Challenging Racism and Violence in the Media Through Education |
Edmonton Journal Editorial "Apocalyptic creed" |
Tuesday, April 02, 2002 |
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The
Organization of the Islamic Conference is meeting this week in Malaysia
for a summit on terrorism. But delegates are still squabbling over
definitions, and many are torturing several different languages in a bid
to excuse the suicide bombers who attack "Zionist targets" --
such as, say, families at a Passover seder. Israel, which is waging a
military campaign against terrorists, will likely be smeared as a
"terrorist state." The
conference will no doubt be a farce -- the predictable fate of any and
all such dialogues about terrorism.
Thankfully, weak Canadian foreign policy won't be on embarrassing
display yet again -- Canada doesn't officially attend OIC gatherings. Why
can't some Muslims agree that killing innocent non-Muslims is
unacceptable? Part
of the problem lies with Muslim civilization itself. As
Samuel P. Huntington writes in The Clash of Civilizations and the
Remaking of World Order: "Wherever one looks along the perimeter of
Islam, Muslims have problems living peaceably with their neighbours
... The conflicts within Islam (have also been) more numerous than those
in any other civilization, including tribal conflicts in Africa." But
even by the barbaric standards of the Arab Middle East, Yasser Arafat
and the Palestinian terrorist organizations that operate freely under
his writ have hit new lows. Eighteen
months ago, Arafat nursed the conceit that he could package the current
conflict as a popular uprising. He put schools on holiday and sent
thousands of children to throw rocks at Israeli soldiers. To ensure
those soldiers were armed with live ammo, he deployed snipers in the
background. The result: a steady supply of blood for Al Jazeera. Remember
Muhammad al-Dura, the 12-year-old Palestinian boy who died in his
father's arms? He has become the centrepiece of a Palestinian Authority
propaganda campaign urging children to emulate the "beauty of the
martyr." But an
in-depth documentary prepared for German television may explain why
there was no autopsy on him: he was likely killed by Palestinians,
perhaps deliberately. Meanwhile,
Israel reports that Palestinians are using ambulances to shuttle
terrorists. In one incident, soldiers stopped an ambulance containing
three small children -- plus an explosive belt hidden near the gurney.
The sanctity of the ambulance is a fundamental precept of the laws of
war. Yet for Palestinian terrorists, the Red Crescent is just another façade
to hide behind on the way to driving the Jews into the sea. The
argument that suicide bombers are organic products of Israeli
"aggression" is revolting nonsense.
The plan to smuggle 50 tons of weapons from Iran on board the Karine A,
a Palestinian Authority-commanded ship captured by Israeli commandos
last year, was organized in 2000 -- before the current incursions, and
just after Israel offered Arafat his own country. The
weapons on the Karine A included enough explosives to bring down an
office building. And in their recent sweeps through Palestinian areas,
Israeli soldiers have found caches of other terrorist tools banned by
the Oslo accord. They
include sniper rifles, rocket-propelled grenades and mortars in the
possession of Palestinian Authority "policemen." Yet Arafat
continues to live in a fantasy propaganda world in which he is still a
great champion of peace. Over the weekend, he told Arab television
Israel's invasion was "a response to all the peace attempts because
they do not want peace. They do not want peace! ... These extremist
elements murdered my partner Yitzhak Rabin. Why did they murder him?
Because they do not want peace." It
is disgusting to hear Arafat mention Rabin, a man killed for his
peaceful convictions, in the same breath as himself. Like his terrorist
underlings, Arafat sees
the lives of children -- Palestinian and Israeli both -- as fodder for
the Arab ambition to ignite a regional war that will destroy Israel. He
and his supporters must be isolated internationally, beaten down
militarily and made to understand that Palestinians can never hope to
have a country so long as they embrace the apocalyptic creed under
which suicide bombers -- and Palestinians who cheer them on - explode
themselves. |
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Southam Papers: commentsn@sns.southam.ca |
Editorial: editorial@thejournal.southam.ca |
Letters to the Editor: letters@thejournal.southam.ca |
Edmonton
Journal Editor in Chief: |
BE FIRM, BUT POLITE. Racism has no place in Canada! |
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The
same editorial was published in Saskatoon, Victoria, Calgary and
Montreal under the name listed below. |
Saskatoon |
"Word
games won't do" in the Saskatoon StarPhoenix |
Victoria |
"Isolate
Arafat and his terrorists" in the Times Colonist
(Victoria) |
Calgary |
"No
compromise possible with terrorism's manifest evil" in
the |
Montreal |
"Arafat
hits new lows" in The Montreal Gazette |
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