Iran in Denial
We say to him [Chaitanya], when he claims that they [the Jews] have a historical claim right back to 3000 years BCE—we say that the nation of Palestine upon the land of Canaan had a 7000 year history BCE. This is the truth, which must be understood and we have to note it, in order to say: ‘Netanyahu, you are incidental in history. We are the people of history. We are the people of history. We are the owners of history.” [Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, May 14, 2011.
Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a Somali-born Dutch-American activist, author and thinker, has become best known for her outspoken views on Islam, women’s rights and the societal consequences of secularism and her contention that Islam is fundamentally incompatible with Western democracy.
On May 2021, she endured much pain as she related how influences have legitimized antisemitism and Instagram activists have turned false narratives into deadly fantasies. She recalls a Pro-Palestinian moving through a Jewish neighborhood of London in which drivers were heard yelling “F**** all of them—Rape their daughters and we have to send a message like that. Please do it.”
She continues, during July 2005, Mohammad Bouyeri stood trial for the murder of Theo van Goch. A year earlier, in broad daylight on a street in Amsterdam, he shot Theo 8 times and then attempted to decapitate him. Theo’s crime for which Bouyeri meted out a death sentence, was a simple one: he had chosen to direct a film “Submission” that addressed the mistreatment of women under Islam.
Hirsi wrote the script for the film — So Bouyeri pinned a note to Theo’s chest when he killed him, declaring that she would be next. During his trial, Bouyeri said very little. But what he did say chilled everyone present. He declared he was not sorry for Theo’s murder; that he would do it again. As Geraldine Coughlan, who covered the trial for the BBC recalled: “There was total shock in the courtroom. Some people were actually standing up because they couldn’t believe what he was saying. It was really without emotion.”
Ayaan Hirsi Ali maintains that of all the narratives competing for our attention, there is none as volatile as the one that tells the story of Israel-Palestine. Indeed there is no other conflict in the world that manages to combine all the highly charged story-lines of our time: the narrative of the oppressor verses the oppressed, of the colonizer verses the colonized, of the genocide perpetrator and system of supremacy.
The narratives circulating today regarding Israel and the Jewish people are dangerous and wreaking havoc around the world. How else are we to explain the fact that since the most recent conflict erupted between Israel and Gaza, acts of antisemitism have spiked in many corners of the Western world?
Despite the horrors that culminated at Auschwitz, antisemitism has been haunting our societies for years, continuing to be taught in far-Left, far-Right and Islamic circles. She first encountered these teachings as a child in Africa; as a teenager, she joined the Muslim Brotherhood, where she was taught to believe that Jews were not even human, but descendants of pigs and monkeys.
Until recently, a pro-Palestinian in Brooklyn was given to chanting, “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” an antisemitic slogan coined by the PLO to call for the elimination of Israel. Until recently, it was a chant frequently associated with the likes of Hamas, a terrorist organization whose 1988 charter explicitly called for genocide of the Jewish people. But in today’s hysterical climate, one of the West’s most famous celebrities can use it and expect applause.
We now experience the rise of a 2nd frequently misunderstood slogan: a version of “Kaybar, Kaybar, oh Jews the army of Muhammad will return” in kaybar which dates back to the massacre of the Jews by Muhammad and his army in Khaybar, northern Arabia in the 7th century. It remains a battle cry used by Muslims when attacking Jews or Israelis.
A Jewish man, Josef Borgon was attacked by a group of pro-Palestinian activists in NYC Times Square. They reportedly beat him with a crutch, sprayed him with mace, called him a “dirty Jew” and explained that “Hamas is going to kill all of you.” Remarkably, a photo of one of the men accused of assaulting Borgon, Wasseem Awawdeh, coincidentally appeared in a deleted Instagram photo posted by one Bella Hadid from a pro- Palestinian protest.
Yet what Ayaan Hirsi Ali found most disturbing was how Awawdeh’s comments following the attack mirrored those of Muhammad Bouyeri after he killed Theo van Goch. Just as Bouyeri refused to apologize, Awawdeh reportedly proclaimed from his jail cell: “If I could do it again, I would do it again.”
A video has since been released, purporting to show Awawdeh leaving prison on bail; his friends welcome him outside, put him on their shoulders and proclaim that he was a “hero”.
Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s conclusion, “And herein lies the the problem: when such odious acts as Adwawdeh’s can be represented as heroism, you suddenly see how easy it is for false narratives to turn into deadly fantasies.”
Matthew Hausman’s, “Annexation Wins Hands Down Over a Two-State Solution” is undoubtedly extremely timely. Indeed, his introduction, “History, Demographics, and Law Favor Israel’s Annexation of Judea and Samaria, Not a Two-State Solution” speaks volumes.
He recognizes the two-state paradigm as being based on fictional assumptions—that an ancient Palestinian people occupied the land for thousands of years until its displacement by Israel, that the conflict is driven by this displacement, and that Israel usurped ancestral Arab soil.
Clearly, an independent Palestine will not facilitate peace, because the goal of war is Israel’s demise. Housman’s recognition of a more rational resolution, would be for Israel to annex some or all of Judea, Samara, and other areas which were part of the ancient Jewish commonwealth; representing the only sovereign nation ever to exist between the Jordan and the Mediterranean.
Too often the Western media chooses to avoid discussion of annexation, despite the San Remo Conference of 1920 and the League of Nations Mandate for Palestine of 1922, originally contemplating Jewish settlement throughout the traditional homeland, well before the term. No amount of subterfuge can change the fact that Palestinian nationalism is an artificial construct or that Judea and Samaria were never lawfully part of any sovereign Arab nation.
The Obama Administration and European Union remain deaf, dumb and blind to Palestinian prevarications and incitement, even as they chastise Israel for not offering even more unilateral concessions. Arab provocations are ignored or rewarded, while Israel is labeled obstructionist, despite the unrequited compromises she has made in the naive search for peace with those who seek destruction.
Advocate Housman’s conclusion serves us well, but we remain in the hands of politicians. He astutely asserts that if the inclination of the US Administration and EU is to denigrate Israel, favor the Palestinians, and appease Arab-Muslim sensibilities is any indication, Israel must act on the latter impulse.
That is, Israel needs to shake off all vestiges of the societal ambivalence that was engendered by the Israeli Left when it cajoled the nation into the ill-fated Oslo process, which led only to increased terrorism and diplomatic isolation, two costly wars in Lebanon and Gaza, and the disenfranchisement of Israel’s political center.
David Pryce-Jones [born February,1936] is a British conservative, author, historian, and political commentator, educated at Eaton. His book, “The Closed Circle- an Interpretation of the Arabs”is a brilliant book. What follows is extracted from his Commentary’s “The Inflammation of Europe, December 2004”
His commencement, “Only a few years ago, mass-murder attacks on the West in the name of Islam, like those of September 11, would have seemed like a thriller writer’s fantasy. Nor would anyone have imagined that a bombing by Islamist’s could swing a general election in a European country, that a Dutch movie-maker might be shot dead on the street for a film about the abuse of women in Islam, or that one might find oneself watching, on television, the beheading of Western hostages by men crying out ‘Allahu Akhbar!’ over their savage deeds.
Pakistan now has a nuclear bomb, and this weapon is widely described as an Islamic bomb. To judge by their pronouncements, the Islamist leaders of Iran can hardly wait to perfect and use their derivative of it.”
Among the various Muslim organizations, a number function as Islamist fronts. Inspired by Saudi Arabia or Khomeinist Iran, by the Muslim Brotherhood or al Qaeda, they work to undermine democracy in whatever ways they can, just as Soviet front organizations once did.
They push immigrants to repudiate both the process and the very idea of integration, challenging them as a matter of religious belief and identity to take up an oppositional stance to the societies in which they live. In the realm of classical Islam, Christians and Jews once lived as dhimmis —that is to say, minorities with 2nd class rights, tolerated but discriminated against by law and custom.
Many contemporary Muslims appear to idealize this long-lost supremacy over others, and aspire to construct it. One way to work for this end is through violence and terror. Another way, the way, the way of Tariq Ramadan and Yusaf al-Qardawi, is through words. One way and another, the project is advancing.
Summing up the collective achievement so far, Bat Ye’or, the historian of “dimmitude”, has written that “Europe has evolved from a Judeo-Christian civilization with important post-Enlightenment/secular elements to—a secular Muslim transitional society with its traditional Judeo- Christian mores rapidly disappearing.” She calls this evolving entity “Eurabia.”
Does President Donald Trump understand any of this when he says he wishes to speak to the leader of Iran, Ayatolla Ali Khamenei. In previous times would he have desired to speak to Hitler? Despots who cause so much human tragedy’s deserve to be destroyed, and not to be “talked to”.
