- WASHINGTON -- When it finally
happens, and the logic of events as well as the pointers in history show
in this direction as never before, no one will be able to say this time
that they didn't know, they weren't aware, how could it happen... And there
will be so much blame to be distributed starting of course with the Israelis
but extending quickly and fairly to the United States, world Jewry, the
United Nations, et. al. A 'war of civilizations' has been provoked, brewed
and stirred for quite some time now by those dominant in the 'modern world'.
The victor may vanquish but it is likely not only to be at considerable
cost but only for a temporary period of fleeting historical moment. The
memory of these events of our time will not quickly fade; and the conscience
of the world is being disrupted and fractured by these events of our time
in ways likely to bring about still more chaos, devastation, and potentially
the very Armageddon the Christian Fundamentalist zealots now leading the
way so self-righteously prophesize.
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- Kiryat Arba's settlers, with active assistance from the
Civil Administration and the IDF, are keeping their promise to create "territorial
contiguity between Kiryat Arba and the Tomb of the Patriarchs." Less
than three weeks after the lethal Islamic Jihad ambush killed 12 soldiers
and Israeli security officers, the appropriate Zionist response is taking
concrete shape in the form of mobile homes and demolition orders - as everyone
knew it would. Many Palestinian families no longer live along the route
that connects the settlement to the old city of Hebron. They were driven
away by fear of the settlers.
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- Half-destroyed houses that are hundreds of years old,
beautiful architectural pearls that the Palestinians were unable to renovate
and preserve because they had no civilian control over the area of the
old city, will be destroyed. Presumably, some less ancient buildings will
also be destroyed. But that's the kind of information that evaporates quickly
in a country that is so busy, on the one hand burying its dead from terror
attacks, and on the other hand busy with primaries elections in the parties
from the left to the right.
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- The continuation of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's settlement
plans in the occupied territories with the help of his loyal army of settlers
is not "news" - not even when one of those settler leaders, Kiryat
Arba Mayor Zvi Katzover, volunteers the geographic-demographic-military
vision behind his determination and persistence and that of his comrades.
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- "When the big war begins and the Arabs run away
from here, sooner or later, we'll be back in the houses," he told
reporter Benny Liss of Channel One on November 27. It was a very short
sentence, but it said a lot. Several things can be understood from it.
"The big war," apparently compared to the "little war"
we've known in recent years, is no doubt a regional war, or perhaps a war
that will be described as the struggle between light and darkness, Islam
against Christianity and Judaism, or "between civilizations"
- dark Islam versus the enlightened West. It's an event that will no doubt
come and there's no reason to try to prevent. In fact, maybe it would be
best if it happened (in fact, it should be encouraged) when the results
are positive, of course, because "the Arabs will run away."
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- It's also difficult to believe that Katzover is referring
to "only" the Palestinians of Hebron. The "big war,"
after all, won't sweep only over the ancient town of the patriarchs. According
to that logic, it's not only in Hebron but throughout the entire country
that foreigners - i.e., non-Jews - are in possession of Jewish land. This
catastrophic logic fits neatly with the religious-nationalist beliefs that
have guided the settler pioneers for the last 35 years, a faith in the
divine promise of the land to the people of Israel. It's a combination
of faith in the inevitable, divine intervention on behalf of the Jewish
people, according to the religious-fundamentalist interpretations, with
belief in the duty of the individuals to act in order to hasten the arrival
of the happy ending.
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- That catastrophic logic does not guide only the religious-political
Jewish fundamentalists. It's exactly the same religious-deterministic logic
that over and over refills the reservoirs of Palestinian suicide bombers,
those who prepare the bombs and throw the Molotov cocktails at the tanks
rolling through Palestinian cities, people whose chances of getting killed
are much greater than their chances of penetrating the armor of the tanks.
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- The desire to take revenge may be the motive for each
individual who takes the place of another Palestinian captured, interrogated,
killed, or wounded in IDF operations. The lack of a desire to live a life
that's not worth living might unite a much larger public than those who
have already decided to commit a suicide bombing. But the Islamic organizations,
which exploit that, operate with their own terminal vision.
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- They also believe the Land was given through a divine
promise, but to Muslims. They also bring forth scripture to prove their
point. They also are convinced the divine promise will come true sooner
or later, and that "God helps those who help themselves," meaning
there should be no waiting around doing nothing until the happy ending.
Nowadays, it's not only in Hamas and Islamic Jihad circles that one can
hear young people explaining that the day will come and the entire Islamic
world will enlist in the cause of war against Israel, and it will be a
"big war," terrible and all-encompassing - but it will ultimately
"liberate" the promised land. Such religious rhetoric can now
be heard from Fatah youths, who are becoming ever more Orthodox as their
lives on earth offer them less and less.
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- The catastrophic Palestinian-Islamic logic grows stronger
the more Palestinian society is weakened and vanquished by the ongoing
Israeli military operations. And the catastrophic Jewish thinking is, on
the one hand, based on a sense of personal hopelessness as Sisyphean military
operations fail to fulfill the promise "to eradicate the terror,"
and on the other hand on a powerful army that increasingly sets the civil
agenda, when the borders between the religious and nationalist faith of
its ever more outspoken commanders are being continuously erased.
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