Jihad Watch Board Vice President Hugh Fitzgerald on the Gaza withdrawal:
Israel’s destruction of its own villages, some of which long predate the existence of Israel as a state, and all of which are on land which, by the terms of the League of Nations’ Mandate for Palestine, were part of the tiny territory assigned for the sole purpose of the establishment of a Jewish National Home, is nothing less than geopolitical and moral idiocy. (The Mandate’s Preamble states that the Mandatory authority, Great Britain, had to “encourage close Jewish settlement on the land.”) And of course, if that were not enough, all the rules of warfare and postwar settlement — the same rules that entitled Italy to keep the Algo Adige (quondam Sudtirol, with a population that was 97% ethnic German) after World War I, or allowed Poland to keep part of what was East Prussia, or Russia to keep Koenigsburg (now Kaliningrad), or the French to firmly incorporate, once and for all, Alsace-Lorraine, or for that matter have allowed the United States to become what it has become, including California and the rest — these rules do not suddenly cease to apply when it comes to Israel’s victory in the Six-Day War.
Sharon has behaved stupidly and cruelly. Even if one were, theoretically, to accept the idea that guarding those villages (one does not wish to play the game of calling them “settlements” which, like the phrase “Palestinian people,” already concedes far too much) is difficult, simply withdrawing so that the pressure can begin again at a point even closer to Israel’s heart, makes no sense. As for the argument about “demography,” in what way does the destruction of what can be considered akin to the Roman “marches” (i.e., the outlying areas that are part military encampment, and part civilian population, designed to protect from the hordes without) neutralize the ability of Arabs to overbreed, for deliberately political reasons, in order to swamp the Israelis? And if that weapon or instrument of Jihad is allowed to succeed with Israel — to have mere numbers overwhelm — it could also succeed for Muslims in Europe, or even, at a later date, in North America.
Sharon had an idea. Now the idea has him. He thought that in order to pre-empt pressure from the E.U. and others, he would simply, unilaterally, get out of Gaza. He failed to change course even though it was clear that the Europeans themselves were coming to a new understanding of what Islam, what the Jihad, is all about. And what is still worse, he never made Israel’s case. He never explained, nor did the Israeli Foreign Ministry, that Israel had a perfect right to remain in those villages — as much right as the Italians to Aldo Adige and the Russians to Kaliningrad. This could have been a moment to explain the great sacrifices that Israel was making. It was a moment to tell people that these villages were built entirely on sand — on sand that was owned first by the Ottomans, and then by the Mandatory authority, and then by the successor state, Israel, which has the strongest legal, historic, and moral claims. But Sharon, and the helpless, hopeless, Israeli leaders never made any of this clear. Instead it all became a shadow-play in which “fanatical” settlers (some fanaticism!) impelled by “Biblical” teachings, insist on staying and “preventing” peace. In fact, the astounding bravery of those people has helped to keep Israelis everywhere safer. And Israel, in turn, has been the lightning-rod for the Jihad until recently, when Muslims have established beachheads everywhere, and with oil money, mosques, and madrasas, have shown that the Jihad against Israel is only one small part of the world-wide Jihad, while the Western world kept believing that there was no such Jihad, only the indignation of those with a “legitimate grievance” over the denial of the “legitimate rights” of the (recently-fabricated) “Palestinian people.”
There is only one way to retrieve some small victory out of this self-inflicted defeat. It is for the Infidel world to do nothing to disguise what goes on in Gaza, or what Abbas means when he tells a fisherman that soon he will “fish in Jerusalem.” That is to not help conceal in any way the “Palestinians” as they shriek with joy, ululate with orgasmic pleasure, over the remains of those tidy houses and orchards, which they themselves have never managed to create anywhere in the lands that they have controlled. The chaos and the shooting in the air, the whole mess — let it be exposed. No Infidel aid. No infusions of money from American taxpayers to people who hate, and have been instructed to hate, and hate, all Infidels — “the Jews and the Americans” and everyone else who is not Arab and Muslim.
Will the world’s press be able to transmit those images? Will the real face, so carefully and repeatedly made up to such misleading effect, be shown without that makeup, without the world media’s meretricious maquillage?
One hopes. One does not expect, but one hopes.