Think-Israel

THINK-ISRAEL

BLOWIN' HOT AIR...

by Gerald A. Honigman

Twenty years ago, a young Michael Keaton was in his prime and starred in Johnny Dangerously, a hilarious comedy with Joe Piscopo.

As young gangsters in the same mob, Piscopo constantly warns others - including Keaton - about what he's going to do to them the next time they upset him. Keaton hangs him up on a bathroom door hook, but Piscopo keeps blowing hot air.

We hear over and over again that Israel holds itself to a higher standard than the Arab barbarians around it and so won't do what really needs to be done.

Fine. No one is suggesting that Israeli soldiers should deliberately assassinate pregnant Arab women and their children, blow up Arab buses, restaurants, cafes, or the like. And no one is demanding that Arab families should be gunned down in their homes, victims dismembered to play catch with. We'll leave all of that to Arabs who specialize in such things.

But this deal where Israel allows its mortal enemies - who reject its very existence regardless of "size" - to dictate the rules of the game is nothing less than pathetic. And it has been going on for far too long now.

A report on May 12, 2004 explained that after two APCs were blown apart along with the eleven Israeli soldiers inside, Israel Channel One News quoted a "very senior military officer" as saying, "this is war and we are taking the gloves off. The rules of the game have just changed."

We've heard a lot of such huffing and puffing before. You know, like when Israel warns every few months that Arafat will soon meet his 72 virgins or whatever. Piscopo on the door hook again.

When you're really serious about getting serious, you don't telegraph your punch and you don't blow hot air. You do - and you do big-time.

You respond in such a way that leaves those who deliberately, wantonly, and mercilessly butcher your loved ones breathless. And when they later come out by the thousands to bury their dead with guns in the air crying for more of your blood, you hit them ten times harder and take out even more future disembowelers and beheaders of your people. You do this exponentially, massively increasing the response after each new atrocity. Arabs know that they greatly outnumber and out baby make Jews. Arafat has even cited the Arab mother as the key to victory. Israel loses the Arab numbers' game war of attrition it is now allowing itself to be held captive to. President Bush himself has said that those who aid and give comfort to America's enemies should share in their fate. Now think about that a bit regarding Gaza and the like.

Next, you tell the hypocritical practitioners of the double standard who'll surely protest your Jewish fight to survive to either a) drop dead or b) ask themselves what they would be doing in a fight for their own lives.

They won't listen. So it's time for Israel to consider withdrawing from the United Nations, sending the press packing, and doing whatever else it takes to save Jewish lives.

Arab lives would not be in danger if not for their own murderous, rejectionist actions and attitudes. They repeatedly have refused fair and just compromises to achieve their state #22 or #23. The plain truth is that any "solution" which is not another final solution for Jews will be unacceptable for them. Hence their "rage" because Mr. Bush recently suggested that maybe Israel shouldn't have to return to its 1949, U.N.-imposed, 9-mile wide armistice line existence or be forced to absorb millions of descendants of real or fudged Arab refugees any way. At least that was before the Arabist Foggy Folks almost immediately began to backtrack from this positive development.

America is currently bombing Fallujah from the air and is a nation of almost 300 million people, the most powerful country on Earth.

The eleven Jews who were recently blown apart are proportionately the equivalent of America loosing over five hundred of its own men. America is thousands of miles away from its enemies - not a miniscule state that one needs a magnifying glass to find on a world map right in its enemies' backyard.

Bunker buster and daisy cutter bombs and cruise missiles were frequently used in Afghanistan and Iraq. If Colin Powell's doctrine of massive force and retaliation is valid for America, then why should Israel have to fight with one hand continuously tied behind its back, sending its few precious kids and older reservists in on the ground - in terrain known to be mined and booby trapped - in order to score moral Brownie points with a largely anti-Semitic world which couldn't care less if the sole reborn State of the Jews lives or dies. And, if truth be told, most would prefer the latter. A certain French diplomat's comments on the overall subject comes to mind - and this from a country that prides itself on its "enlightenment." So think about what the picture is really like elsewhere.

Arabs don't fear Israel any more. That's a shame...and is a very dangerous development. They see Israel constantly making one-sided concessions. Terrorism is working.

In a perfect world, no nation should have to fear any other. But in this real world in which Arabs see themselves as sole master of most of the Middle East - regardless of the presence of scores of millions of non-Arabs living there - and ruler, not ruled, of their kelbi yahudi, "Jew dogs," the rules of the road must be different - especially when your enemy knows that he outnumbers you sixty to one in population and dwarfs you in arms and materiel as well.

This is still very much an Arab-Israeli conflict, not a "Palestinian"-Israeli one like the press, academia and others like to proclaim. There's too much evidence out there that even Egypt, of Sadat and Camp David fame - built up since with massive American aid and top-of-the-line weaponry - is also simply biding its time. The tunnels Israel is going after in Gaza lead to Egypt. Nice "peaceful" neighbor...

The time for real Israeli strategic thinking and action in this conflict is long overdue. And it's time to stop blowin' hot air.

Gerald A. Honigman is a Florida educator who has done extensive doctoral studies in Middle Eastern Affairs. He has created and conducted counter-Arab propaganda programs for college youth, has lectured on numerous campuses and other platforms, and has publicly debated many Arab spokesmen. His articles and op-eds have been published in dozens of newspapers, magazines, academic journals and websites all around the world.