Article: Page A12 Edmonton Journal
Apocalyptic creed
Tuesday, April 02, 2002
The Organization of the Islamic Conference is
meeting this week in Malaysia for a summit on terrorism. But delegates are
still squabbling over definitions, and many are torturing several different
languages in a bid to excuse the suicide bombers who attack "Zionist
targets" -- such as, say, families at a Passover seder. Israel, which is
waging a military campaign against terrorists, will likely be smeared as a
"terrorist state."
The conference will no doubt be a farce -- the
predictable fate of any and all such dialogues about terrorism. Thankfully, weak Canadian foreign policy
won't be on embarrassing display yet again -- Canada doesn't officially attend
OIC gatherings.
Why can't some Muslims agree that killing innocent
non-Muslims is unacceptable?
Part of the problem lies with Muslim civilization
itself. As
Samuel P. Huntington writes in The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of
World Order: "Wherever one looks along the perimeter of Islam, Muslims
have problems living peaceably with their neighbours ... The conflicts
within Islam (have also been) more numerous than those in any other
civilization, including tribal conflicts in Africa."
But even by the barbaric standards of the Arab
Middle East, Yasser Arafat and the Palestinian terrorist organizations that
operate freely under his writ have hit new lows. Eighteen months ago, Arafat
nursed the conceit that he could package the current conflict as a popular
uprising. He put schools on holiday and sent thousands of children to throw
rocks at Israeli soldiers. To ensure those soldiers were armed with live ammo,
he deployed snipers in the background. The result: a steady supply of blood for
Al Jazeera.
Remember Muhammad al-Dura, the 12-year-old
Palestinian boy who died in his father's arms? He has become the centrepiece of
a Palestinian Authority propaganda campaign urging children to emulate the
"beauty of the martyr." But
an in-depth documentary prepared for German television may explain why there
was no autopsy on him: he was likely killed by Palestinians, perhaps
deliberately.
Meanwhile, Israel reports that Palestinians are
using ambulances to shuttle terrorists. In one incident, soldiers stopped an
ambulance containing three small children -- plus an explosive belt hidden near
the gurney. The sanctity of the ambulance is a fundamental precept of the laws
of war. Yet for Palestinian terrorists, the Red Crescent is just another façade
to hide behind on the way to driving the Jews into the sea.
The argument that suicide bombers are organic
products of Israeli "aggression" is revolting nonsense. The plan to smuggle 50 tons
of weapons from Iran on board the Karine A, a Palestinian Authority-commanded
ship captured by Israeli commandos last year, was organized in 2000 -- before
the current incursions, and just after Israel offered Arafat his own country.
The weapons on the Karine A included enough
explosives to bring down an office building. And in their recent sweeps through
Palestinian areas, Israeli soldiers have found caches of other terrorist tools
banned by the Oslo accord. They include
sniper rifles, rocket-propelled grenades and mortars in the possession of
Palestinian Authority "policemen." Yet Arafat continues to live in a
fantasy propaganda world in which he is still a great champion of peace. Over
the weekend, he told Arab television Israel's invasion was "a response to
all the peace attempts because they do not want peace. They do not want peace!
... These extremist elements murdered my partner Yitzhak Rabin. Why did they
murder him? Because they do not want peace."
It is disgusting to hear Arafat mention Rabin, a man
killed for his peaceful convictions, in the same breath as himself. Like his
terrorist underlings, Arafat sees
the lives of children -- Palestinian and Israeli both -- as fodder for the Arab
ambition to ignite a regional war that will destroy Israel. He and his
supporters must be isolated internationally, beaten down militarily and made to
understand that Palestinians can never hope to have a country so long as they
embrace the apocalyptic creed under which suicide bombers -- and
Palestinians who cheer them on - explode themselves.
Southam Papers:
commentsn@sns.southam.ca
and:
editorial@thejournal.southam.ca
Letters to the Editor:
Edmonton Journal Editor in Chief:
Giles Gherson
ggherson@thejournal.southam.ca
BE FIRM, BUT POLITE. Racism has no place in Canada!
The same editorial was published in Montreal,
Saskatoon, Calgary and Victoria under the name listed below. Please circulate this to anyone you know in
these cities.
Southam Papers:
commentsn@sns.southam.ca
"Word games won't do" in the Saskatoon
StarPhoenix
"Isolate Arafat and his terrorists" in the
Times Colonist (Victoria)
"No compromise possible with terrorism's
manifest evil" in the
Calgary Herald
"Arafat hits new lows" in The Montreal
Gazette
