On a personal basis, interactions with our Muslim Arab friends can be strained but I want to relate one quick story.  Our carpenter is an amazing craftsman as well as a wonderful human being.  When he came yesterday to deliver our reupholstered chairs he mentioned that he was fasting (along with his two workers) for Ramadan. Then ensued a fun conversation on the differences between Jewish and Muslim fasting. Of course, since he has lived with Jews his whole life he know that we wait until 3 stars are out to break our fast (or, I told him, 2 stars and one aircraft :). And that was it.  Of course, there were the things left unsaid and, were he alone, I would have asked him about his feelings, etc.  But the key is that the interaction was unremarkable.  And that is the way it should be.  So one of the key items I want to address is why Hamas and its distorted Islamic philosophy has taken hold.  It is easy to attribute it to Islam per say and, yes, horrible horrible things are being done in the name of Islam all over the Middle East today.  But the political ideology behind this is also extremely important to understand since the Palestinian “movement” was started by purely secular Arabs.  And only later was Islam grafted onto this murderous ideology to give it a patina of religious zeal since Islam was perfectly suited for this transformation.

The most powerful piece I have seen on this subject was just published in the Times of Israel (http://www.timesofisrael.com/the-tragic-self-delusion-behind-the-hamas-war/).  It’s a read but worth your time if this issue interests you since I think he nails the underlying ideology perfectly. In a nutshell, from the days of Arafat, the premise of the PLO, Fatah and now Hamas is that Israel is a colonial enterprise and that like all anti-colonial movements, if they strike Israel enough times, the Zionists (they mean Jews) will decide it is not worth the cost, pick up and go home.  It is based upon the same revolutionary movements that threw the French out of Algeria and the French and Americans out of Indochina.  It finally explained to me the odd comment by the Hamas spokesperson recently that Hamas is willing to sacrifice as many martyrs as possible — in fact, in Algeria 45,000 were killed in a single day. (here is the quote — and the slip of the tongue that the spokesman made when he said that Hamas is intentionally leading their civilians to death…err, I mean, confrontation http://www.palwatch.org/main.aspx?fi=157&doc_id=12063)  But it was worth the sacrifice because the French, in the end, turned up their tails and left.

There is only one “slight”  problem with this ideological model, The French could go home — but Israelis are indigenous to here and we have nowhere to go. So instead of these attacks weakening our resolve to the point we leave (to where I am not sure) it stiffens our resolve and unites us.  This is a fatal flaw in their ideology.  It also explains why 1. they are willing to direct the killing of their citizens (http://palwatch.org/main.aspx?fi=157&doc_id=12019) 2. they put almost no money in state building and — and this is most important — they invest enormous  national and intellectual energy (and so does Fatah, the PA and Abbas himself) that only the Palestinians — a completely invented people and national identity (http://www.frontpagemag.com/2011/david-meir-levi/an-invented-people/) —  are the true indigenous people and the Jews are no roots here — that there was no Jewish Kingdom — King David was a fable; no Jewish Temple in Jerusalem; Jesus was a Palestinian, not a Jew, etc.  Under their current ideology they must say this even though you and I and any normal Jew or Christian knows this is a total fabrication.  Essentially, the Palestinians are stuck in a failed ideology now anchored in Islam. Here is an example of how this anti-colonialist theology becomes completely sick http://elderofziyon.blogspot.co.il/2014/07/arab-writer-justifies-rocket-terror-as.html#.U8TxQrHiO4Y  and btw Elders of Zion is a great resource: http://elderofziyon.blogspot.co.il. Due to Hamas’ anti-colonialist theology, Leftist the world over support Palestinians and call for the elimination of Israel (in consort with the ultra-right, which does seem strange but when it comes to anti-Antisemitism this is doable) in spite of Israel’s liberal, democratic society that does not hang gays, abuse women, restrict speech or demand religious loyalty — all important issues for a typical Leftist ideology.  So the Left the world-over is stuck as well in a dysfunctional, diseased paradigm that is completely divorced from reality and is a historical artifact from Arafat’s design. 

The other thing I wanted to mention is this whole issue of Israel (really Jewish) power which I also alluded to in my last email.  If Israel wanted really target civilians with our military we could flatten Gaza and Algeria would look like a picnic.  270 dead “civilians” compared to what we could do (and the 270 civilian number is completely fabricated by Hamas people on the ground like in every battle we have with them — that the majority of the casualties are fighting age males and that Hamas calls them civilians to up the casualty count as part of their PR strategy —http://www.algemeiner.com/2014/07/15/watchdog-al-jazeeras-gaza-fatalities-data-indicates-israel-killed-mostly-combatant-age-males-not-women-or-children/)  clearly proves we are avoiding civilians casualties (see this clip by Col. Richard Kemp testifying on Israel’s conduct during wartime — I have met him and he is a true hero to stand up to these false accusations at the UN: http://www.unwatch.org/site/apps/nlnet/content2.aspx?c=bdKKISNqEmG&b=1313923&ct=7536409). So Israel is protecting civilians even as these Hamas fighters hide behind the skirts of civilians and Hamas launches, day after day, missiles into cities to kill as many civilians as they can.   Hamas first tells its population that it’s good to die for Islam and the “cause”, then it places them as human shields, then when civilians die, Hamas uses their deaths to piss off the West and feed the Left’s and Arab propaganda machine.  It is such a  cynical use of human life yet  this is all you hear from the foreign media. http://www.algemeiner.com/2014/07/16/nothing-makes-hamas-happier-than-dead-palestinians/

I want to spend a moment on our worst enemy — ourselves.  I mentioned last time Jewish Voice for Peace.  Another example of how dysfunctional and dangerous the Jewish Left has become are the writings of Gideon Levy of Haaretz. Take,  for example this reprehensible article (http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/1.605001) He spews this vitriol weekly.  Out of curiously, I wanted to know whether there were Jews supporting Hitler during the early days of WW II.  Yep!  Here are a few links. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Association_of_German_National_Jews and  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Naumann.