Matthew Knee Knee awaits your responses
and comments at [email protected].
While they are portrayed in the media as the natural extension
of an ancient, isolated, Third World ethnic conflict, the daily
attacks on Israel by Palestinians and other Arab groups are part of
a larger, far more sinister, pattern: the attacks on Israel are
attacks on us.
When Palestinian terrorists kill innocent Israeli citizens,
their motivation is not to fight an oppressive apartheid state, nor
is it more than incidentally related to land squabbles or
anti-Semitism.
Forget the propaganda, the show put on for the benefit of the
Western press. Islamic terrorists plot not only the
destruction of Israel, but the destruction of Western culture and
civilization. Islamic extremists continue to pursue revenge on the
West for the 732 AD defeat of Islamic forces by Frenchman Charles
Martel at the Battle of Poitiers which halted Islamic expansion
into Europe. Their ancient grudge is neither about the Holy
Land nor the Jews. Rather, it is about the entire world and
against the West.
These terrorists do not attack synagogues. Usually, the
targets are not even government buildings. The terrorists blow
themselves up in clubs, malls and buses, killing children and young
people whose only crimes are being our cultural brethren. Some
purchase the sympathy of the Western left with the blood of their
own children, hiding among them, firing guns at soldiers while
their children throw rocks.
Their outrageous actions and propaganda make it clear they are
the enemies of freedom, equality, democracy and of any nation that
embraces these ideologies. They call the United States “The
Great Satan” and Israel “The Little Satan.” They
cannot bear to see Israeli girls in tank tops, let alone in tanks.
They cannot bear that Israel’s free society has bred
prosperity unavailable to all but a privileged few throughout the
Middle East.
If it were practical, they would be killing us, too. Since they
target convenient symbols of Western culture, given the
opportunity, they would just as readily bomb the Sbarro restaurant
in Ackerman Union as they did one in Jerusalem, where a suicide
bomber killed 15 people this summer, including two Americans.
Pan-Arabic governments such as those of Iran, Iraq, Syria,
Lebanon and the Palestinian entity are instrumental in this terror
machine. Syria shelters numerous terrorist groups such as
Hezbollah, Hamas and Islamic Jihad, and protects terrorist
operations in the Bekaa Valley. Syria only condemns terrorist
organizations within their nation which are a threat to their
autocracy. They claim to fight terrorism, but terrorism
against Israel is not terrorism because it is justified to
them.
Yasser Arafat, President Hafez Assad of Syria and Saddam Hussein
portray themselves in Arabic as modern-day versions of Saladin, a
medieval Muslim leader who made peace with the crusader states in
order to build up his forces to slaughter them. The parallel they
draw is not to an Islamic leader who opposed Jews, but rather one
who slaughtered European Christians. To them, Israel is a
modern-day crusader state, a Western incursion into Arab lands.
The terrorist network of nations and organizations believes that
by increasing the suffering of the Palestinian people, it will be
able to utilize the Palestinians as a weapon against the
West. Thus, they prevent Palestinians from emigrating and
provide little humanitarian aid directly to the refugee camps,
instead sponsoring terrorist groups such as Hamas to dispense aid
and education to the camps directly. As a result, the poor
depend on terrorists for their daily bread, and the inhabitants of
the camps are educated in Hamas-run schools that promote hatred and
violence.
It is vital that the United States take a stand against Syria,
Lebanon and the PLO until they prove themselves to be supporters of
the West and enemies of the evil within their borders. Until then,
they should be faced with the same condemnation, pressure and
threats as Iraq, Iran, Somalia and Afghanistan.
The Palestinian Intifada that has claimed nearly 1,000 lives on
all sides in the last 14 months has been fueled by oppression, hate
propaganda and arms from nations that, for political reasons, the
United States refuses to challenge.
The attacks of Sept. 11 are an indication of what anti-Western
terrorists are capable of. Iran and Iraq, their strongest
supporters, possess chemical and biological weapons and may soon
have long-range nuclear capability. If we allow them to
continue to strike at us indirectly, it is only a matter of time
before the direct attacks increase in both number and
destructiveness.