I can’t endorse the sentiment, ______, having taken a moderate course, but I hope that more and more Arabs will take note of the abuse of the refugees at the hands of their leaders and the medieval disinformation and manipulation campaigns that have led to The Preoccupation not only with the Jews but their own self-concept and status in the world. Too many fathers like al-Husseini have put them on the worst imaginable track, i.e., the emulation of Hitler and the Nazis. Some who have embraced that most may be due to wake up from the nightmare within them that has long masqueraded as their dream.
BackChannels now has plenty of information as to how the Israelis, the west, the refugees of 1948 and their generations, got to this unpretty pass. The themes erupting in WWII — that Stalin-Hitler thing — have been sustained in the middle east conflict; the Soviet promotion of anti-Semitism in the middle east and the concomitant terrorism of the PLO and PFLP have been similarly and perhaps exhaustively covered; the formation and presence of what has been referred to here as “Syndicate Red Brown Green”; the self-dissolve of the Soviet on December 26, 1991 also has been remarked in these virtual pages, as have the feudal kleptocracies kept floating along in its place and around it; less has been remarked as regards the post-Cold War Era around the world, but BackChannels believes we’re in that realm as this is being posted.
All in all, and with Khamenei pressing for Israel’s destruction while a smattering of Sunni-majority states brand Hezbollah as a terrorist organization (that move took a while plus some “war by proxy” on Iran’s part), the world, even in one of its most medieval appearances, appears to want to move forward, not backward — and forward would seem toward the classical liberalism of the west.
The comment to which the excerpt responds called for the realization al-Husseini’s manipulative lie: the Jews haven’t any desire to “take over” Al Aqsa Mosque — never did and never will — because while being Jewish involves attending to self defense, it also involves being about and for others, and that includes the Arab brother and sister.
Two of Hillel the Elder’s most famous statements ring down through the ages: “That which is distasteful to thee, do not do to another.” That is an idea predicated on the concept of human self-restraint. Israel may produce harm when harmed itself, but it does not have to prove its power through making others suffer with impunity. If met with the force that would do that to people, including its own people, then it may answer in kind.
The second of Hillel’s language-based corrals: “If I am not for myself, who will be for me? If I am not for others, what am I? If not now, when?”
Some Palestinians may be surprised to find Israelis for them in peace, but peace is needed as part of a sea change in the character of our humanity.
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