Israel Isn’t Reason Arabs Dislike America
Page 3-THE NEWS-October 1990
By Maurice Weinstein
We are facing you in the battle
and are burning with desire for it
to start to obtain revenge.
—r Gamal Abdel Nasser, 1967
Publisher Rolfe Neill, in the first
of his three columns on the Mideast,
concluded that U.S. military forces
are not welcome in Arab countries.
He asks; “Why aren’t we wel
comed?” In part, he answers: Arabs
look upon America as “pro-Israel”
and “anti-Arab.”
The thrust of the columns is that
enmity toward America caused by
U.S. support of Israel, and that
issues concerned with Israel in
Congress are dominated by the
“pro-Israel” lobby to the extent
“that meaningful dialogue no longer
exists in Congress.”
The truth, however, is that intense
animosity by the masses of Arabs
toward the West preceded the
reestablishment of Israel by many
centuries; and even if Israel did not
exist, the enmity toward the West,
including the United States, would
persist.
Illustrative is a recent New York
Times report from Saudi Arabia:
“Saudi newspaper and television
news talk of the 'Islamic, Arab and
other multinational forces’ arriving
here to stand up to Iraq....” They
are careful not to mention the U.S.
forces.
There are three historical reasons
for the deep-seated hatred of the
West:
The first involves the religion of
the Arabs, 95% of whom are Mus
lims, adherents of Islam. Islam
dismissed Christianity and Judaism
as being incomplete, distorted and
superseded by Islam. The Koran, the
bible of Islam, states that Christians
and Jews are to be humiliated. The
Koran also teaches that Islam will
prevail over other religions. These
teachings constituted the beginning
of antagonism.
The second cause of enmity
involves the conquests by Muslims.
War in behalf of Islam is known as
a jihad, a holy war. The purpose was
to spread Islamic domain until all
mankind was subject to Islamic law.
After the death of Muhammad,
the prophet and messenger, in 632,
his followers conquered both the
Byzantine and Persian empires.
They moved north to subdue Chris
tendom and were defeated at Poit-
ers, France, in 732. These 100 years
of war, prior to the defeat, have been
referred to as the days of glory.
Later, the Muslims, as the Otto
man Empire, endeavored to conquer
Christendom in 1529 and 1683, but
were repulsed at Vienna each time.
These failures to extend the
domain of Islamic law were blamed
on the Christians. Instead of hum
iliating the Christians, as the Koran
says, the Muslims were humiliated.
They have a keen sense of history,
and the stories of the days of both
glory and defeat are repeated
through the generations, bolstering
the enmity toward the West.
The third cause of hatred of the
West was the colonization of the
Arab countries. In 1798, Napoleon
shocked the Arab world by invading
Egypt. During the next 150 years,
England, France, Spain and Italy
conquered and colonized nearly all
the Arab lands. It was a traumatic
experience. Arabdom was dormant,
in pain and ruled by the West. The
pain was intensified because the
Muslims were meant to rule over
others. They gradually received their
independence around the time of
World War II. The resentment
continues to this day.
Why resentment against the Uni
ted States? It was never involved in
fighting the MusHms nor in colon
izing them. Nevertheless, the Mus
lims consider the United States part
of the Protestant and Catholic
Christendom that convulsed and
oppressed the Arab world.
On his television show, William
Buckley interviewed an Arab who
said, “Israel is an expansionist
country.” Buckley responded, “Yes,
every time you attack them, they
expand.”
Israel must use great caution to
protect its citizens, for at its waist,
Israel’s width is smaller than the city
of Charlotte.
Israel declared its independence in
1948, based upon a resolution of the
United Nations. The next day five
Arab armies invaded. They were
defeated. The Arabs clamor that
Israel created refugees. Every war
produces refugees. If the Arabs had
not attacked, there would have been
no refugees.
Again in 1967, the Arabs attacked
Israel. Israel pushed the Arab armies
back in all directions and defeated
them. The Arabs clamor that Israel
occupies Arab lands. If the Arabs
had not attacked, Israel would not
have occupied the lands.
In 1981, Israel bombed and des
troyed the facilities where Saddam
was developing an atomic bomb. If
not for that, the present confron
tation on the Persian Gulf would be
far more perilous.
All these events caused conster
nation and humiliation in the Arab
world; but neither these events nor
aid granted Israel by the United
States initiated nor caused hatred of
the West. That already existed, with
intensity.
Another point: In his third article,
Rolfe Neill takes after Sen. Jesse
Helms. He says: “Yet Helms must
have noticed later (after the 1984
campaign) that pro-Israel P ACs put
$222,342 into Hunt’s $9.8 million
treasury,” and none to Helms. And,
further, that “since then. Helms has
become one of Israel’s friends.”
The connotation is that Helms
changed his views to get PAC funds
next time around. That is nonsense.
The PAC contribution to Hunt
amounted to about 2% of his
campaign funds — not enough to
cause any candidate to change his
views, and certainly not Helms, a
man of strong convictions. Even
Neill says that five months before
the Hunt-Helms election. Helms
advocated moving the U.S. Embas
sy to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv.
Helms speaks frequently on the
floor of the Senate in the interest
of Israel’s security. He became an
ardent friend of Israel because he
has studied Israel’s cause and knows
that it is in the national interest.
In his three articles Rolfe Neill
adopted a theme, and sought to
justify it — but mostly with spec
ulation and innuendo.
FORA BETTIER View
iw/.
Be Grateful for Israel Lobby
In a recent column, my friend
Rolfe Neill asks that we try to
understand the Arabs better during
the present Mideast crisis, and then
blames Israel and the Israeli lobby
in Washington for our present
ignorance of this subject. By impli
cation, he echoes Saddam Hussein’s
contention that the Israelis are to
blame for the crisis.
It is quite clear that both Rolfe
and Saddam Hussein are wrong,
that Israel has nothing to do with
Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait and that
the Arab-Israeli conflict is not the
sole cause of the upheaval in the
Mideast.
Nor can the Kuwait crisis be
blamed on the Arabs. It was an Arab
country that was invaded, and the
armies of five Arab countries are
shoulder to shoulder with our army
in opposing the Iraqi aggression.
One does not, as Rolfe suggests,
have to take an advanced course in
Arab history to understand what is
happening in the Mideast today, nor
to appreciate the important contri
bution the Arabs have made to
world civilization.
The real issue is not the history
or the character of the Arab people
but the quality of the leadership in
the confrontational Arab states.
Saddam Hussein, Muammar Gad-
hafi, Yasir Arafat and Hafez Assad
arc dangerous, relentless men who
gained power through violence and
repression. They practice terrorism
against innocent women and chil
dren, seize and cynically use hos
tages to accomplish their ends and
resort to practices unrestrained by
civilized norms.
These men have treated the world
to hijackings, political assassina
tions, the murder of more than
20,000 Syrians at Hams, endless
bloodshed in Lebanon, the Iran/
Iraq war in which more than a
million people died, the use of
poisonous gases in war and against
innocent civilians, and now the rape
and pillaging of Kuwait. They have
betrayed their own people by cyn
ically exploiting the Palestinian
issue for their own selfish purposes
and by diverting resources that
could be used to improve the lives
of their citizens into weapons of
mass destruction
As long as this kind of leader is
in control of important Mideast
nations, there will never be peace
there, nor will Israel be willing to
give up the territory which stands
between it and destruction. By
aligning with Saddam Hussein and
refusing to join the world commu
nity in condemnation of the inva
sion, Yasir Arafat has once again
proven that he is an unreliable
“partner” in the peace process.
Fortunately, not all the Arab
leaders are of this stripe. Anwar
Sadat was one of the great statesmen
of the 20th century. He had the
vision and the courage to make
peace with Israel. In return, the
Israelis trusted and respected him
and gave him back the Sinai and
the precious wells that provided
most of Israel’s oil. The peace made
by this great man has survived.
When men like Sadat lead the Arab
countries, Israel will make peace
with its Arab neighbors.
Rolfe surely knows it was Saddam
Hussein and not the Israeli lobby,
powerful as it is. who invaded
Kuwait. Moreover, the Israeli lobby
was not strong enough to counter
the efforts of the powerful farm and
business lobbies to provide Saddam
Hussein with the commerce and
resources that strengthened his army
and prepared him for the invasion
of Kuwait. Nor was it strong enough
to stop the military-industrial lob
by’s efforts to sell to Hussein and
other unstable Mideast countries the
weapons that may soon be used to
kill our own soldiers. To the very
date of the invasion, high persons
in the Bush administration and Sen.
Robert Dole were openly promoting
more trade with Saddam, extending
$4 billion of credits to him and
opposing a congressional bill to
sanction him. At the same time, they
were attacking the Israeli lobby for
opposing such things.
As long as leaders like Saddam
Hussein control Iraq and other
major Mideast countries, we should
all be grateful to the Israeli lobby
for reminding all of us that the
Mideast is a dangerous and violent
place which threatens the security
of not just Israel but the entire
world.
— Mark R. Bernstein
I
I
vjnv©
Being Paranoid
In the ’90s
By Abe Warshenbrot
When The Charlotte Observer
and its publisher devoted three
weeks in a row to bashing AlPAC
and its influence in the U.S.A., the
writings seemed familiar. I was sure
I read it some time in the past. I
went searching and found my hunch
correct. 1 copied a few sentences.
Can you guess who wrote them?
A. Jews are more advantageously
placed than Arabs throughout this
country to tell their story. The
consequences can be seen in Amer
ican knowledgeability.
B. A second weapon in the service
of the Jew; the Press. With all his
perseverance and dexterity, he seizes
possession of it. With it he slowly
begins to grip and ensnare, to guide
and to push all public life, since he
is in a position to create and direct
that power which, under the name
of“PubIic Opinion,”is better known
today than a few decades ago.
C. Many senators and represen
tatives are intimidated by the
massed might of nearly 80 political
action committees with a pro-Israel
agenda and a success record in
defeating politicans who oppose
them... Pro Israel means discourag
ing in U.S. arms sale to Arabs and
getting ever bigger funds from
Congress... Through interlocking
actions, they target congressional
enemies and blow them away with
big money for TV. That’s why there
is now mostly silence on Capitol Hill
when it comes to matters Arab vs.
Israeli. It’s a national shame and not
at all healthy in the long run for
Israel itself.
D. Our present-day party Chris
tians debase themselves to begging
for Jewish votes at elections and
later try to arrange political swindles
with atheistic Jews parties — and
this against their own nation... Now
the Jew begins to reveal his true
qualities. With repulsive flattery he
approaches the governments, puts
his money to work, and in this way
manages to secure new license to
plunder his victims...
E. Although Jews are 2'/i% of the
country’s population, they furnish
more than 50% of the money raised
by Democrats and perhaps 25% of
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F. Proportionately as the power
of the princes begins to mount, he
(the Jew) pushes closer and closer
to them. He begs for “patents” and
“privileges” which the lords, always
in financial straits, are glad to give
him for suitable payment. However
much this may cost him, he recovers
the money he has spent in a few
years...
A, C and E were taken from Mr.
Rolf Neill’s three articles. B, D and
F were taken from “Mein Kampf’
by Adolf Hitler (Houghton Mifflin
1971 Edition, translated by Ralph
Manheim, pages 317-320).
Is Mr. Neill anti-Semitic? Prob
ably not. Is he just ignorant of the
facts? 1 hope he is willing to learn
those facts. Unfortunately, Mr.
Neill’s articles give legitimacy to
anti-Semitic feelings. I discussed it
the other day with a member of the
Jewish community. “You’re para
noid,” he said. Maybe so. But six
million victims of the Hoiocaust
would have wished they were para
noids. And as a known psychiatrist
once said, even a paranoid can be
right once in a while.
It is time for the Jewish commu
nity as a whole to initiate a dialogue
that will get to the source of these
feelings and stop further undesirable
development. It is a problem that
affects us all.
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