Op-Ed: A Terrorist's Dream Come True

Arab terrorists chose their enemy wisely, says the writer, who chose a novel way to describe what he perceives as Israel's mistakes. Freeing terrorist murderers is only part of the larger picture.

Gil Solomon

The writer is a retired finance manager and author.

Choosing Jews as the enemy is a terrorist's dream come true. 

If you are a terrorist facing Israel, you can fire rockets by the thousands and if  you do receive a response, you know it will end prematurely and inconclusively. You face an Israeli enemy which, during a war, gives advance notice through flyers and phone calls to apartment residents that this or that building is being targeted, thereby giving what they call "uninvolved" civilians and yourselves enough time to escape with your lives.

In contrast, about a year ago, a US drone targeted a well known terrorist in Pakistan and even after confirming the man's wife and extended family were present, went ahead, killing the terrorist and nine of those present with him. Not a peep from anyone. (No country on the face of the earth goes anywhere near the extent Israel does in trying to avoid civilian casualties, but what benefit has it gained in world opinion from dong that?)

If you are a terrorist facing Israel, you can fabricate stories of a supposed massacre (e.g. in Jenin), knowing full well that nothing occurred, but that it will cast dispersions on an enemy which foolishly states that it will investigate the claim, thereby implying that there may be something to the story. If you are a terrorist, you know that your Israeli enemy has not a clue how to counter the Hasbara war you are waging against them - and doesn't even know that Hasbara is a war.


If you are a terrorist facing Israel, you will certainly know that you can make the most outrageous and heinous statements, such as “Jews are the offspring of pigs and apes”, knowing full well that the Israelis will still offer to sit down with you in talks with no preconditions - not even the demand that the indoctrination of children in hate must stop.

If you are a terrorist facing Israel, you will know that if captured, you will be well treated. In the case of Marwan Barghouti, a terrorist "with blood on his hands" sitting in an Israeli prison, being well treated includes access to world media, in order to say anything you like.
If you are a terrorist facing Israel, you will rejoice in that country's stupidity in allowing the Muslim Waqf to take control of the Temple Mount after the 1967 war, all for then-CoS Moshe Dayan's desire to be magnanimous. This will allow you to go on excavating under the Temple Mount with a bulldozer, destroying any remaining Jewish artifacts in order to rid the place of any trace of the first and second Temple periods - and in the process, build a mosque there for future proof of claim to the land.
If you are a terrorist facing Israel, you will know that so successful is your propaganda, that your enemy will accused by the world media for "settlement expansion" even though it is building a new house or an extension to an existing home within the boundaries of existing Jewish communities.
If you are a terrorist facing Israel, you know that the world has bought your lie that there was once a Palestinian people, when in fact, no such people ever existed. As a matter of fact, in Biblical times, all of what is now Israel and Judea and Samaria (the "West Bank") was Jewish. When the Romans conquered the territory, they named the entire area "Philistina" in order to rub salt into the wounds of the defeated Jews by renaming it in honor of the Jews' ancient and mortal enemies, the Philistines. By doing so, the Romans acknowledged that the real owners of the territory were Jews. Over the centuries, the name Philistina was anglicized to Palestine.
At the beginning of the 20th Century, if one were referred to as a Palestinian, that automatically implied that he or she was Jewish. Decades later, Arabs cleverly commandeered the term "Palestinian" and the unknowing masses bought the message that these same Arabs have never forgiven the division of "their country" by the UN. The facts are that Palestine was a land mass administered by the British from 1914 until the 1947 Partition Plan, when only a small part was allocated to its centuries-old rightful owners, the Jewish people.
If you are a terrorist facing Israel, you will know that no nation in the Western world will call you to account for your ongoing myths and lies.
If you are a terrorist facing Israel, you know that your enemy will indulge your ludicrous and incessant claims and still be willing to sit down with you in good faith.
If you are a terrorist facing Israel, you should pray that your enemy continue treating you as it does now, that is, not as a "normal" country would. If your enemy was a "normal" country like Russia, China or the USA facing barrage after deadly barrage of missiles, you could rest assured that parts of Gaza and the "West Bank" would have been reduced to rubble long ago.
If you are a terrorist facing Israel, you should get down on your hands and knees and thank Allah that this democracy called Israel allows its President to badmouth the Israeli Government at every opportunity in order to try to bring its downfall, to be replaced with a left wing one more to his liking. In spite of the fact that Abbas has stated over and over again that the PA will never recognise Israel as a Jewish state, this being a red line which he will not cross, President Shimon Peres, the left wing ideologue and “elder statesman” who brought Israel the disastrous Oslo Accords, still harbors the view that his good friend Abbas is a partner for peace! This  is the same Peres who, when learning that Yasser Arafat was caught preaching “jihad” in Arabic to his assembled throng, rushed to his defence by saying he was really calling for a “jihad for peace.”
And best of all for you, if you are a terrorist facing Israel, you know that within the Jewish Diaspora, you  have supporters who have fallen for your propaganda, fallen for your attempts to rewrite history, who flock to your side and denounce Israel for every step it takes in its defence. You will be able to count on many of those whom you call the “offspring of pigs and apes” to defend your every move. These same "offspring of pigs and apes" will help devise ways of bringing economic hardship to Israel by such schemes as a Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign.
In fact, thanks to Peres' efforts, Israel hosts annual talkfests where all manner of individuals, from has-been politicians regurgitating the same old failed solutions to Hollywood celebrities like Barbra Streisand, Robert De Niro and Sharon Stone, none of whom has a political track record, all come together to shower Israelis with their collective intellect, on what Israel should or should not do in matters of life and death.
If you are a terrorist facing Israel, you can take heart from  seeing how that democracy called Israel does not enforce Israeli law where Negev Bedouin are concerned. The fact that they once roamed the Middle East tending their flocks does not prove ownership and for Israel to have succumbed to pressure and allow them to register vacant land in the Land Registry as privately held, is appalling. (It is outrageous that an organisation called Regavim has to take the Israeli Government to court to enforce its own laws in order to keep Jewish lands in Jewish hands)
But this can change. It is time for Israel to stop building up terrorist self-confidence and act like a sovereign power in control of its own destiny. Israel has only one option and that is to walk away from this so called "peace process', to take unilateral action on borders, hand the welfare of those people outside those borders to the UNHCR, Jordan, Egypt or whoever and to expel all foreign and hostile NGOs.The world would no doubt not recognise these moves, but then the world recognises nothing Israel does anyway.
At a minimum, the world would see that Israel has finally gotten up off its knees.