So, while we were celebrating the Birthday of the World, 5775 Rosh HaShana! commemorating the birth of Adam, the first ? the World in which we so celebrate continued at War.  Therefore, the title of my ?Diary? continues as is.

Yes, there is upbeat news that Bibi will trounce Abu Mazen?s totally hostile-to-Israel-&-the-World speech at the UN.

?Tis also encouraging to note that between the night of 9/23-24 several Arab Muslim countries joined America.  Fighter planes from Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Jordan & Bahrain joined the American planes ? while bases in Kuwait & Qatar provided logistical support for the American pilots bombing ISIS in Syria. It was an event unprecedented in scope in the Middle East, all in one night. 

To view WHY Radical Islam is the root cause of the ongoing War threatening the Jewish State of Israel & the rest of Western Civilization, please print this missive, sit down for an hour & read Radical Islam, Israel & Agitprop by Guy Millière from Gatestone Institute, p. 3-12.  It is only one of the best pieces I?ve read recently to make sense of the senseless, barbaric violence which Radical Islam has unleashed upon the Jewish State of Israel & our whole civilized world.  This is a ?rich? send for you all.  This is on a ?need to know basis?. 

Have a quiet, sweet, peaceful night. 

All the very best, Gail/Geula/Savta/Savta Raba/Mom

Netanyahu: I will refute the lies leveled at Israel

By Shlomo Cesana

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu heads to U.S. to address U.N. General Assembly, vows to ?tell the truth? about the heroes of the IDF

• Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, already in the U.S., says, ?Abbas has managed to tire out the entire world.? |

Photo credit: AP  Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ? (last year at the UN)

Before boarding the plane at Ben-Gurion International Airport, Netanyahu declared that ?I am going to the U.S. to represent the people of Israel at the U.N. I will refute all the lies leveled against us, & I will tell the truth about our state & the heroes of the Israel Defense Forces ? the most moral army in the world.?     Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu headed to the U.S. on Sunday for a trip that will include an address before the United Nations General Assembly. Netanyahu is scheduled to meet with President Barack Obama in Washington later in the week. He will also meet with U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon & Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

In his speech at the U.N. General Assembly, scheduled for Monday, Netanyahu indicated that he would warn the international community of the threats of nuclear weapons ? Iran?s pursuit of nuclear weapons & the possibility that radical Islamist groups will get their hands on nuclear weapons. The prime minister was also planning to address Hamas? use of civilian population as human shields & to condemn Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas? failure to come out ?against Hamas & in favor of peace.?

Jerusalem is placing a lot of weight on Netanyahu?s upcoming meeting with Obama. This will be the prime minister?s second meeting with the American president this year, the last one being some seven months ago. The meeting will likely focus on ongoing nuclear negotiations with Iran, the growing U.S.-led coalition of nations determined to combat the advances of the Islamic State terror group as well as Israel?s cooperation with moderate Arab states in the battle against extremists.

In his meeting with Ban, Netanyahu will focus his efforts on curbing the U.N. investigation into Israel?s actions during the latest confrontation in Gaza while explaining that Israel only targeted terrorists & that it was because of Hamas? techniques that Gaza civilians were hurt during the operation. He will also raise Israel?s concerns over the fact that rockets were fired into Israel from U.N. facilities in Gaza during the operation & that U.N. personnel allowed the aggression.

Netanyahu is expected to land in New York on Sunday afternoon & meet with Modi three hours later. This will be the first meeting in over a decade between an Israeli & Indian prime minister.

On Saturday, Netanyahu said that ?after the deceitful speech made by the Iranian President Hassan Rouhani & Abbas? inciting words, I will tell the truth of the citizens of Israel to the whole world. In my address before the U.N. General Assembly & in all my meetings I will represent the people of Israel & in their name I will refute the slander & the lies leveled against our country.?

Meanwhile, on Saturday, Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman also traveled to the U.S. to take part in the U.N. event. He too has a string of diplomatic engagements scheduled. Lieberman will meet with the foreign ministers of Canada, India, New Zealand, Austria, Greece, Rwanda, Singapore & the Czech Republic & others. Lieberman stressed that he would talk with his counterparts about strengthening ties with Israel & the joint struggle against world terror.

Reacting to Abbas? speech at the U.N. General Assembly on Friday, Lieberman said that the Palestinian Authority president has ?managed to tire everyone out, not just the Israelis ? the entire international community.?

Speaking to Army Radio on Sunday, Lieberman said that Abbas? actions were harming the Palestinians. ?There is only one possible conclusion: This man is not a viable partner for anything; certainly not for a peace process.   The Palestinian issue has moved so far back here at the General Assembly,? the foreign minister added. ?Leaders are talking about Ebola, ISIS, Ukraine ? the Palestinian issue barely exists here. Even the Arab world has grown frustrated with Abbas.?

BIBI & AVIGDOR TO UN re: Abu Mazen

ISRAEL HAYOM

Abbas has ended the peace process by Dan Margalit

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has done what he always does. As usual, upon arriving at a crucial junction, he hesitates for a moment before making the wrong turn. It takes time before we can get him back right where he started.

Addressing the U.N. General Assembly over the weekend, Abbas was expected to take a semi-appeasing tone, a peacemaker?s tone, & he was expected to address the U.N. in English. Instead, he acted as if he were attending an election rally in Ramallah, speaking in Arabic & taking an aggressive tone, as if he were representing Hamas.

Abbas antagonized the entire Israeli political spectrum, except for Meretz Chairwoman Zehava Gal-On, who expressed her understanding of the circumstances that drove Abbas to use an unusually abrasive tone.

The Palestinians? verbal belligerence is especially discordant in a time when the majority of the world, including many Arab nations, is banding together to fight the Islamic State group.

In his speech, Abbas has effectively debunked the U.S.-sponsored peace process. His speech was extreme enough to vex even Washington, & the entire diplomatic world had a front row seat to listen to the chairman of the Palestinian Liberation Organization?s lies.

Operation Protective Edge was an Israeli attempt at ?genocide?? If anything, Abbas was almost as disappointed by the caution Israel exercised during the military campaign as Habayit Hayehudi Chairman Naftali Bennett. Abbas further complained about Israel?s arrest of Hamas operatives in Judea & Samaria over the murder of three Israeli teens ? but everyone knows how relieved he actually was, as some of those operatives were part of a Hamas plot to stage a coup in the West Bank.

The speech, of course, did not surprise anyone. Abbas traditionally plays the role of a wolf in sheep?s clothing. In 2000, he incited Yasser Arafat to bolt from Camp David the moment then-Prime Minister Ehud Barak expressed willingness to discuss the future of Jerusalem; & years later he bolted back to Ramallah the moment former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert presented him with an appeasing peace proposal, the likes of which Israel had never devised before.

There is no doubt that at this point, Abbas has abandoned the path of negotiations. He strives to impose some sort of solution on Israel, & he fails to understand that the tumultuous developments in the Arab world, including the conflict between Ramallah & the Gaza Strip, have plunged the Palestinian stock to a new low.

Many in the world still subscribe to Abbas? criticism of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, especially when it comes to settlement construction during the peace talks, but the Palestinians? demands no longer seem as poignant given Abbas? refusal to hold earnest negotiations.

The majority of Israelis who subscribe to the two-state solution would probably allege that Netanyahu?s insistence to forge ahead with construction outside the main settlement blocs has made it difficult of the Palestinians. I would also hedge that Netanyahu is not keen to pursue the two-state solution, but that no longer matters, since Abbas has beat him to the punch by debunking it.

Netanyahu is scheduled to address the U.N. General Assembly on Monday & respond to Abbas? speech. Netanyahu is likely to depict Abbas as a leader who has no interest in peace, but he would be wise to offer an alternative ? one that would single him out as a leader who seeks to revive the peace process, & would dispel concerns that Netanyahu would like to distance himself from the declared objective of a permanent agreement between Israel & the Palestinians.

ABU MAZEN/MAHMOUD ABBAS

ISRAEL HAYOM

Many Europeans who would laugh at the idea of negotiating with ISIS or al-Qaeda say that Israel should negotiate with Hamas.

Almost nobody sees that the invention of the ?Palestinian people? has transformed millions of Arabs into a genocidal weapon to be used against the Israelis, & even, as in Europe recently, the Jews. Transforming people into a genocidal weapon is a barbaric act.

Israel was urged to find ways to coexist peacefully with people who did not want to co-exist with it. Terrorism against Israel fast became acceptable: a ?good? terrorism.

     Hamas?s stated aim is the destruction of Israel. Its stated way to achieve this aim is terror attacks, called ?armed struggle? by Hamas leaders. To this day the Palestinian Authority has not ceased praising & promoting terrorism.

If hatred of Israel is increasing in the U.S., it is largely confined to academics & other extreme radical circles, many of which are funding or receiving funding from Soviet-style agitprop organizations. Journalists are recruited to disseminate descriptions of ?facts? as if they were real facts. Pseudo-historians rewrote the history of the Middle East. The falsified version of history replaced history.

Understanding radical Islam requires going back to its roots.

The Christian idea of rendering ?unto Caesar that which is Caesar?s & unto God that which is God?s? never existed in Islam. Its absence has had consequences, including, possibly, the decline of the Muslim civilization & the feeling of humiliation that resulted.

During the late eighteenth & early nineteenth centuries, when Muslim clerics observed that that the Islamic world was not keeping pace with the West & was on the verge of collapse, they may have decided they needed answers.   Some of these clerics turned to the West, where they chose to study Western political ideas. They spoke of necessary reforms, & created secret societies & nationalist organizations.

Although U.S. President Barack Obama is not one of them, Israel still has many friends among Americans. Virtually all American leaders know that Israeli technology is essential to the U.S. economy. (Image source: The White House)

Other clerics chose dogmatic, strict readings of the Quran. They found inspiration in the writings of Muhammad ibn Abd-al-Wahhab & in the established fundamentalist movements. [leading to Wahhabism. GW]        Several secret societies gained strength & came to power: the Young Ottomans staged a ?coup d?état? in 1876; the Young Turks ruled the Ottoman Empire from 1908 to 1918.[1]

Nationalist revolts took place: Colonel Ahmed Urabi led a mutiny in Egypt in 1879. A secret society, calling Arabs to recover their ?lost vitality,? was created in Beirut by Ibrahim al-Yaziji in the late 1870s.[2]

The House of Saud, led by Wahhabis, mounted military campaigns against other tribal rulers & the Ottomans in order to seize the Arabian Peninsula. From 1855-56 until his death in 1897, Sayyid Jamal ad-Din al-Afghani travelled throughout the Muslim world to call desperately for a return to the ?original principles? of Islam.

But the decline did not stop & the collapse occurred. The First World War led to the dismantling of the Ottoman Empire, the emergence of modern Turkey, & the creation of kingdoms & Mandates in the Arab World.

In 1923, the Ankara-based Turkish regime, founded by Mustafa Kemal Pasha [Atatürk], became the officially secular Republic of Turkey. Arab nationalists, whom Britain had used as a weapon against the Ottoman Empire, felt betrayed when Britain & France settled on the division of Arab territories & did not satisfy Arab demands. The leader of the Arab revolt, Emir Faisal ibn Hussein, for example, asked during the 1919 Paris Peace Conference in Versailles that, ?the Arabic-speaking peoples of Asia? be recognized as ?independent sovereign peoples,? & that ?no steps be taken inconsistent with the prospect of an eventual union? of Arab ?areas under one sovereign government.?  

As Arab nationalists grew bitter, pan-Arab nationalism emerged throughout the Arab world.

The House of Saud united the kingdoms of the Hejaz & Nejd, & created the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in 1932.

Around the same time, radical Islam arose. The Muslim Brotherhood (al-Ikhwan al-Muslimun), established in 1928 [by Hassan al Bana: GW], quickly became the main radical movement.[3]

Radical Islam soon took on a different color. Although it is sometimes described as a by-product of fundamentalism, it is really fundamentalism influenced by Western totalitarian dogmas: Marxism, Leninism, fascism, National-Socialism.

The borders between radical Islam, Islamic fundamentalism, & Arab Nationalism have always been porous. Fundamentalist Islam ?must have power in this world. It is the true religion?the religion of God?and its truth is manifest in its power?. [I]f Muslims now return to the original Islam, they can preserve & even restore their power.?[4]

In the late 1950s, the political landscape of the Muslim world was relatively easy to describe. Saudi Arabia was fundamentalist. Some moderate kingdoms existed: Jordan, Morocco, Iran. Turkey was a secular republic. Lebanon was a ?unitary confessionalist? Republic: a Republic resting on a power-sharing mechanism based on religious communities.[5] Arab nationalists had taken power in Egypt, Syria, Iraq, Tunisia, & were about to take power in Algeria.

The major Muslim countries in Asia ? Pakistan & Indonesia ? were not especially present in the news. Pakistan declared Islam as its state religion in 1949: most Pakistani Muslims belonged at the time to the Barelvi movement, much influenced by Sufism.[6] The Deobandi movement, inspired by Wahhabism, was not politically influential. & in Indonesia, the main Muslim groups ? Nahdlatul Ulama & Muhammadiyah ? advocated religious moderation.[7]

Meanwhile, radical Islam was growing in the shadows.

In the 1960s, Arab nationalism was still gaining ground: Libya & Algeria were added to the list of countries ruled by people calling themselves Nationalists.

In the 1970s, a civil war erupted in Lebanon. Palestinian militias were expelled from Jordan. They settled in South Lebanon & began fighting Christian militias. As central government authority quickly disintegrated, Shi?a militias that were beginning to form joined in the fighting.[8]

The great change occurred on April 1^st 1979: Iran, with its version of radical Shi?a Islam, became an Islamic Republic.[9] From then on, radical Islam spread rapidly.

In 1985, various violent Lebanese Shi?a extremist groups founded Hezb?Allah, apparently in the hope of establishing an Islamic State in Lebanon.

Two years later, in 1987, Hamas, an offshoot of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, was founded in Gaza City.

Al-Qaeda, a radical Wahhabi movement calling for global jihad, was created in 1988-1989 by Osama bin Laden & Abdullah Yusuf Azzam.

In Algeria, the Islamic Salvation Front started its bloody activities in 1989. Afghanistan became an Islamic State in 1992. The Taliban established the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan in 1996. Countless more violent & deadly developments have taken place since.

Radical Islam is now present on every continent. It has many names, various appearances, & is now a global threat.

***

In the meantime, as nationalism was on the rise all over the world & the idea of national liberation filled the atmosphere, Zionism emerged as the national liberation movement of the Jewish people, urging Jews scattered all over the earth to come back to ?the Land of Israel.?

The movement began during the collapse of the Muslim world. The First Aliyah [lit. "going up"] to Israel took place in 1881; the First Congress of the World Zionist organization took place in Basel, in 1897, & the Second Aliyah began in 1904.[10]

In the 1920s, as the Ottoman Empire was dismantled, & the secret societies, nationalist organizations & fundamentalist movements rose in the Muslim world, Zionism also gained strength.

In 1917, the Jewish Legion, a group of Zionist volunteers, assisted the British Army in Palestine (the name given to the land by Roman Emperor Hadrian in 135 A.D., to try to rid it of its Jewish roots). The same year, the Balfour Declaration confirmed support from the British government for ?the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people.?

In 1922, the League of Nations in San Remo Italy granted Britain a mandate over Palestine to establish the ?national home for the Jewish people.? The official document explicitly states that ?a recognition has been given to the historical connection of the Jewish people with Palestine.?[11]

Zionism was compatible. It could coexist with moderate kingdoms, such as Morocco, with secular republics such as modern Turkey, & with republics such as Lebanon before its civil war.

Islamic fundamentalism & Arab Nationalism, however, are not compatible with Zionism. In the eyes of Islamic fundamentalists, Jews are ahl al-?immah, people of the dimmah: inferiors who are allowed to survive in an Islamic-conquered land only if they accept being subjugated & deprived of any legal or human rights.

Further, in fundamentalist Islam, the entire world is divided into either the Dar al-Islam [The House of Islam] or the Dar al-Harb [The House of War], where Islam does not yet dominate. In the eyes of Islamic fundamentalists, therefore, every territory ? whether Israel or Spain?s al-Andalus ? that has ever been under the rule of Islam must remain irreversibly under the rule of Islam ? a waqf, or religious endowment, held in trust for Allah as part of his dar al-Islam [the House of Islam].

Originally, Arab nationalists wanted to end the Ottoman domination of Arab lands; then, after the Ottoman Empire was dissolved in 1918, they wanted the end of all Western presence in the Arab world.

The Zionist project was first viewed as a continuation of this Western presence. Then the influence of Marxism & Leninism, fascism & National-Socialism led them to start describing Zionism as ?imperialist? & ?colonialist,? or as part of some alleged ?world Jewish conspiracy? ? still how they see it today.

Radical Islam is also not compatible with Zionism. Radical Muslims are outspoken about wanting to destroy all that is not radical Islam & kill all those who do not submit to it, as can be seen now in the ?Islamic State? in Iraq & Syria, in the Hamas Charter & in groups such as Boko Haram.

In such conditions, Zionism would seem to have no chance of succeeding.

But succeed it did ? despite unbelievable adversity & despite the cowardice & the opportunism of Western leaders. Although Britain was granted a Mandate over Palestine in 1922 with the clear objective of supporting the Jews, the British never respected the spirit & the letter of the Mandate. They gradually closed the doors to Jewish immigrants who were trying to flee Hitler?s Europe before, during & after World War II. The British government did not even try to save Jews at the time when the extermination was taking place in Auschwitz; & no member of the League of Nations issued any objection to the British behavior.[12]

In parallel, the British kept the doors wide open to Arab immigration. In 1939, the British government issued a policy paper (?White Paper of 1939?) providing for the creation of an ?independent Palestine? to be governed by ?Palestinian Arabs & Jews? in ?proportion to their numbers in the population.? The result of the British immigration policy was that Jews were made a minority, & ?Palestine? would be an Arab Muslim State.

Despite British complicity with Amin al Husseini, an Islamic nationalist, violent anti-Semite & friend of Adolf Hitler, Zionism succeeded. Husseini, thanks to the approval of the British authorities, was appointed Mufti of Jerusalem in 1921. But in order to be able to appoint him, the British High Commissioner, Sir Herbert Samuel, first had to pardon Husseini for having incited riots. The British also chose Husseini despite his having received, in the election for Mufti, the least number of votes.[13]

British authorities received the results that could be expected: Arab riots & a pogrom in Hebron in 1929; the 1936-1939 Arab revolt; hundreds of Jews killed, & a widespread atmosphere of anti-Semitic hatred in the Arab population. Ironically, in 1921 Herbert Samuel was regarded as a British Zionist leader.

Then came the abandonment of the European Jews by every Western country at the Evian conference in July 1938. Before the conference, Hitler had said that if other countries would agree to take the Jews, he would help them leave. But when the United States & Britain refused to accept Jewish refugees, other countries at the conference followed suit, & any mention of the British Mandate of ?Palestine? as a possible destination for Jewish refugees was excluded from the agenda. The decision-making process which led to the ?final solution to the Jewish problem? began immediately after the conference & was a direct result of it.

Despite the Holocaust, the murder of six million Jews trapped in Europe, & the complicity of Western powers with the enemies of Israel to destroy Israel the day it was established, November 29, 1947 ? just a few months after the adoption of the United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine ? Zionism succeeded.    Although most Western countries had voted in favor of the Partition Plan, no Western country helped the newborn state. Only one country, & not a powerful one, provided weapons: Czechoslovakia.

The [7: GW] Arab armies that attacked Israel on the day of its birth were equipped & supplied by the British & the French. Most Western leaders did not think Israel would last long. All of them were sure that Arab armies would win & wipe out both Israel & its population.

In the 1950s, Israel had almost no allies. The British & the French temporarily signed alliances & cooperation agreements with Israel ? for opportunistic reasons: as nationalists in the Arab world were choosing the side of the Soviet Union, the British & the French could only choose the other side: the United States. But the United States, apparently wanting to have good relations with Turkey & fundamentalist Saudi Arabia, were prone to appeasement. Eisenhower did not support the action of France, Britain & Israel against the nationalization of the Suez Canal in 1956; instead, he granted victory to Egypt?s President, Gamal Abdel Nasser.[14]

    During the 1960s, the French ? after the Algerian War of Independence from French colonization, which ended in March 1962 ? switched sides again. That period was the beginning of the so called ?Arab policy of France,? which later became the Arab & Muslim policy of Europe.

   The British also switched sides again, strengthening their ties with Jordan & the Gulf countries. ?Eurabia,? as the Egyptian writer, Bat Ye?or, has called it, took shape: ?a geo-political reality envisaged in 1973 through a system of informal alliances between, on the one hand, the nine countries of the European Community (EC) which, enlarged, became the European Union (EU) in 1992, & on the other hand, the Mediterranean Arab countries.?[15]

All members of the European Community started to distance themselves from Israel & instead to align their interests with those of the Arab world.

At the same time, the United States saw that Israel could be a strategic asset in the Middle East. America started to help Israel seriously in 1967, & during the next decades, its help increased.  The alliance between Israel & the United States, however, often fluctuated; frequently Israel found itself under American pressure too heavy to resist.

When Egypt?s President, Anwar al-Sadat, for instance, decided to cut Egypt?s ties with the Soviet Union & align his country with the United States, the Carter Administration encouraged Israel in the direction of a peace treaty that could be acceptable to Sadat. In 1978, therefore, Israel?s Prime Minister, Menachem Begin, signed a text acknowledging the ?legitimate rights of the Palestinian people.? Peace with Egypt is a strategic asset for Israel, but the recognition by Israel of the ?legitimate rights of the Palestinian people? has had complicated consequences.

When George H.W. Bush (?Bush 41?) thought that he could establish a ?new world order,? he tried to force the Israeli government to sign a peace agreement allowing the fulfillment of ?Palestinian rights.? The result was the Madrid conference of 1991 from which, two years later, the Oslo Accords followed, under the presidency of William Jefferson Clinton.

The Oslo Accords, supposed to bring peace, brought anything but peace. Instead, they led to countless attacks on Israelis by Palestinians, & hundreds of injuries & deaths.

A separate peace treaty was signed with Jordan in 1994, but the price Israel had to pay was the de facto recognition of the PLO?s demand to create & take administrative control over an independent ?Palestinian state? in Judea & Samaria, on the ?West Bank? of the Jordan River. The Palestinian Authority [PA] was formed the same year, 1994 ? the PLO acquired a ?self-governing body? ? but, in total contravention of the Oslo Accords, it did not renounce violence. Terrorist attacks from territories ruled by the PA stopped only a decade later when the Israelis finally built a security barrier to make it more difficult to blow up buses, hotels, cafés, & discotheques. To this day, the PA has not ceased praising & promoting terrorism.

    President Clinton, although a friend of Israel, witnessed more Israelis killed by terrorist attacks under his watch than all U.S. presidents from Harry Truman to George H.W. Bush combined.

Ronald Reagan, also a friend of Israel, had as his main concern the danger posed by the Soviet Union. Even though he treated Israel as a reliable ally & fought to free Jews from the Soviet Union, in 1981 he decided temporarily to suspend the delivery of F-16 jet fighters to Israel, after an Israeli raid on a nuclear reactor in Osirak, Iraq, purchased from France by Saddam Hussein.

In 1982, Reagan announced a two-stage plan: to pull Israeli troops out of Lebanon, & to force Israel into withdrawing from the West Bank & Gaza. Israel eventually completed a full withdrawal from south Lebanon in 2000, but the second stage of the plan was killed by resistance from the Israeli government.

Under the presidency of George W. Bush (?Bush 43?), also a friend of Israel, the ?peace process? that was to have emerged from the Oslo Accords had ground to a total halt.

    After the attack on the World Trade Center & Pentagon on September 11, 2001, Bush understood that radical Islam was a global threat, that the mix of ideas roaming the Muslim world was dangerous, & that Arab nationalism, as well as Islamic fundamentalism & radical Islam, did not seem to be producing world peace. He tried to reshape the Middle East to prepare it for democracy & to break the backbone of radical Islam, but he was not successful.

Under his presidency, a majority of European leaders acted according to the unwritten rules of Eurabia. They placed themselves on the side of the most extreme form of Arab nationalism, such as the hellish dictatorship of Saddam Hussein, & did all they could to appease radical Islam. When they could see that Arab nationalism & Israel were not compatible, they chose Arab nationalism. When they could also see that radical Islam & Israel were not compatible, they chose radical Islam. When they could see the aims of George W. Bush, they chose to defeat him.

President Barack Obama, from the beginning of his term, adopted policies toward Israel & Islam that most Europeans were ready to love. As he seems to be basically ?anti-imperialist,? he shares the fundamentals of Arab nationalism. As, according to his two books, he identifies with the history of ?African Americans,? he seems to think he understands radical Islam?s vision of the world as an expression of a Muslim rage coming from the abuses committed by ?American imperialism.?[16]

Obama appears to think that if the alleged abuses were corrected, & if radical Islam gained power, the world would be a more fair & friendly place. He may not have approved of Osama Bin Laden, but he very much approved of the Muslim Brotherhood in both Turkey & Egypt, & as it has infiltrated the U.S., according to U.S. ?official sources.?

Obama apparently held up, as a ?role model? of Muslim leadership, Turkey?s Islamist Prime Minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who said, ?Democracy is like a streetcar. You ride it until you arrive at your destination & then you step off,? and, quoting a poem, ?Mosques are our barracks, the domes our helmets, the minarets our bayonets, the faithful our soldiers.?

In 2010, Obama issued a ?Presidential Study Directive 11,? ordering an assessment of the Muslim Brotherhood & other ?political Islamist? organizations; he concluded that the U.S. should shift from its policy of supporting stability in the Middle East to a policy of backing Islamic political movements. He encouraged the overthrow of Egypt?s President Hosni Mubarak in 2011 and, despite massive protests, supported President Mohamed Morsi & his government until the last moment. Obama also did his best to not support Morsi?s successor, President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi.

Obama also seems to think he understands the grievances of the Islamist regime in Tehran. If he regards Israel as an ally of ?American imperialism?, he possibly considers it yet another reason for America to be embarrassed.

    On June 4, 2009, in the address to the Muslim world Obama delivered in Cairo, he analogized Palestinian ?daily humiliations that come with occupation? to the ?humiliation of segregation? of black people in America. He has said several times that he supports a ?solution? based on the Arab Peace Initiative promulgated at the 2002 Beirut Summit of the Arab League, & has called many times for Israel?s return to indefensible pre-1967 borders. He seems not to be a friend of Israel.

Meanwhile, despite the supine pro-Arab & Muslim policy of Europe; despite fluctuations in the alliance between Israel & the United States, despite Israel?s sometimes making costly concessions to yield to pressure, despite the circumstance that some American presidents were not friends of Israel, & despite the present U.S. president?s not being a friend of Israel, Zionism has continued to succeed.

It has persisted despite the pretext that Europeans have used to justify their anti-Israeli policies, & despite the so-called ?Palestinian cause? which stands behind the pressure exerted by several U.S. administrations, the 1979 Camp David Accords, the Madrid Conference in 1991, the Oslo Accords in 1992, & all that followed the Oslo Accords until today.

In 1948-49, in 1967, & in 1973, the Arabs states used conventional armies to try to destroy Israel. They attacked Israel, mostly in the name of Arab nationalism, partly in the name of Islamic fundamentalism. In 1948-49, they had the implicit support of Western powers. In 1967 & in 1973, the U.S. was on the side of Israel. European powers were not, but could not come right out & say they supported the eventual destruction of Israel. In 1948-49, the ?Palestinian cause? did not exist; & in 1967 & 1973, it was embryonic.

The Fatah movement, founded in 1959, remained marginal & unimportant until the creation of the Palestine Liberation Organization [PLO] in 1964 by a decision of Arab nationalist leaders in Egypt & Syria, in coordination with the Soviet Union. Its aim was to create a ?national liberation struggle? & a ?people? fighting for its liberation. It was only then that the ?Palestinian people? & the ?Palestinian cause? started their existence, but it took time for them to reach center stage.

The PLO, structured according to the codes of Arab nationalism, used the vocabulary of Arab nationalism with touches of the Soviet propaganda apparatus. Israel began to be described as a by-product of ?colonialism,? & as a bridgehead of ?American imperialism? in the region. A Middle Eastern, romanticized Che Guevara-type of terrorist was created: the leader of the Fatah movement, Yasser Arafat. The aim was apparently to seduce as many people as possible in the West, & many in the West were seduced.

Suddenly forgotten was that Israel had been born from a genuine national liberation movement of the Jewish people. It was now buried under the new ?national liberation struggle,? presented as ?more authentic?, emanating as it did from Arab Muslims, the ultimate victims of European ?imperialism? & ?colonialism.?

Little by little, Israel was no longer perceived as a small country threatened by 22 powerful & bloodthirsty armies, but as a ?strong? power trying to ?cruelly crush? a ?small people? who ?only? aspired to be free. European leaders found in this tale a good excuse to distance themselves from Israel & to accuse Israel of all types of crimes, whether it was guilty of them or not, such as in the non-stop accusations against Israel in the United Nations, as opposed to nations who are daily committing real violations of human rights.

Israel was pushed to sign peace treaties with leaders who were molded to make war, not to sign peace.

Israel was urged to find ways to coexist peacefully with people who did not want to coexist with it. The people Israel was asked to coexist with, had been invented, literally, in order to be a weapon of war against Israel. Their entire reason for being was as a weapon of war against Israel.

Terrorism against Israel fast became acceptable: a ?good? terrorism, a ?resistance,? a sign of ?despair.? Even attacks against children in a toy store or a restaurant were considered ?comprehensible?. Every time Israel accepted a compromise & the ?Palestinian leaders? said it was not enough, Israel was treated as the guilty party. The huge number of Israelis killed under Clinton?s presidency was treated as a detail.

When fewer Israelis were killed under the presidency of George W. Bush than in earlier years, he was accused of being ?indifferent? to the ?suffering? of the ?Palestinians?.

The global rise of radical Islam in the 1980s saw the creation of Hamas. Hamas is not a nationalist Arab movement: it is an integral part of radical Islam.[17]

Hamas?s stated aim is the genocidal destruction of Israel. Its stated way to achieve this aim is terror attacks, called ?armed struggle? by Hamas leaders.

For many years, European countries did not define Hamas as a terrorist organization. As Hamas was fighting for the ?Palestinians,? it was considered by European leaders a ?resistance movement.? Hamas only started to be considered a terrorist organization by the European Union in 2005. Many European leaders who would laugh at the idea of negotiating with ISIS or al-Qaeda, say that Israel should negotiate with Hamas. In other words, they are saying that Israel should negotiate with an organization dedicated to its genocidal destruction.

***

Although Zionism succeeded despite the ?Palestinian cause? & its consequences, it did not lead to peaceful coexistence between Israel & the rest of the Middle East, or even the Western world. Each time Israel was attacked by Arab conventional armies, Western media generally spoke of the wars in a neutral tone. Some commentators had sympathy for Israel, but not many.

In 1948-49 & in 1967, those who had no sympathy for Israel did not explicitly say what they thought.

In 1973, those who did not like Israel & the Jews hoped that Israel would be defeated; when Israel won, most of them did not openly express their disappointment.

Then, Israel was seen as the underdog, a tiny state set upon by 22 Arab & Muslim countries trying to obliterate it. But in 1973, that perception began to change ? the start of a process that has not stopped.

   The first ?Palestinian? terrorist attacks [18] against Israel occurred in 1968, four years after the creation of the PLO, & one year after the unexpected victory of Israel in the Six Day War.

Even though the Western media talked of ?Palestinian terrorism,? the phrase did not last. From the moment that ?Palestinian? terrorism was associated with the ?Palestinian cause,? Palestinian terrorist acts were described as noble & brave. Terrorists were portrayed as ?militants? or ?activists.? Killing Israeli Jews came to be considered by more & more journalists as logical, making sense.

Terror attacks went hand in hand with diplomatic attacks & attacks of disinformation. Arab diplomats worked closely with ?Palestinian? organizations. European diplomats who wished to establish economic strategic links with the Arab world worked with Arab diplomats, & warmly received leaders of ?Palestinian? organizations. They adopted the Arab vision of the Middle East & the ?Palestinian? vision of Israel. Most American diplomats followed suit.

Since the early 1970s, some U.S. administrations have been supportive of Israel, others not as much. All of them have said they support the rights of the ?Palestinian people?.

The Soviet propaganda apparatus produced all the elements of disinformation necessary [19]: ?Pro-Palestinian? movements were created, existing ?pacifist? movements were mobilized & protests were organized. Journalists were recruited to disseminate elements of language & descriptions of ?facts? that other journalists used as if they were real facts. Pseudo-historians rewrote the history of the Middle East. The falsified version of history replaced history.

After a few years, all Western media were using the elements of language & the descriptions of ?facts? that had been disseminated, & no Western media outlet was free of bias.

Not all of them became fully hostile to Israel. But most did.

As a result, Western opinion on Israel, especially in Europe, evolved in a negative direction.

The Soviet propaganda apparatus disappeared when the Soviet Union collapsed, but what had been sown remains, & continues its momentum.

Today, Israel is wrongly described almost everywhere in the West as an ?aggressor,? an ?occupier,? a ?colonizer? or as a country that treats its minorities badly. Few bother to compare how Israel treats Palestinians to how their own ?brothers? in Arab & Muslim countries treat them. The ?Palestinian people,? who officially organized in 1964, are presented as a people as old as the Jewish people, as if a country called ?Palestine? had ever existed in the past & as if ?Palestine? had been illegitimately & arbitrarily displaced by Israel seven decades ago. The Gaza Strip, Judea & Samaria are defined as ?occupied Palestinian territories?, even though much of Judea & Samaria are ruled by the Palestinian Authority & Fatah, & every Jew was forcibly removed from the Gaza Strip by the Israelis themselves in 2005. The very existence of a Jewish people is questioned by bestselling authors [20] & the ties of the Jewish people to their historic homeland are challenged.

    ?Palestinian? terrorism is still almost never described as terrorism. Violence against Israel is almost never condemned. Israel?s responses in self-defense are almost always defined as ?disproportionate,? ?barbaric,? ?criminal.?

    ?Zionism? has become a dirty word. Being an ?anti-Zionist? & fighting to erase Israel off the map ? & the Israeli Jews off the earth ? has become a widely-accepted attitude. ?Anti-Zionists? again spread old anti-Semitic stereotypes, in new clothes.

In every Western country today, except the United States, a majority of the people regards Israel as one of the most despicable countries in the world & has a positive view of the ?Palestinians?.

In every Western country, even in the United States, almost nobody sees that the raw invention of the ?Palestinian people? transformed millions of Arabs into a genocidal weapon to be used against Israelis & even, in Europe this year, the Jews. Almost nobody sees that transforming people into a genocidal weapon is essentially a barbaric act.

Terror attacks have not stopped & will not stop so long as Arab nationalism & radical Islam exist. Israel will continue to exist at the price of eternal & strict vigilance.

Diplomatic attacks have not stopped & will not stop so long as Western countries do not break with the Arab vision of the Middle East & the ?Palestinian? vision of Israel.

Disinformation attacks also have not stopped & will almost certainly increase. They could stop if, & only if, Western media admitted they had lied or been lied to ? not a high probability.

There is no sign that European countries will change course. No sign indicates that European media will change discourse. The Arab & Muslim policies of Europe exist.

Multiple economic ties connect European countries to Arab Muslim countries & to the Muslim world in general. The Islamic influence on Europe is growing, despite the horrors of Syria, Libya & especially the ?Islamic State.? Hostility toward Jews has never really disappeared in Europe; it just adapted to new circumstances. The Jewish State now plays the role of the ?collective Jew,? with European Jews treated as its ?henchmen.?

There is no sign even that most American leaders, diplomats & journalists will change course & stop talking about the rights of the ?Palestinian people?.

Some American leaders & journalists speak the truth: a majority of the American people do not see Israel as a despicable country, & have a deeply skeptical view of the ?Palestinian cause?.

One hopes that the United States will remain an exception. Although the Soviet propaganda machine has infiltrated academia & is increasingly inciting Americans to become ?anti-Zionist?, most Americans are still impressed by what Israel has accomplished despite the diplomatic, political & economic pressures on it, despite the Soviet-style propaganda cooked up against it & despite the wars inflicted on it.

The Obama Administration is the most hostile administration to Israel in history ? the dismaying result of the old Soviet-style propaganda to demonize America & the values of economic freedom, decentralized government & the individual liberties it promotes.

The decline of the Muslim world started at least one century before Zionism emerged. Fundamentalism, Arab nationalism, & radical Islam were born decades before the birth of Israel. Historical & cultural trends show that a Middle East without Zionism & Israel would not have evolved very differently.

The Arab world has used ? & is still using ? Israel as a decoy to hide its multiple failures & to channel the frustration of Muslim populations. But these failures & frustrations are not the result of the existence of Israel. The success of Israel so nearby only highlighted the sense of failure & frustrations of authoritarian governance in the Middle East. It did not create those failures or the authoritarian governance.

Israel has no responsibility for what happened to the Muslim world or for what the Muslims have done to their own societies. Israel could not have done more to be tolerated & accepted by the Muslim world, apart from ceasing to exist altogether. Israel could not bring democracy & liberty to countries with no experience of, or appetite for, either. Israel could have created links & partnerships that allow for evolution in the Muslim world towards more democracy & liberty only if the Muslim world were not what it is. But the Muslim world is what it is.