Jews Cannot Coexist with Arabs

Giulio Meotti

 

Two narratives are at war on the same, slim and holy piece of land. Forget about coexistence.

Giulio Meotti

The writer, an Italian journalist with Il Foglio, writes a twice-weekly column for Arutz Sheva. He is the author of the book "A New Shoah", that researched the personal stories of Israel's terror victims, published by Encounter. His writing has appeared in publications, such as the Wall Street Journal, Frontpage and Commentary. He is at work on a book about the Vatican and Israel.

Israel’s problems stem from a guilt complex. The Jewish people are, I believe, the chosen people, but are subjected to brainwashing by a small group of guilt-ridden personalities, including most of the politicians and almost all of the news media which try relentlessly to portray the Jews as a Goliath and the Arabs as a pitiful David.

While Fatah and the PLO have not yet got to the point Adolf Hitler reached in using the Jews as partners in their own destruction, the Arabs have been incredibly successful in cultivating cooperative Jewish groups, both in Israel and in the Diaspora.

 

That is the meaning of the new “peace talks”. A Palestinian state, they contend, is a moral imperative, a necessity and the only “solution” to the conflict. But peace treaties are temporary, not eternal. Only culture counts. And the Arabs, based on their religious and cultural perceptions, cannot sign a deal that would turn an Islamic state into a Jewish one. They can't give up Haifa and Jaffa!

Little by little, their propaganda had its effect. People, expecially in Europe, began to believe that Jews really shouldn’t be in Israel. They believe that there is a Jewish conspiracy to whitewash Israel.

 

The slavery in Egypt, the Babylonian Captivity, the Roman conquest, the Spanish Inquisition, the Russian pogroms, the Nazi gas chambers… History has demonstrated with regularity that the enemies of the Jews never let up. In their eyes Jews are always guilty. Guilty in Palestine, and guilty in the Diaspora. Guilty in Europe of going to the slaughter like sheep, and guilty in Israel of taking up arms so they will never be slaughtered again.

Jews are always guilty... Guilty in Europe of going to the slaughter like sheep, and guilty in Israel of taking up arms so they will never be slaughtered again.
If only Israel had lost the Six Day War to Egypt, Syria, Jordan, Lebanon and Iraq, then the Western chancelleries  would have pulled from their files the form letter they dispatched when Jews were murdered by Arab terrorists, expressing condolences.
Then the memory of Israel might subsequently have been recalled in some places, and schoolchildren might have been taught about those courageous and martyrized people who fought like tigers before being thrown into the Mediterranean.

The entire mainstream media tries to portray the Arab-Israeli conflict as a problem of Judea and Samaria, and plays down what is happening inside the pre-1967 borders.

The Arab mind is not the Western mind. And even though they have polished the way they present themselves to the world, they are a cruel people. They are a people who want to spill blood. If they had the opportunity, the Arabs would carry out a Holocaust in Israel.

You have to understand the Arab standpoint too. They are thinking as Arabs should think. They are thinking that the holy land belongs to them. They are thinking that the Jews who came - a Jew from Romania, a Jew from South Africa and a Jew from New York - are interlopers who all of a sudden came and said  “Israel is our country”.

How can the Arabs feel a part of that? How can an Arab see the Jewish flag, the Magen David, and feel it is his state? How can an Arab feel equal when the Law of Return allows the return of Jews but not of Arabs? Or an army composed of Jews? An Arab cannot feel equal. This is a zero-sum game.

So the Arabs have become much more subtle than the Nazis were. They have learned how to adapt to the image and semantics deemed essential for respectability among the Western democracies. Like many Jews, the hearts of many Americans go pitter-patter every time they hear words like “freedom”, “democracy”, “peace process”, “self-determination”.

 

When Jews came back to Judea and Samaria in 1967, the Arabs living there were walking around dressed in pajamas, they had nothing. They were starving, they were barefoot. Israel came and educated them and taught them Arabic culture. Jews brought civilization and built schools and hospitals in the hope that they would become their allies, a plan which was very naive.

Then the Israelis for years tried to give Arabs economic benefits by raising their standard of living in the hope that the Arabs would come to be loyal to Israel. But they were fools. The Arabs can’t be bought off. Here we have a country that two different groups are claiming as their own. Two narratives are at war on the same, slim and holy piece of land.

The Arabs are the Nazis of today. The same thing Hitler wanted to do in Germany they want to do here in Israel and any talk about territories is just covering up the main purpose: they don’t accept Israel. They have tremendous hatred for the Jewish people, and they would do here what the Nazis did there. They feel the Jews formed a bandit state.

 

If somebody breaks into your house and takes over all the rooms and agrees as part of a treaty to give you everything except for the kitchen, you’ll want to drive him out of the kitchen as well. That’s the way the Arabs feel.

That’s why there’s no chance of coexistence between Jews and Arabs, but just conflict management.  In life, not everything is resolvable. But a mistake can kill you. The choices Israel faces at this historic moment may determine the Jewish destiny for centuries to come: survival or liquidation.