Editor,
Two thousand years after the destruction of the Second Temple in Jerusalem in 70 A.D., the Balfour Declaration of independence for a national home for the Jewish people in 1948 gave back what the Romans had taken away.
The only Jewish state in the world became a reality. Immediately, Arab armies from Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Transjordan and Egypt invaded the new state, thus beginning the War of Independence. Gen. Azzam Pasha, the Arab League secretary, declared, "This will be a war of extermination and a momentous massacre which will be spoken of like the Mongolian massacres and the Crusades."
Haj Amin al-Husseini, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, who had met with Hitler in 1941 and had been active in support for Germany among Muslims during World War II, announced, "I declare a holy war, my Muslim brothers. Murder the Jews. All of them."
The war for independence, indeed, the very right to exist, is still being fought today. Now we can write generalizations and platitudes in regard to who should or should not do this thing or that.
But the bottom line is, as history and the Quran record, Arabs' hatred of Jews is informed by radical Islam.
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The Hamas Charter states, "The Islamic Resistance Movement draws its guidelines from Islam."
The Quran states, "So, when you clash with the unbelieving infidels in battle, smite their necks until you overpower them, killing and wounding many of them. Thus you are commanded by Allah to continue carrying out Jihad against the unbelieving infidels until they submit to Islam."
We must remember Israel is not the only unbeliever of Islam in the world. When differing cultures claim the same small piece of land, understanding the history of the cultures is necessary for examining the current status of the conflict.
As described in the beginning of this letter, Israel was inhabited by Jews in the first century. Flavius Josephus, the first century historian, goes into great detail recording the wars of the Jews or the history of the destruction of Jerusalem.
There has been a Jewish presence in Israel since then. There were both Jews and Arabs living in Jerusalem. They were neighbors and lived together as such.
The idea of Palestinian land, however, was the invention of the British patricians.
The basic moral right is the right to exist as human beings.
"We have examined our options and our path, and we have chosen the path of slaughter, by acts of Jihad, suicide and resistance of every form, until the liberation of Palestine and return of refugees," states the Web site of al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, the military arm of Yasser Arafat's Fatah.
To counter militant Islamists, we need moderates to become more visible and active.
Mae Eye
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