Israel Matzav

In Israel, the problem is Islam

In today's Haaretz, Israel Harel makes a convincing case that talks with 'moderate' 'Palestinian President' Mahmoud Abbas Abu Mazen are a waste of time for a whole host of reasons.

The Hamas victory in the Gaza Strip and the establishment of a "moderate" government in Ramallah do not divide the territory into Hamastan in the Gaza Strip and Fatahstan in Judea and Samaria. This is only another illusion in the basket of Israeli illusions - a fallacy that's part of the same belief that there is an Arab leader (it used to be Yasser Arafat, and now it is Mahmoud Abbas) who wants to sign an agreement with us, and one that entails relinquishing the right of return and recognizing Israel's right to exist as a Jewish and Zionist state.

It is not only the Palestinians in Judea and Samaria and their leadership who do not recognize the right of Israel to exist as a state with a Jewish and Zionist character, but as a number of recently published documents have revealed, it is a view shared by entities representing the Arab citizens of Israel too.

...

Hamas won because the vast majority of the Gaza Strip population supports it, and this is first and foremost support for the religious ideology of the movement, which calls for the destruction of the Zionist entity. And as the elections have shown, this call is shared by the vast majority in Judea and Samaria, the area which Israeli analysts and politicians have designated for a Fatah state.

Harel is spot-on when he attributes Hamas' popularity - and the popularity of its rejection of Israel - to the movement's religious ideology. In fact, according to Irshad Manji, it's not just 'Palestinians' or Middle East Arabs who are breastfed anti-Semitism. It's the entire Muslim world:

GROWING up in Vancouver, I attended an Islamic school every Saturday. There, I learned that Jews can't be trusted because they worship "moolah, not Allah", meaning money, not God. According to my teacher, every last Jew is consumed with business.

The Islamic world will never make peace with a Jewish state. Anywhere.

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 6:50 PM