Open Letter to the Muslim World: End Your War with Israel
Open Letter to the Muslim World: End Your War with Israel
By By: Melanie Phillips, JNS.org, Reported by United With Israel, April 20 2018
Palestinians pray near makeshift tents before clashing with the IDF at the Gaza-Israel border, March 30, 2018. (AP/Adel Hana)
“If you finally were to decide to end your war against us in Israel, finally decide that you love your children more than you hate us, finally decide that instead of trying to destroy Israel you want it to help you accommodate to modernity, you will find our hands extended in friendship.”
Dear Muslim world,
The State of Israel is 70 years old today, and I am writing from its capital city, Jerusalem.
I realize that for most of you, the words I have just written will cause your gorge to rise. In Israel, they are a source of jubilation.
Israel’s rebirth as the Jewish national homeland out of the ashes of the Holocaust was in itself an astonishing achievement, unique in the annals of the world.
For it to have survived the unparalleled attempts to destroy it ever since is regarded by many as nothing short of miraculous.
Wednesday was Israel’s annual remembrance day. When the sirens sounded, the country paused and bowed its head. It’s the day when Israel mourns the price in blood it has had to pay for existing at all: 23,646 fallen Israeli soldiers and 3,134 Israeli civilians murdered through terrorism.
More than 26,000 dead—with most of the military casualties consisting of Israel’s precious young who must be conscripted to defend their country—purely because there are people determined to prevent the Jews from living in their own ancestral homeland.
But you know all about that because you are the people killing them.
Look How Hard You’ve Tried to Destroy Israel
You are the people who have been trying to destroy the Jewish homeland for the better part of a century. Look how hard you’ve tried. You’ve used war. You’ve used terrorism. You’ve used the Palestinian Arabs as pawns. You’ve used the diplomatic game. You’ve used economic boycotts.
Despite all this, you have been forced to watch as Israel has not only survived but become the strongest state in the region, stronger even than many countries in the developed world.
While your economies are one giant basket case disguised only by the now fast-disappearing oil weapon, Israel has become the “startup nation” with its economy booming.
While your birth rate is falling off the edge of a cliff, Israel’s average of three births per woman is nearly double the fertility rate for other industrialized countries in the OECD.
Your one undoubted success has been to get the Europeans on your side in your campaign of demonization and delegitimization of Israel. Well, good luck with that one.
European culture is itself in danger of going down the tubes as the result of uncontrolled migration. The Europeans may think they support you against Israel, but the harsh reality—which is about to get a whole lot harsher for them—is that they will increasingly need Israel’s support against you.
‘A Much Bigger Enemy than the Jews’
We understand why you hate Israel. Paranoid hatred of the Jews is embedded in your religious texts. Moreover, since you believe that any land ever occupied by Muslims becomes Muslim land in perpetuity—and since the very idea of the Jews being your equals in ruling their own land is anathema to you—your culture of honor and shame means that you cannot accept a Jewish state in a region you claim as your own.
So we know you will never accept that Israel is entitled to exist. Nevertheless, you are actually fighting a much bigger enemy than the Jews—an enemy to which you are losing hands down. That enemy is modernity.
For all the terrible violence and mayhem you have unleashed in in the cause of Islamic holy war, your purpose is ultimately defensive. You realize that, in its freedom for the individual and particularly for women, modernity poses a mortal threat to Islam.
Unlike the ignorant West, you know that Islam does not mean peace. It means submission. Modernity means submission can no longer be enforced. Which is why, in its seventh-century form at least, Islam is on the way out.
Which is why you believe you have to stop modernity. Which is why you are at war with the West. And which is also why you see the Jews as your enemy of enemies because you believe they are behind absolutely everything to do with modernity. Destroy the Jews, you imagine, and you will defeat modernity.
‘The Genie is Out of the Bottle’
Too late: The genie is out of the bottle. In Iran, women are throwing off their hijabs; as a result, the clerical regime terrorizing the Iranian people is trembling. The Iranian people are refusing to submit, and if enough of them rise up, the Islamist regime will be toppled, and modernity will have won.
In Saudi Arabia , the Crown Prince has realized that unless the country modernizes, it will die. Accordingly, some repressive social rules have been relaxed, with more reforms promised.
Yes, these are only small steps. But the Crown Prince, who also needs Western backing to fight the Iranian regime, has come to understand that rather than fighting modernity, he needs to make some kind of accommodation with it. And he seems to have concluded something similar about Israel.
And look at the Palestinian Arabs. In Gaza, Hamas is having to force them through threats and violence to rush the border fence with Israel . More and more Israeli Arabs want to be known just as Israelis. Arabs living in the disputed territories by and large don’t want to live in a despotic and corrupt Palestine state. They want Israeli passports and to live in Israel, under the rule of law and guarantees of human rights.
An increasing number of the Arab young, who are on Twitter and Facebook and all the rest of it, don’t want to fight the unending battles of the seventh century.
Of course, none of this means the Palestinian Arabs are about to abandon their war to destroy Israel; opinion polls suggest widespread continuing rejectionism. But the unstoppable force of modernity is meeting the immoveable object of Islam, and modernity will win.
Dear Muslim world, we Jews are fated always to be yoked to you. How could it be otherwise? We are stepbrothers and sisters, sharing the same father although we have different mothers (and we didn’t treat yours very well). Like it or not, we are part of the same extended family.
‘Get Over Yourselves and Collectively Grow Up’
We know that families, especially stepfamilies, can be arenas of resentment and hatred. Despite the murderous hatred you have shown us over the last 70 years and previously, we Jews don’t hate you. Nor do we need you to love us. We just want you to get over yourselves and collectively grow up.
If you finally were to decide to end your war against us in Israel, finally decide that you love your children more than you hate us, finally decide that instead of trying to destroy Israel you want it to help you accommodate to modernity, you will find our hands extended in friendship. But if you try to remove us from the earth, we will destroy you.
Dear Muslim world, wake up and smell the coffee. The Jewish people has defied all the odds over and over again, and will continue to do so. You may break our hearts by killing our loved ones, but you won’t break us. Progress and modernity will destroy you instead.
Melanie Phillips is a British journalist, broadcaster and author.
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Although not ALL Muslims hate Israel and the Jews, a significant number of them do, certainly a lot more than there are Jews in the world. Unfortunately, the haters are joined by many who are not Muslims.
Although in theory the article promotes peace, in reality it suggests that the Palestinians simply unconditionally surrender. Muslims in general too, for that matter.
It made me curious about the writer.
I read her wiki page, and it is not unfair to say that if she were an American and a well known figure she would be considered one of the most right wing people in the country.
Is the incitement by the Palestinian and Hamas leadership and by Imams everywhere to hate and kill Jews of any importance to you?
But as usual, you will criticize the source and the author rather than counter the issues raised. You don't even have to identify yourself for anyone here to know whose method that is.
Buzz, you seeded an article by someone who appears to be an extremist, not just about Muslims, but about many things.
1. She doesn't think that Ireland should be an independent country, but rather should be part of Britain.
2. She accused Obama of promoting "black power" and "Jew-bashing".
3. She is anti-vaccination.
4. She says climate change is fake.
5. She says that lesbians should not be allowed to give birth.
6. She says children should not be given positive information about gays.
7. She says her home country of Britain has a "debauched culture" with "feral children".
This is a very right wing person. I think that matters with any essay someone writes about peace in the middle east or anywhere else.
So in your opinion, right-wing persons are not allowed to harbour a theory of what could achieve peace? Isn't that something like shouting down a speaker just because they're right wing and may have had extreme ideas?k...like the CUNY law (what a joke) students.
Now that I think about it, why did I bother to ask the question of a person who when unable to debate the issue, will attack the source and the author instead or will just disappear?
The question in my mind is "How many do they influence?"
Hatred of Israel and having it as the enemy is what keeps some Arab leaders in power
Buzz, one of the members of the Knesset has said that because the actress Natalie Portman, who has dual Israeli and American citizenship, has spoken out about Israeli mistreatment of the people in Gaza, and has declined to attend an awards ceremony in Israel, she should be stripped of her Israeli citizenship. Do you agree with that?
I don't think she should be treated any differently than Americans treat traitors.
So unless an Israeli agrees with everything the Israeli government and military do they are a traitor in your view?
I don't know Buzz. Remember liberals in this country hail traitors such as beautiful bergdahl, Bradley Manning and Edward Snowden as heroes. Don't you John?
I don't agree with everything the Israeli government and military does, and you already know that, don't you? Does that make ME a traitor? However, when people are hell-bent to kill you and destroy your country, I don't disagree with what one must do to defend oneself from them. Let Natalie take a walk through Gaza wearing a Star of David and see how she feels then.
Shouldn't you have addressed that comment to John instead of me?
No I just wanted to show that not all Americans treat traitors the same. I for one would like to have seen all three of the men I mentioned executed for their treasonous acts. The liberals would give them medals .
Sounds more like Portman is the real patriot and Likudniks like Bibi Netanyahu, Miri Regev and Oren Hazan are the traitors. As a centrist legislator said:
Of course we are all entitled to our opinions, aren't we. But as for yours....
The two million dollars she would have received should instead be distributed to the families of the Jews who were killed and to those maimed by Palestinian terrorists. Those Americans who the SCOTUS recently screwed by reversing a judgment against the PLO rightfully earned in accordance with the Terrorism Act would be a good idea - it should at least pay their legal fees.
Better yet it should be distributed to the families of the Palestinians murdered by IDF snipers, and the Israeli government should issue a formal apology.
I can see why ethical Jews don't want to be associated with the crimes Israel is committing these days.
You are referring, are you not, to the Hamas operatives (Hamas is identified by most civilized countries as a terrorist organization) and those who were warned to stay away from the fence because they are covering the attempts by terrorists top penetrate it, and those who are actively inciting the rioting. Perhaps there is a little unintended collateral damage, but that's to be expected in any such situation.
I know, right? Same thing with bus and cafe bombs.
Glad you mentioned those - I guess you've never had the occasion to witness a bus bomb in Jerusalem, as I have, or a cafe bomb that, but for the grace of God, DIDN'T kill my son in Jerusalem, or been aware of the pipe bomb buried in the Tel Aviv beach sand that killed my daughter's classmate while my daughter was close to her, or seen the devastation in the Park Hotel in Netanya immediately following the "Passover Massacre", as I did. Nothing collateral in those cases - entirely intentional to kill innocent civilians.
Perhaps if you had witnessed what my family and I have witnessed and experienced, you might not be so supportive of Palestinian and Hamas terrorists, but then I assume you've never even been to Israel, but get all your news through the biased Israel-bashing media and the Arab-controlled UN.
I see.....so "collateral damage" is OK if the dead folks are Palestinians but not if they're Israelis, right? Sounds like you're a hypocrite or have a double standard.
Says an American whose country atom-bombed Hiroshima and Nagasaki. LOL. And you call ME a hypocrite.
I can't waste my time arguing with Skrekk and his thumb's up followers, when they prefer to support declared terrorists whose written and sworn credo is to annihilate the Jews and destroy Israel, rather than realize that a country must defend itself from such animals. To me, it is no different from supporting the Nazis during WW2 if a French or Polish partisan killed one of them.