Fighting A War Of Survival

Manipulating the truth. What’s left is far removed from reality. That seems to be the theme behind much of the anti-Israeli propaganda that makes its way to the forefront. I’d like to believe that the individuals responsible for this garbage are so mislead and so ignorant of the facts that they simply don’t know any better. Unfortunately, I suspect they are well-aware of the deceit they propagate to the public.

Israel is fighting a war of survival. In Israel, every day is Sept. 11. Every day, there is another bomb or another random shooting. Every day, another cafÈ is targeted or another school or another dance club or another bus station or another 12-year-old girl’s birthday party. Every day, more children, more civilians, more motorists, more store employees and more shoppers are turned into victims. Every day. The Israelis are living in terror, brought on by militants whose well pronounced goal is to destroy the country and bring forward to the region strict Islamic rule by the sword.

But the terrorists are martyrs, after all. They are in pursuit of heavenly rewards. And in return, all they have to do is to create a little misery on earth.

Here lies the brilliance of their strategy. As each suicide bomber or psychopathic gunman meets his end, the census counters tick up yet another “casualty” on the Palestinian side. And then they point to the numbers and yell how unfair it is. Even as they somehow stay convinced that the numbers of dead must be equal on all sides, or else they earn the right to claim that they’re oppressed, regardless of who is prompting the killing.

They like the numbers game a lot. Maybe one day they’ll remove from the count the self-inflicted casualties incurred on their misbegotten route to “holy salvation.” Maybe they’ll pit the numbers of the Israeli fallen children and elderly and civilians against their own dead, who died armed and bent on martyrdom.

It’s a game they’d like to have the world believe is new. That it arose from the ashes of a failed peace process. In reality, it’s been going on for decades. The world won’t forget the hijacked planes and ships. It won’t forget the 1972 Olympic Games. It won’t forget the bombs on city-bus after city-bus even as the peace process was in full gear. It won’t forget the kidnapped Israelis abroad. It won’t forget the lost lives and the wrecked families.

At last, no one believes the Palestinian Authority anymore. Caught recently smuggling in sophisticated weaponry from Iran, it denied everything. It claimed it was all a big Israeli conspiracy. Only when the US and other countries confirmed the arms shipment was real did the Palestinian Authority change its stance and fire a few high ranking officials for conduct it claimed it was shocked to discover within its own ranks. Lying is the Palestinian Authority’s standard method of operation, a fall back position that’s become the norm.

After launching an unprecedented terrorist attack against the United States, the terrorists went one step further. They blamed their own attacks, their own ruthless murderous acts, on the United States and Israel, themselves. Neither country, apparently, had capitulated fast enough to earlier threats, so they got what was coming to them. The US supported Israel so it clearly brought this on itself. Next, of course, terrorist groups will tell the US which countries it will be allowed to befriend. They will dictate terms to the US, they will determine what laws it keeps and what code of values it lives by. Or else, once again, the US will have to live with the fact that the impending wave of destruction was brought upon itself.

What helps somewhat is that a new realization is taking place. That terrorism is not going to be tolerated anymore. That the unrelenting cold-blooded murders in pursuit of skewed political ambitions will be met with resistance. It won’t be deluded by misleading arguments and grandiose manipulations. People are smarter than that. I hope so, anyway.