By GORDON GLANTZ
Keep your friends close but your enemies closer.
You know the old saying.
With the currently complicated mess between Israelis and the so-called Palestinians, it is hard to keep Hamas or its human shields closer, but we can endeavor to put an ear to the street and listen to what they have to say.
This comes with a warning: We may not like it.
This is not being filtered through the sympathetic lenses of the likes of the BCC and CNN, which seem wired to tell a one-sided story.
We will listen to the pre-war words of women, children, clergy and “elected” leaders of the so-called Palestinians.
While some fellow self-hating Jews try to tell me that our enemy is not unified in its pure hatred of all things Zionist (code for Jewish, via the birth of Israel), the reality is that 99.99 percent believe in the “from the river to the sea” ideology, with the only wiggle room being that a few may not mean it literally.
Very few.
Don’t believe me?
Let’s take a deep into quotes from Palestinian TV (yes, the oppressed somehow had that). These are the same civilians/human shields who gleefully celebrated in the streets of Gaza — and the West Bank — as if they won the World Cup on Oct. 7.
The women hostages, while being raped, likely heard the celebration.
And, for context, remember these words from Golda Meir: Peace will come when they love their children more than they hate us” as you take all this in.
The women interviewed — from mothers to grandmothers to Kindergarten teachers — all strike a general theme that they are on earth to urge their sons toward Jihad, And it begins from infancy, as Jihad is the direct path to being next to Allah. Martydom is a badge of honor for a family
“Death is inevitable, so why not die as martyrs?” said one woman.
Another said it is why they give birth to such large numbers of children. They are not doing so to make society a better place, but so there are more martyrs.
With the clergy, we again need context. While we all tend to coexist and respect one another’s beliefs — or lack thereof — the more radical Islamic clerics are still fighting the crusades.
What the West, with rose-colored glasses, doesn’t grasp, is that they are coming at it not as a private matter but as a public one. It is a political worldview, and one with little variance.
I saw one Imam with a long white beard (I suppose to create an aura of wisdom) talk about the need to leave no Jews on the earth.
And, if they don’t mention the Christians directly, they hint at it.
While we see clips of starving children, I saw clips of children barely potty trained training in terror methods (albeit with toy guns).
“We asked Hitler why he left some of you alive,” said one who can apparently communicate with the great beyond. “He did so in order to show how wicked you are.”
The words of the political leaders pretty much close the door on a realistic two-state solution any time in out lifetimes.
Examples?
Sure.
–“The existence of Israel is illogical.”
–“Everything we do is justified.”
–“We shall never recognize Israel.”
In a fight described as “eternal,” they openly preach about killing Jews .
–This is our principle, or ideology, and it’s not up for compromise.”
It is curious that the antisemitism mostly comes from the left when 20 percent of Generation Z identifies as nonbinary or LGBTQ, something that will get you a short flight of a tall building in Gaza or the West Bank.
While there Israelis on the far right who are not accepting of an alternative lifestyle, they are not for the death penalty.
As a point of a note, the conservative party in Israel has an openly gay member in parliament.
The world can have its opinions but we Jews know the facts.
We know what our friends think — at least we think we did — but the thoughts of our enemies seem to make a dream of a lasting peace akin to a LSD trip.
Have any of us heard our mothers, grandmothers, rabbis, elected leaders — even those on the far right — call for the outright genocide of Arab Muslims?
Not Golda Meir.
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