Middle East Tension Quotes
When the United Nations partitioned Palestine into a Jewish and a Palestinian State the Arab Countries all jointly attacked the fledgling Jewish State of Israel. Despite the Israeli’s being overwhelmingly out numbered in man and weapons, they beat back the invaders. However while many Arabs stayed on their Israeli land and some helped the Jews defend against the Arab Armies some abandoned their homes and land and went to neighboring Arab Counties. This is what they had been asked to do by the Arab governments who wanted to be able to attack communities without worrying about killing Arabs. To spur the evacuation the spread false propaganda about Israeli atrocities and frightened them into leaving. As a motivation to leave they were told that they could move into the Jewish lands and property when the Jews had been driven out. To make matters worse, some Israeli radicals repeated the lies to induce the Arabs to abandon their lands. In at least one case Arabs who stayed were subjected to violence. After the defeat of the Arabs, the Israelis had a dilemma in that they could not tell which Arabs were residents who had just been frightened and which had fought on the Arab side or helped the invaders. The result was that with few exceptions, the Arab refugees were not allowed back. Meanwhile, the Arab countries would not allow the refugees to settle and become citizens of the Arab countries (except for Jordan). The Palestinian refugees were a particularly fertile population and were cared for by the United Nations and have multiplied to many times their original size maintaining a continuous festering problem.
It is easy for those in London to wish for missiles and other weapons to be launched at others. If an Iranian missile were to hit Israel, he would celebrate. Then when the Israeli retaliation strike hits Iran, he will be among the first to call for a cease fire and plead for intervention lest there be bloodshed in Iran. Somehow the Middle East has a disproportionate number of people who are terribly enthused about attacking others without considering the consequence of the retaliation and counter attack.
Other nations had nuclear weapons but were not regarded as threats to national and world security. The problem was that Iran was the ONLY nation which was a theocracy in which the leadership strongly advocated death (martyrdom) to defend Islam; had for years had a population that on frequent occasions publically called for “Death to the Untied States”; Iran’s President is the only national leader and member of the United Nations that has called for the obliteration of another member state—Israel; has continuous supported the worst of the non state terrorist organizations by giving them arms and money. A small nuclear bomb smuggled into the US by terrorist organizations could make 9-11 look like a minor problem.
The quotation is notable as it illustrates the great difficulty that modern democracies have with extreme Islamic fundamentalists. Their very perception and world view is so different that often we think of the extremists as insane and they often feel the same way about us.
