|
B"sd
How do you Make Peace with Terror?
Gary Cooperberg
October 20, 2003
After the horrors of 9/11 I remember hearing one person remark, "I cannot relate to this. It just doesn't compute." I think that statement was the most intelligent one I have heard. The fact is that, to this very day, no one has a satisfactory explanation for what happened on that day. Murder, war, conflict and hatred are disgusting facts of life. They are all things we would prefer not to have in our world. Yet, unfortunately, they are part of our world. They will not disappear by ignoring them, or pretending that they can be "negotiated" away.
If someone twists your arm until it hurts, your instinctive reaction is to do anything you can to stop the cause of the pain. If pulling away doesn't work, the next natural step is to strike back at your attacker. If that doesn't work then all you can do is hope that you can get him to stop by offering him something that he wants. If by giving him your wallet he will stop twisting your arm, you will eagerly give it to him.
But, what we must realize is the fact that although, indeed, you succeeded in getting him to stop twisting your arm by paying him off, you also gave him encouragement to twist someone else's arm, or to come back and twist yours again. While paying the attacker might have been an expedient and maybe even necessary thing to do at the time, unless additional efforts were made to punish the culprit, you actually encouraged him to continue hurting people.
What if this person broke into your home and told you that it belonged to him? Of course you know for a fact that you bought the house and have all the documents to prove it. But this fellow claims that he is the real owner and is prepared to fight for what he believes is his. Were this an honest dispute, certainly legal ownership could be determined and the problem resolved. But if this claimant is not interested in legality and threatens to bomb the house if you do not leave would you continue to engage in negotiations with him? Of course not. You would simply call the police and have him taken away.
The Moslem world knows that the Land of Israel belongs to the People of Israel, the Jewish people. The Biblical seer, Baalam, knew that the Jewish people were blessed by G-d and that no power on Earth could defeat them. He devised a plan, however, which was sure to cause them harm. If he could succeed in enticing them to sin against G-d, then certainly harm would come to them. He was right. What he did not consider was the fact that, although he did succeed in bringing harm to the Jews, he also brought destruction and wrath upon himself. And, in the end, despite their suffering, the Jewish People continued to fulfill their Divine Destiny.
As redemption approaches its climax, our enemies are becoming desperate. They too are fearful of Jewish destiny and seek to thwart it, as did Baalam. If the Jewish People can be made to sin, perhaps redemption can be stopped or at least delayed. Moslems are neither ignorant nor stupid. They are religious people who never fail to attribute greatness and declare obedience to their god. They go to their death with their Koran at their side. They also know our weakness. By declaring that they want peace they have succeeded in getting our leaders to, in effect, deny our G-d in the pursuit of this so called "peace". While the Moslem will openly say, "I cannot give up one inch of holy Islamic soil," the Jew willingly agrees to give up parts of his holy and obligatory inheritance in return for promises not worth the paper they are written on.
When Sharon tries to gain points with Bush by insisting on following the "Road Map" to Hell, even if he is doing so in the belief that it will never happen, he is displaying a lack of faith in G-d, and in our undisputable exclusive Divine obligation to possess the Land of Israel. If Moslems are not afraid to declare that all of the Land belongs to them, even from a position of weakness, it is more than an insult to our G-d to declare our willingness to give away any part of our homeland from a position of strength. It is this failure to demonstrate our faith which brings terror upon our heads.
What nation on the face of the earth would tolerate the mass murder of its civilian population? We in Israel are under attack, to a far greater extent than was the USA on 9/11. We continue to suffer these Kamikaze murders and refuse to recognize that we are as war! We treat each attack as if it were an isolated criminal act and seek to punish the individual, rather than remove the source of terror because we are afraid that the USA will consider such an effort as racism.
There is a clear and proper way to stop terror in this country. The first step is to understand that usage of the term "Palestinian" to define a particular Arab people, is nothing less than an act of war against the Jewish State. It is a fictitious creation whose sole purpose is to take legitimacy away from the Jewish people as the exclusive possessors of the Land of Israel. Notice should be given that any Arab who chooses to identify himself as a "Palestinian" is an enemy of the state and will be expelled. Any Arab who repudiates that terminology and declares his recognition of exclusive Jewish sovereignty and his willingness to obey the law of the land is welcome to live here in peace. Any action which contradicts that declaration will result in automatic expulsion.
We must understand that peace never results from negotiating with the enemy. It only results from defeating the enemy. It is only after a war is won that negotiations take place. When my government claims to be making peace via negotiation, what it is really doing is trying to surrender conditionally to our enemies. And, since the only condition our enemies will ever accept is our total defeat, this path is doomed to failure as we can already clearly see.
General Sherman said it best, "War is hell!" Of course war is a terrible thing. Of course we must do all in our power to promote peace. But, in our imperfect world, there are times when we have no option other than to fight for what we believe in. By choosing not to fight against tyranny we only invite tragedy upon ourselves. One should imagine that we Jews should have learned this lesson after trying so hard, from even before the establishment of our state, to make peace with those who still seek our destruction. We have gotten to the absurd point where our most right wing Prime Minister has gone so far as to offer Arafat an independent state on Jewish soil, and still they murder us. What will it take to get our leaders to understand that we have only one choice. . . to defeat our enemies. The longer we refuse, the more we bring suffering upon ourselves.
|
