History could be a baggage or a place to learn good lessons

Submitted by American Muslim (United States), Oct 22, 2006 at 21:01

Spar, Clearly your heart is in the right place when you say "The solution will only be born of the wisdom which awakens enemies to the deepest of all ironies... that those they seek to annihilate are indeed their own family members and that hatred and violence only feeds more of the same".

However your focus happens to be on the wrong party at this moment in 2006. Please do Google and see how many Israelis are shouting "we'll annihilate Arabs", then check out how many well known leaders are shouting "we will annihilate Israel". All those well known leaders trying to annihilate Israel are? Any guesses?

From Nasrallah, to Mishal, to Ahmedinijad, all are hell bent on "annihilating Israel". They use or threaten to use every possible brick, stone, or rocket in their possession. Katyooshas, fajars, and shahabs are not some names extracted from Hebrew language. They are being used by those who happen to be supporters of Palestinians and "struggling" against "oppression".

Your references to history like the King David hotel, or sabra shateela camps gives only one sided picture. I wish it was just an academic discussion and I'd not even question your sincerity. However the reasons based on your references are being misused by terrorists and other extremists. First of all a little blast in the hotel would not have kicked Brits out.

Brits left that part of the world due to many reasons that were related to much bigger and much more complex issues of post WWII geopolitics. Mainly. On the second reference, do you ever wonder why Ariel Sharon was in Beirut to begin with? I guarantee you that he wasn't there to enjoy tea or coffee. He and Israeli forces were there chasing the famed PLO and its king the Yasser Arafat's fidayeen (suicide bombers).

So please use history to learn lessons, and let us not make history as our baggage that paralyzes our will to live in 2006 or stops us from planning a peaceful life in future.

I beg to differ when you state "As for bringing the Palestinian issue into this forum... do you really think the stupid taxi driver point is worthy of this much discussion? Only to the extent that it leads us to more meaningful and root level subject matter, which the arab/israeli conflict clearly represents,"

Please remember, the taxi drivers in Minnesota are mostly from Somalia and their struggle is to bring Sharia (Islamic law from tribal perspective) to an American city. Their stupidities with the wine carrying passengers have nothing to do with the Arab-Israeli conflict. These taxi drivers usually come from rural areas of Somalia. They have not learned the art of living in big cities so they are not tolerant to other faiths and life styles.

Just remember the Taliban in Kabul. Those poor talibs came from small villages of Southern Afghanistan. They never realized that in big cities like Kabul, it is A-OK for women to work, go to schools, or do mundane things like shopping for groceries. The result of Taliban rule was catastrophic for the urban population of Kabul.

The same thing will happen to urban centers of America if we allow Somali taxi drivers to act as the police from "Taliban ministry of virtue and vice". We all, and especially the authorities, should be vigilant and very clear with these taxi drivers. Their job is to serve public and that's all. If they don't like public service then they should opt for a different occupation.

Peace.

Dr. Qazi

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".