds."

'The Tribal Arab Culture of Vengeance Transmuted their Defeats into a Fixated, Vengeful Mentality'

"This deep-rooted culture of tribal vengefulness in the [Arab] collective consciousness is a fundamental driving force. [This driving force] has transmuted this consciousness into a fixated, brooding, vengeful mentality, instead of transforming [that kind of culture] into a [source of] far-sighted thought and self-criticism, as a grasp for a spring board for a consciousness of the vital necessity to emulate the enemy, that is becoming like him in modern knowledge, thought and politics, so as to reshape the traditional personality and adapt it to the requirements of the time, as did Japan in the aftermath of its unprecedented defeat in the history of mankind in 1945."

"The culture of tribal vengeance haunts... not only in our relations with the other but also our relations with each other, between Arab countries and within each country, from honor crimes [i.e. murder of women] to tribal and factional strife. Rightly, Muhammad Hasannain Haikal(7) called the 20 years of war between the Al-Gama'a Al-Islamiyya and Islamic Jihad organizations and the [Egyptian] police 'the blood vengeance war between the police tribe and the Islamist tribe.'"

"The hysteria of vengeance on the West and on its protégée Israel has disastrous results - for example, the Arab traditional elite's phobia of Western modernism. The Western imperialism that followed this Western modernism crippled this elite, depriving it of the ability of rational statesmanship. [Statesmanship] that includes [the adoption of] constructive [Western] innovation; setting realistic aims; playing the political game rationally; realistically interpreting the [global or regional] balance of power and harnessing [this interpretation] in the decision-making [process]; managing crises sensibly by peaceably bringing the conditions of its solution into fruition; and, finally, developing decision-making procedures."

"The policy of vengeance that prevails today, especially among the influential elites in Palestine, Syria and Iraq, has banished any rational policy from their domestic decision making. In their domestic policy, these elites dismiss all public discussion.  In their foreign policy, they refuse to negotiate. This is how these elites increase the likelihood of implosion [i.e. domestic strife] and war. It [also] explains their careening from one domestic outbreak [of violence] into the next, and from one destructive war into the next, much fiercer war."

"These traditional leaderships, saturated with collective narcissism, have undergone the same experience as people afflicted with depression. They are driven by their guilt-struck emotions to self-punishment, which is likely to end in suicide. This collective self-punishment is revealed in many cases, which I will summarize in two [phenomenon]: a) an 'all or nothing' policy, and b) a cult of armament and violence aimed at salvaging the injured face of this collective narcissism through martial victory, hoping that this would wash out the disgrace of military defeats."

'The Neurotic Tenacity of an 'All or Nothing' Policy and Its Consequences'

"The 'all or nothing' policy was behind [Jerusalem's Grand Mufti] Haj Amin Al-Huseini's rejection of the Peel Commission [1937] [decision] to grant the Palestinians 80% of the land of Palestine, and of the 1947 UN resolution to grant the Palestinians 45% of Palestine. This policy also motivated Hafez Al-Assad, at the end of the summit conference with president Clinton in 2000, to refuse [the offer to] regain the Golan Heights except for 200 meters on the eastern bank of the Sea of Galilee, claiming that when he was in the army, he used to wade and fish in the lake! And what was the result? Great difficulty for his successor in regaining even a single meter in the foreseeable future, save for concessions that the Israeli leadership only ever dreamed of."

"The cult of arming with WMD drove Saddam Hussein into delirious... decisions. [Such as the decisions] to strike the Kurds with chemical weapons; shoot tear gas at demonstrators - [tear gas] produced from aflatoxins that cause liver cancer... as revealed by Saddam's former scientific advisor Dr. Hussein Al-Shahrastani; attack Iran with chemical weapons; invade Kuwait; in addition to wasting - over 35 years - his country's material and human resources on the altar of his vengeful obsession and insane passion for martial victory."

"Currently, Iraq's resources, which include the second largest oil reserves in the world, qualify this country, economically and scientifically, to be the Japan of the Arab world. [Instead, it] became one of the poorest, most despotic and bloodiest countries in the world."

"The fanatical and neurotic tenacity of the [policy of] 'all or nothing' and martial victory are, without a doubt [the source] of Hamas's program to 'liberate Palestine to the last grain of earth and to restore it as a Waqf [religious endowment] for all the world's Muslims' - and [the factor] behind [Hamas's] insane refusal to accept a Palestinian state in the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, and east Jerusalem."

"And what was the result, after the suicidal operations had failed to fulfill this impossible aim? Hamas's spiritual leader, Sheikh Ahmad Yassin, appealed to Israeli PM Sharon for a 10-year truce [Hudna], in the aftermath of which [the circumstances would be reassessed]."

"This kind of suicidal policy was also behind Yasser Arafat's unexpected shift from promising negotiations to futile armed struggle and Intifada, that has proven no less futile."

"And why is that? It was because Chairman Arafat envied Hizbullah's success at 'expelling' the Israeli army from the Israeli security zone [in Lebanon]. Overnight, he decided to shift from negotiating with to expelling the occupying Israeli army, and unilaterally declaring a fully sovereign Palestinian state without [paying] the price of recognizing Israel - as Egypt and Jordan had already done. And what was the outcome of this vengeful and suicidal decision? Unprecedented self-punishment: The occupying army [Israel] returned to 42% of the territories liberated through negotiation."

"By the same logic, Chairman Arafat turned down president Clinton's proposal to regain 97% of the occupied territories, with a promise of $40 billion to resettle the Palestinian refugees within the promised Palestinian state. And what was the outcome of this decision, which was in disregard of any consideration of Palestinian national interest for establishing a homeland and a lasting state? The outcome is that Arafat and his people are today in grave danger."

'The Arabs and Muslims - Both Masses and Elites Alike - Believed in Bin Laden and Acclaimed Him'

"The last 'hero' of the Arab and Islamic nation, the Wahabbi terrorist Osama bin Laden, wanted to avenge his Arab and Islamic nation on the 'Crusaders' by attacking New York and Washington, D.C. The Arabs and the Muslims, both elites and masses, believed in him and acclaimed him. And what was the result? The complete opposite: The U.S. invaded Afghanistan and expelled bin Laden and his patrons, the Taliban, from the country, with determination to uproot them. In addition, our 'hero' [bin Laden] provided the neoconservatives in the American administration the chance they longed for to implement their geopolitical vision: to redefine and reorganize their priorities independently of their European allies. Abandoning the formalities of international law - which was for a long time a shield for the 'oppressed ones,' of whom bin Laden was the self-appointed spokesman - put an end to the prospects of the emergence of an economically and militarily unified Europe as [another] global  pole, [a vision] of which the Arabs dreamed night and day."

"Finally, bin Laden also inadvertently helped [the neoconservatives] to reshape international relationships in accordance with the [new] global balance of superpowers that brought about the U.S.'s ascendancy as the most powerful superpower in the world, economically and militarily. Now, this superpower insists on unilaterally controlling international decision-making in an attempt to curb the proliferation of WMD and liquidate Islamic terror by pursuing it and monitoring the countries that generate terror through religious Jihad education - an education which all Arab countries implement, except Tunisia - and replacing the regimes that arm and shelter terror. "

"These are the disastrous outcomes that the Arabs themselves produced with their own hands, because of their obsession with vengeance..."

Notes:
(1) The Elaph website is the first daily Arab independent on-line newspaper. It was established by Saudi businessman, journalist, and author Othman Al-Omeir, former editor of the London Arabic-language daily Al-Sharq Al-Awsat as well as former editor of the Saudi papers Al-Jazira, Al-Riyadh, Al-Yawm, and Al-Majalla. (
http://promo.elaph.com)
(2) See MEMRI Special Dispatch No. 439,
http://www.memri.org/bin/articles.cgi?Page=archives&Area=sd&ID=SP43902 (3)www.elaph.com.:9090/elaph/arabic/frontendProcess.jsp?SCREENID=PRINTaRTICL E
(4) "The recalcitrant," a term of abuse used by the Sunnis to describe those who refused to swear an oath of allegiance to Abu Bakr and 'Umar.
(5)www.elaph.com.:9090/elaph/arabic/frontendProcess.jsp?SCREENID=PRINTARTICL E
(6) Koran, Surat Aal-'Imran [3] , verse 110.
(7) Prominent Egyptian editor of Al-Ahram and advisor to former Egyptian president Nasser.

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