Israel Matzav

The White Roses

During World War II, a group of German students attempted to resist the Nazis. They published a series of leaflets known as Leaflets of the White Rose.

The three leaders of the German White Rose, a brother and sister and friend, were arrested, tried and summarily beheaded by the Nazis in 1943. Their supporters were all subsequently caught and either executed or sent to concentration camps. Their movement’s year-long struggle against barbarism (1942-43) never progressed beyond the hand-printing and distribution of anti-Nazi leaflets.

In this article from FrontPage Magazine.com, Frimet Roth attempts to find some white roses among our Arab neighbors in Israel today.

Six years later, two other Arabs impacted on my life. On a hot August afternoon in 2001, Izzadin Al Masri brutally murdered my fifteen year old daughter, Malki, along with fourteen other innocent Jews. Eight children and one entire family were among the dead.

Ahlam Tamimi, a Palestinian journalist, disguised herself as a secular Jewish tourist and escorted Al Masri through central Jerusalem while chatting in fluent English to dispel the suspicions of a police force on high alert.

From an Israeli prison cell where she is now serving 16 life terms, Tamimi spoke a day before last week’s Israeli elections. “I am not sorry for what I did,” she declared. “I will get out of prison and I refuse to recognize Israel’s existence,” she added. “Discussions will only take place after Israel recognizes that this is Islamic land,” she predicted.

Several years ago Tamimi spoke with Barbara Victor, author of “Shahidas: The Female Kamikazie of Palestine” In her book, Victor writes that Tamimi who “didn’t regret the deaths of all these children added ‘They should have returned to Poland, Russia or the United States, to the countries their parents came from.’”

In ending Malki’s beautiful life, Al Masri and Tamimi condemned me to never-ending pain and longing. So I think I would be forgiven for keeping my distance from Arabs as long as I live.

But the fact is I would never consider doing that. Today I hear many compelling Arab voices rising above the fundamentalist Islamic din. More and more courageous Arabs, both Muslim and Christian, are outspoken defenders of the United States, Israel and the Jews. After a steady diet of Muslim bloodshed, their messages have been pure ambrosia.

The latest one of these “Souaids” – righteous gentiles all – to step into the spotlight is psychiatrist, Dr. Wafa Sultan. Her February debut on Al Jazeera has attracted over one million listeners on the internet. Sultan doesn’t mince words. Pitted for the Al Jazeera interview against an Algerian cleric and an Egyptian professor of religious studies, she opened on the offensive: “The clash we are witnessing around the world is not a clash of religions, or a clash of civilizations. .. It is a clash between civilization and back­wardness… between barbarity and rationality, between freedom and oppression… Civilizations do not clash, but compete.”

Dr. Sultan was born and raised in a traditional Muslim home in Syria. From grade-school on she was indoctrinated, by her own account, to hate Jews and Israel. After witnessing the brutal murder of her respected medical school professor by two Muslim Brotherhood terrorists, she abandoned her religious beliefs. Soon afterwards, she immigrated to the United States with her husband and children. There, studying in a California hospital, she met Jews for the first time. Before long she embarked on her fight against the anti-Semitism endemic in Muslim society.

Sultan incensed her Al Jazeera opponents with a striking observation: “The Jews have come from the tragedy and forced the world to respect them, with their knowledge, not with their terror; with their work, not with their crying and yelling.”

Dr. Sultan joins the ranks of other Arab heroines like Noni Darwish, a Palestinian who moved to the United States after completing her university studies.

Ms Darwish relates memories of her pre-school education: “A Jewish person was portrayed like less than human, a dog, an evil alien from outer space…cursed by G-d and the main mission of Islam was to get rid of Jews.”

Her father, a prominent military officer mobilized Palestinian forces into Israeli territory and was killed by the Israelis in retaliation. Nevertheless Darwish says, “I blame the Middle Eastern Islamic culture and the propaganda of hatred taught to children from birth.” for his death.

There's more too. Read it all.

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 10:36 PM