One corpse, 11 people, and 450 mllion critics
February 19th 2010 03:50
Do you remember when Hamas was considered a proscribed Islamic terrorist organization and Israel a legitimate government? Ah, those were the days. And they took one step closer to ending forever today.
I’m astonished by the scale of the furore over this for two reasons. One, the dead man in Dubai was a commander of Hamas, whose mindset is illuminated by considering some of its allies. In particular, consider President Bashar Assad of Syria, whose office foyer sports a life-size statue depicting Saladin expelling Crusaders from Palestine. He, and his allies in Hamas and Iran, are at the vanguard of what is already a wide Islamic front against the West and its interests, in practice if not in name. They see themselves as modern-day Saladins, and they see Assad’s statue as both the model for their actions and the prediction of their outcome. And once they finish with Tel Aviv and Ashkelon, they’re going to move on to Rome and Paris.
And Israel is condemned for striking first at that front? Ridiculous.
Second of all, I am nauseated by the repeated claims that the incident is being investigated as a “normal” case of murder and fraud, and that the upcoming diplomatic spats between Israel and Britain, Ireland, Austria, and others are because of the use of falsified passports and telephone networks in those countries. If that’s so, Gordon Brown, answer me one question: why don’t you summon ambassadors when Chinese hackers do the same thing, or the al-Quds “newspaper” operatives? Because you have a twisted pro-Third World bias, where Middle Eastern, African, and Oriental players are not only exempt from the rules but have to be protected from them. Israel’s sin is, in this narrative, more than “just” defending itself – it is striking at a Third World enemy in a Western manner, and taking at face value their assertion that there is a war going on, forcing Hamas to deal with said war in the same way Western countries have to.
As I noted above, the connection to Austria may have been to do with telephone communications that co-ordinated the operation. It will be ironic to me if they join in the dogpile on Israel, considering that it was at the gates of Vienna that Suleyman the Magnificent’s advance into Europe was halted in 1529. If, heaven forbid, the next Suleyman reaches Vienna, it will not be for the lack of attempts to prevent it by some – and bewildering apathy on the parts of others. In short, when Islam comes knocking on Europe’s door, they’d better not come crying to Israel.
I’m astonished by the scale of the furore over this for two reasons. One, the dead man in Dubai was a commander of Hamas, whose mindset is illuminated by considering some of its allies. In particular, consider President Bashar Assad of Syria, whose office foyer sports a life-size statue depicting Saladin expelling Crusaders from Palestine. He, and his allies in Hamas and Iran, are at the vanguard of what is already a wide Islamic front against the West and its interests, in practice if not in name. They see themselves as modern-day Saladins, and they see Assad’s statue as both the model for their actions and the prediction of their outcome. And once they finish with Tel Aviv and Ashkelon, they’re going to move on to Rome and Paris.
And Israel is condemned for striking first at that front? Ridiculous.
Second of all, I am nauseated by the repeated claims that the incident is being investigated as a “normal” case of murder and fraud, and that the upcoming diplomatic spats between Israel and Britain, Ireland, Austria, and others are because of the use of falsified passports and telephone networks in those countries. If that’s so, Gordon Brown, answer me one question: why don’t you summon ambassadors when Chinese hackers do the same thing, or the al-Quds “newspaper” operatives? Because you have a twisted pro-Third World bias, where Middle Eastern, African, and Oriental players are not only exempt from the rules but have to be protected from them. Israel’s sin is, in this narrative, more than “just” defending itself – it is striking at a Third World enemy in a Western manner, and taking at face value their assertion that there is a war going on, forcing Hamas to deal with said war in the same way Western countries have to.
As I noted above, the connection to Austria may have been to do with telephone communications that co-ordinated the operation. It will be ironic to me if they join in the dogpile on Israel, considering that it was at the gates of Vienna that Suleyman the Magnificent’s advance into Europe was halted in 1529. If, heaven forbid, the next Suleyman reaches Vienna, it will not be for the lack of attempts to prevent it by some – and bewildering apathy on the parts of others. In short, when Islam comes knocking on Europe’s door, they’d better not come crying to Israel.
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