Continuing on the current topic

Submitted by Debanjan Banerjee (India), May 2, 2010 at 01:55

"Fortunately for Israel, it need only defeat the Palestinians, and not the entire Arab or Muslim population, which eventually will follow the Palestinian lead in accepting Israel. Fortunately too, although the Palestinians have built an awesome reputation for endurance, they can be beaten. If the Germans and Japanese could be forced to give up in 1945 and the Americans in 1975, how can Palestinians be exempt from defeat?"

My Answer : Dr. Pipes , I believe comparison between Palestinian people and the Japanese , third Reich and the American effort in Vietnam is inaccurate and inappropriate.

The Japanese and the Germans as well as the Americans in Vietnam were fighting on behalf of their respective regimes to fulfill geo-political wishes of their regimes. The common people generally did not took part of the fighting. In all these three examples the common people were misled by their regimes. The common people did not know exactly about the situations since they were misinformed by their political leaders.

In the case of the Palestinian people , the people in Palestine are fighting for their dignity , their faith , their way of life. The Palestinian people are fighting to survive as a people , they cannot lose the fight since losing in this fight will end the humanity of the people in Palestine.

Hence this is a fight the Palestinian people cannot effort to lose.

We have seen previously that the Palestinian people have learnt to fight for themselves despite the whole Muslim world and their own leadership letting them down.

During the first Intifada , it was generally a spontaneous movement of the people to fight against the Israeli occupation in the West Bank.

In the last few years , we have seen during the Gaza siege by Israel and Egypt , the Gazan Palestinians , have mastered the art of tunnel engineering through which Gazan economy is now run. In this way the tiny Gazan David is winning against Israeli and Egyptian Goliaths.

I hope you will take into consideration these points when you use words like "Victory" and "defeat".

Note: Opinions expressed in comments are those of the authors alone and not necessarily those of Daniel Pipes. Original writing only, please. Comments are screened and in some cases edited before posting. Reasoned disagreement is welcome but not comments that are scurrilous, off-topic, commercial, disparaging religions, or otherwise inappropriate. For complete regulations, see the "Guidelines for Reader Comments".