Aren't we forgetting Islam

Submitted by Y Brandstetter MD (Israel), Apr 24, 2003 at 08:21

Daniel Pipe's piece is one of the most lucid, inclusive and truthful assessments of the arab Israeli conflict I have ever read. I do see some major omissions though.

The most serious ommission is that of Islam and the attitude Islam adopts towards a Dhimmi population which has thrown the yoke, and the enmity, mandated by religion, towrds the infidel. From the Arab-moslem point of view Israel is both. The Dhimmi population of Jews who for 1300 years bore the denigrating status of living by the grace of the Arab conqueror, of paying the Jizya as the price of life, has revolted. That by itself carries the sentence of death by Sha'aria. The very existence of a sovereign infidel entity in the Dar-El-Islam is blasphemous and mandates Jihad by whatever means. The suicide bombers are not simply guerrilas fighting to win their brethren a place under sun. They are religious agents of the main-stream Islam, part of the all-out Jihad against the Dar-El-Harb.

This ommission means that a simple military victory over the armed factions, that leaves the populations where they are, which sufficed in Germany, Serbia, Japan, is not enough in the present situation. Nor is amelioration of standards of living, as hopeful altruistic americans suggest. the solution requires that Arab Moslems renounce the basics of their religion, or that Jews do the same. Neither is possible.

The second ommission is the artificial distinction of Arab and Palestinian. Palestinians themselves reject that distinction, and indeed Palestinian was defined in 1947 as any Arab whose residence in Palestine was two years, no longer. Ethnically the Paslestinians are more diverse than the Jews of Israel. They are the product of 1300 years of free access to Israel which had been prohibited or curtailed to Jews by Arab conquerors.

Therefore the only solution is mathematical. Separation across a political and physical border, which in this context is the River Jordan-Yarmuch line. This solution will place the Arabs out of sight from their objectives. That might be the trigger for a change of heart as required per Daniel Pipes.

The alternative is a third holocaust (after the Roman and the German) where the Jewish population will be so decimated they shall either accept Dhimma, or effect the transfer of Arabs now considered fantastical.

Y Brandstetter MD

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