The
Palestinian Authority (PA) is at war with Israel. We can see one part of its war
through the way it talks about Israel.
It demonizes
the Jewish state.
That’s how
it works in war: you demonize your enemy.
Demonization
is a sure sign that war is a communal goal. Demonization is not used to
entertain or to inform. It has a more particular focus.
Specifically,
the aim of demonization is to make it easier to remove cultural and religious
inhibitions against murder. Demonization is how leaders prepare followers to
want to kill an enemy.
The PA can’t
stop demonizing Israel. It won’t stop.
Here are
some headlines for—and personal comments about—stories from the Palestinian
Authority. The headlines come from December 18-25, 2013.
-Report:
Israel to release more veteran Palestinian prisoners next week
-Israel strikes Gaza after border shootings, 2
dead in violence
-Hamas, PA condemn Israeli airstrikes on Gaza
-UNRWA
condemns Israel's 'Christmas Eve demolitions' in the West Bank
-Erekat: Israeli airstrikes a 'criminal
Christmas gift' to Gaza
-Israel denies killing second Palestinian
during Gaza upheaval
-Israeli
forces detain seven Palestinians across the West Bank
-Palestinians
celebrate release of Issawi despite Israeli threats
-Prisoner Samir Issawi released from Israeli
jail
-Israeli
bulldozers destroy 15 Palestinian homes near Ramallah
-Israeli
troops erect tents near Yabad
-Israeli forces raid Nablus, detain five young
men
-Israeli
forces demolish Palestinian properties in Jordan Valley
- Group: Israel must release all
Palestinian prisoners
----
The
demonization drumbeat against Israel is relentless. During this news cycle, we
were reminded that fifty-nine per cent of Palestinians say Israel poisoned former
PLO leader Yasser Arafat. Never mind that twenty-one per cent of these Arab
respondents say the Palestinians did it themselves. The PA considered it
unimportant that fully a fifth of respondents think their own leadership killed
Arafat. The PA focus was exclusively on Israel: Israelis killed our beloved
leader!
The message
is, Israel kills. Indeed, during this news cycle, the PA accused Israel of
killing a three-year old ‘Palestinian’ boy in Gaza—as a result of an Israeli
air strike against terrorists embedded inside a residential area. No one noticed
that embedding combatants inside a civilian population is a war crime. They demonized the Israelis.
No one
noticed that the incident reported here had occurred because an Arab sniper had
killed an Israeli. It didn’t matter. They demonized the Israelis.
As if on
cue, one reader commenting on the article reporting this story said that
Palestinians ‘have the right to defend themselves against these monsters’
(Israel, not the terrorists who used human shields). Another reader trotted out
the canard of ‘disproportionate response’, to say that while Palestinians take
pot-shots, the Israelis drop bombs—as if the Arab-Israel war was some kind of
game that is measured by a ‘tit-for-tat rule--and anyone who violates that rule
must be condemned for unfair play. Another reader said, just remember who
killed the kid, and who’s dropping the bombs here—as if the relevant facts were
‘kid’ versus ‘bombs’ and not ‘human shield’ and ‘sniper killing’ versus Israeli
civilian.
That’s how
it is in war. You ignore the truth. You demonize the enemy.
The Arab
continues to live by the sword—and use human shields. The Israelis are the ‘monsters’.
That’s how
it is in war. You demonize the enemy.
Of course, Hamas and the PA were angry about
this incident. But they condemned Israel, not the terrorists who started the
shooting.
Hamas
condemned the air strike, saying that such ‘cowardly crimes would not deter
Palestinian resistance fighters from doing their duty’. The PA, meanwhile,
announced that it had contacted the ‘international sides’ to intervene against
the Israelis.
The PA
forgot to mention that this latest escalation was begun by its own ‘resistance
fighters’—a group called, ‘the Popular Resistance Committee’. This so-called ‘Committee’
claimed responsibility for shooting the Arab civilian contract-employee of the
Israel Defense Force who had been working on the Israeli side of the Gaza
fence. It was his killing that had provoked the Israeli bombing.
Both Hamas
and the PA condemned Israel. No one on the ‘Palestinian’ side condemned the
sniper who had killed the Israeli-employed Arab.
No Arab
apologized for killing another Arab. They simply insisted on calling the
retaliatory Israeli air strike, ‘cowardly’.
Somehow, one
gets the notion that the cowardice here was not Israel’s, but the Arab’s. There
seems to be something cowardly about killing an Israeli, then blaming Israel.
When, this
week, an Arab terrorist, Samir Issawi, was released from an Israeli prison
after he’d engaged in a 266-day hunger strike, he was hailed as a hero of
‘Palestine’. He had been originally arrested by Israeli forces during the
Second Intifada (in April, 2002),and was among prisoners released in October, 2011
as part of a deal connected to the release of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit.
Issawi’s release at that time was based on an agreement to restrict his travel
movements. But he was re-arrested in
July 2012 for violating that agreement. He is now free again—and unrepentant.
As soon as he was released, he called upon ‘Palestinians’ to kidnap more
Israeli soldiers.
Finally, the PA used this news cycle to remind its readers that
Israel can’t stop detaining ‘Palestinians’.
The claim this time was that, after the October, 2011 prisoner swap (above)
which saw over 1,000 Palestinians freed in return for captured Israeli soldier
Gilad Shalit, the brutal Israelis immediately arrested over 477 people--between
the release (in October) and that December. By 2013, we are told, Israel has
been arresting around 400 Arabs per month. This meant, we are informed, that Israel
has now arrested and detained twenty per cent of the total Palestinian
population.
To understand
the intensity of the PA war against Israel, compare the news from the PA with
Israel’s news headlines (below). In the PA, you see Israel painted as a brutal (and
illegal) ‘occupier’ who detains, dispossesses and kills Arabs at will.
But for
Israel, the focus is not the ‘demon’ Arab. Instead, the focus is terror. Look
at the language of Israel’s headlines for this news cycle:
-heightened
tension (with the Arabs)
-a rise of
terror
-a spike in
terror [against Jews]
-Gaza
terrorists fire rockets at Israel
-Netanyahu
mourns Israeli shot dead by terrorist
-Israel
still to release another 26 Arab prisoners this week
-Israel redeploys
its Iron Dome [anti-missile missiles] to southern Israel
-a normal
country wouldn’t release terrorists
These—and related--headlines
paint a clear picture: Arabs riot here, throw stones there, attack Jews
everywhere. In Israel, the news is about a season of terror, not peace.
These headlines
are not from a year’s worth of news—or a month; they are from this one six-day news
cycle.
Supposedly,
there are peace talks going on. Supposedly, peace is about to break out. Supposedly,
Jew and Arab are soon to live side-by-side in peace and security.
But Israelis
don’t prepare for peace. They prepare for a wave of terror. The PA, meanwhile, ignores
peace. One again, this PA news cycle hardly mentions ‘peace’. Instead, the PA continues
to demonize Israel. It continues to slant news. It continues to paint Israel as
brutal and illegal ‘occupiers’.
Can you see
where this is going?
It isn’t
going towards peace.
What must
the G-d of Israel think of all this?
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