Ruthie Blum: Crossword clues and global jihad
http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_opinion.php?id=16993
Senior Palestinian Authority officials told the Hebrew news portal Walla on Sunday that the Israeli leadership is rooting for a Hamas victory in the upcoming PA municipal elections. The reason cited for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s and Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman’s ostensible favoring of a majority win for the terrorist organization that runs Gaza over its rival faction, Fatah, is that this would legitimize Jerusalem’s claims that there is no partner for negotiations on the Palestinian side.
Everybody, other than delusional leftists, knows by now that the only difference between one jihadi group and another is internal, involving power struggles and arguments over the best way to eliminate the world’s infidels. For decades, Israel has acted on the hope — and prayer — that this is surmountable. Like all Western countries, even the one situated in the Middle East, Israel operated under the assumption that enemies could be moderated, with heaps of goodwill, territorial concessions and help from the international community.
However, the cold, hard reality, which has been evident throughout history, is that this premise is false. Europe, whose memory is so short that it has forgotten the lessons of World War II, is unable to articulate this realization. But a glimmer of understanding occasionally rears its head among citizens shaken awake by terrorist attacks, whose increasing frequency is beginning to cause insomnia.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel — one European leader whose popularity is plummeting as a result of a spate of gruesome attacks committed by radical Muslims against innocent people — last week made a desperate attempt to defend herself against charges that her open-door policy to refugees was responsible.
”Islamist terror in Germany wasn’t imported with [them],” she said, though more than 2 million unvetted migrants have flooded her country since 2015. The phenomenon of homegrown radicals going to Syria to train with Islamic State terrorists, she explained, “has been concerning us for years.”
How comforting.
What she failed to mention was that her government was drawing up a directive — leaked on Sunday by the German daily Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung — calling on the public to stockpile food, water and other supplies to last for at least 10 days. The purpose of this state-of-emergency decree, titled “Concept for Civil Defense,” is to protect German citizens in the event of a major terrorist attack, by “preparing appropriately for a development that could threaten our existence and cannot be categorically ruled out in the future.”
Wow. That ought to do the trick to show jihadis that Germany means business. Nothing like the sight of people lining up at the supermarket to purchase doomsday goods to discourage terrorists from expressing their bloodlust.
Well-acquainted with the literal and figurative drill of a homefront under assault, Netanyahu harbors no illusions about Islamist terrorists, homegrown or otherwise — whether they belong to Islamic State, Hezbollah, Hamas, Fatah or the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, the group that launched a rocket into the back yard of a private home in Sderot on Sunday.
Indeed, as the rocket was flying into the southern Israeli city, a crossword puzzle in the official PA daily, Al-Hayat Al-Jadida — highlighted and translated by Palestinian Media Watch — included a reiteration of Fatah’s view of the existence of the entire state of Israel as illegitimate. The answer to the clue, “A port in occupied Palestine,” was Haifa. Not the West Bank, not east Jerusalem. Indeed, as PMW pointed out, it is the 1948 borders of Israel’s birth at the root of the enmity.
The reason: Jews have to be killed wherever they are found.
It is this grasp of global jihad that Abbas’ honchos were referring to when they accused the Israeli prime minister of preferring a Hamas victory. In one respect, they are right. Netanyahu knows that no official Palestinian entity is seeking peace, and that all support terrorism as a means to Israel’s end. Yet, Fatah, unlike its killer counterparts, is viewed as a “partner” by the likes of Merkel and her co-signatories to the nuclear agreement with Iran.
Which brings us to Tehran, the greatest state sponsor of terrorism worldwide. Netanyahu made his best effort to prevent the forging of a deal with the devil, but to no avail. In its aftermath, he has watched as his predictions, one by one, are coming true. And the mullah-led regime would be the first to admit — nay, brag — about it.
So Fatah can stop moaning. Netanyahu and his defense minister have bigger problems on their plate than worrying about which terrorist entity will have more seats on meaningless PA city councils. Merkel and her European cohorts should take this under advisement.
Ruthie Blum is the managing editor of The Algemeiner.
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