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 |
|
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)
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>
- Saddam Hussein bites the dust
|
(Return to Archive#ME) |
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.
|
|
A Tunisian
Intellectual on: The Arab Obsession with Vengeance
Special Dispatch - Reform in the Arab
and Muslim World |
|
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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The Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) memri@memri.org www.memri.org |
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