"I came to this part of Stockholm, where Israel is hated, at considerable risk to my life, to tell the truth," the exiled leader of the Palestinian Jordanians, Mudar Zahran, declares. ".... There have always been Jews in that Holy Land, for thousands of years ..."
A practising Muslim, the personable Mr Zahran has kind things to say about Jews and Israel, and harsh things to say about the Palestinian Authority, Hamas, the Muslim Brotherhood, Islamic terrorism, the Jordanian monarch, Arab dictatorships, and the BDS movement.
Snippets:
"I have one word for them: 'shmucks'. They don't care for my people – they just hate Jews" he says of the Boycott Israel brigade, for whom he has this message: "We are against you and we don't need you, because you are only hurting us and not the Israelis..."
"Israel has served as the airbag for the West... If they did not have Israel to fight, they would be fighting you. We should respect and support Israel's sovereignty over all its land, as a Jewish State ..."
"Sooner or later, the weak King of Jordan is going to fall ... As a result we are going to have a Palestinian State for the first time ..."
Overlooked Psychology of the Arab-Israeli Peace Process
ReplyDeleteby Mr. Cohen of the Derech Emet yahoo group 2014/4/27
In a very famous Bible story, King Solomon threatened to cut a baby in half to satisfy the claims of two women who claimed possession of the same baby (Melachim Aleph, chapter 3, verses 16 to 28).
The fake mother did not object to cutting the baby in half, but the real mother begged King Solomon to not do it because the real mother did not want to see her baby die.
Arabs are very familiar with this Bible story and they apply it to the conflict over possessing “Palestine.” Arabs believe that just as the fake mother in the court of King Solomon was willing to divide the baby, the Israelis are fake owners of “Palestine” because they are willing to divide it.
According to this logic, Arabs can never agree to less than 100% of “Palestine” because doing so would make them like the fake mother in the court of King Solomon who was willing to divide the baby.
I never thought about this application of this biblical story to the Palestinian Arabs - it really makes sense!
DeleteYeah, anonymous, your two points are very important - but I don't think we should underestimate unconscious associations.
DeleteInteresting take. I think it's only a minor part of the story:
ReplyDelete1. Muslims have this mindset according to which any square mm of land that belonged to Dar al Islam even for 5 seconds, is now Muslim for ever.
2. The Arab mindset does not respect compromise, only a fight to the death.
Peter
Refuting the Jew Haters
ReplyDeleteby Mr. Cohen of the Derech Emet yahoo group, 2014/4/27
I do NOT suggest that any Jew waste his or her time arguing with Jew haters, for many reasons.
First, our obligation as Jews is to serve G_d, not argue with Jew hating lunatics.
Second, they can be dangerous, and even if you think you are anonymous on the internet,
you are not as anonymous as you think you are, and they may find you, G_d forbid.
Third, many Jew haters are fanatics and/or lunatics, who will never listen to anything you say, or even use your words against Jews in ways you did not anticipate.
Still, there are rare situations when it helps to know how to refute their accusations against Jews; for example, when a sincere Gentile co-worker or neighbor is influenced by the accusations of the Jew haters.
One favorite accusation of the Jew haters is that Jews have been expelled from many countries and cities. Jew haters use this to imply that Jews are bad people.
This accusation can be countered.
When a Medieval king expelled Jews from his country, Jews were usually not able to take their possessions with them, so all the possessions of the Jews became the property of the king, including: land, houses, furniture, gold, silver, jewels, farm animals, etc.
Even if the Jews had some way to take their money with them, which was far from guaranteed, they could not take their larger possessions with them. This permitted the kings to increase their wealth quickly with little risk.
So kings had big financial incentives to expel their Jews, as did lords and dukes.
Another reason why Jews were expelled many times from Christian countries was that Medieval Christians did not tolerate people whose beliefs disagreed with their own.
Medieval European Christians also persecuted other Christians whose beliefs disagreed with their own. For example:
In October 1536 CE, William Tyndale was publicly executed because he translated the Bible into English, even though he was Christian.
Most Christians alive today tolerate people with different beliefs, but this tolerance is around one or two centuries old.
We Jews should THANK G_D that we live in an era when most Christians no longer believe their religion wants them to persecute Jews.