COLUMN: Reflections on my trip to Israel
I spent two weeks of winter break in Israel. I went back home to see my family, friends and the land that I dearly loved. It was a good trip, and if anything, too short. I went to the cafés, I sat in bars, I ate in restaurants and I rode on the buses. I spent New Year’s Eve with my friends at a club. I walked through the streets of Jerusalem, past the pizzeria and other locations where Palestinian homicide (suicide) bombers had brutally murdered hundreds of Israelis and injured and maimed thousands more.
I went back to Ben Gurion University, from which I have both my bachelor’s and master’s degrees and met with my old friends and professors. I took my brother to see J.R.R. Tolkien’s “The Two Towers”. And I did so without fear. Yes, I will admit that somewhere in the back of my mind I knew that I was risking death or disfigurement, but for me, it was good to be there, to be home, and I wasn’t going to let the terror spoil the fun.
I didn’t let Arafat and his terrorist regime force me into hiding. And I wasn’t the only one there — the restaurants, cafés and buses were full of people, and the country was alive. The Israeli people have refused to stop living, even in the face of terror’s evil onslaught.
I saw those dear to me who live in Israel — my mother, my younger brother and sister, my ex-wife Sheera, numerous family and friends — whose lives are threatened daily by the murderous intentions of the Palestinian Authority (PA) and their Iraqi, Iranian, Saudi and Syrian benefactors. Sheera, who lives in downtown Jerusalem and studies on Mt. Scopus, barely missed several terrorist attacks in downtown Jerusalem over the past year and a half. She says that gunshots are regularly fired at her university campus from the nearby Arab villages. But she also wouldn’t trade living there for anything in the world, even though she knows some terrorist could murder her tomorrow.
I was at my grandmother’s house when a double homicide bombing occurred in south Tel Aviv, killing 23 people and injuring more than 100, with the dead from not only Israel but also China, Ghana, Bulgaria and Romania. The injured came from even more countries around the globe. A witness said that each victim cried out for help in a different language. The terrorists knew that foreigners, who wanted and deserved no part in this war, would be among the casualties, but they did so anyway.
And this is how the PA fights its war, by targeting innocents. In July 2000 the Palestinians were offered a peace agreement by then-Prime Minister Ehud Barak, which would have given them 95 percent (!) of their supposed demands, yet Arafat rejected this. He didn’t make a counteroffer, as the PA wants not a state in peace alongside Israel, but in place of Israel (their charter, or constitution, calls in several places for the violent destruction of Israel). And to do so they declared war on Israel and specifically targeted civilians to achieve these evil aims. Of all the dead between September 2000 and May 2002, 57.7 percent of all Israelis killed were children under 15, and 25.5 percent were women.
Of those Palestinians supposedly killed by Israel, only 11.7 percent were children and 2.8 percent women. Furthermore, Israeli children don’t have access to guns, but Palestinian children do — when I was there Israeli troops arrested two armed Palestinian children, aged 8 and 13, who were sent to attack a Jewish settlement.
Simply put, the majority of Israelis killed by Palestinians are innocent civilians, the vast majority of Palestinians killed by Israelis are terrorists (civilians do accidentally get killed, and the Israeli army goes to great lengths to prevent these from happening). And there is no cycle of violence — Palestinians commit acts of terror, and the Israelis do their utmost to prevent terror and punish those who commit it. And Israel’s proactive, anti-terror policy works — only one out of 15 to 20 planned attacks against Israel succeeds.
The blame for the Palestinians suffering is not the Israelis — it is the fault of the Arab world and the PA. The Arab world treats the Palestinians as pariahs and forces those living within their borders to live in refugee camps instead of integrating them into their societies. These same countries help fund terrorism and foment hatred of the United States and Israel, so as to divert attention from their own corruption and incompetence. Furthermore, on the eve of the current war, 98 percent of all Palestinians were living under PA rule, with the region’s fastest growing economy (thanks to strong economic ties with Israel). But they also began to demand more control over their own lives, and wanted to know to where 40 percent of their budget was mysteriously disappearing. Arafat saw this and realized that his people’s success became a threat to his power. So he shifted the focus elsewhere. He declared war on Israel.
Arafat, who built his career through terror and said to his people, “We know but one word … Jihad, Jihad, Jihad, Jihad.” He has chosen Jihad, or holy war, a means of achieving his goals, and he’s kept his people suffering so they’ll be more willing to achieve them. He says he wants peace, yet calls for Jihad, the antithesis of peace (anyone who says that Jihad is peaceful is either a liar or a fool).
For the past 55 years Jihad has failed the Arab world in its fight against Israel’s existence. And every time they used violence as a means to destroy Israel, they lost. Violence doesn’t work. The Israelis, on the other hand, offered the Arab world peace from the start, and continue to strive for it. Seventy-two percent of the Israeli population expressed willingness to live alongside a peaceful Palestinian state in April 2002 (and in the midst of Operation Defensive Shield). Israelis are willing to make the concessions necessary for peace, but the PA has no intention of doing so.
The Palestinian people need to decide here, do they want peace, or do they want Jihad? If they want Jihad, then they deserve what they get. But if they want peace then they need to take the steps necessary for peace — to put down the guns, explosive belts, rocks and missiles, and to forever disavow these means. The Palestinians must rid themselves of Arafat and his goons and bring in leaders who actually care for the people and will work for peace. If the Palestinians show genuine interest in peace, the Israelis will reciprocate. People need to understand that the Palestinians, the Iraqis, etc. are not victims of Israel or the United States, but rather their own corrupt leaders. As long as Arafat and his close friend Saddam Hussein remain in power, the Palestinians will suffer.
And lastly, I intend on going back to Israel, the land of my people, terror or no terror. It is my home, my people’s home, and no one can or will take that from my people or myself.
Guy Serbin is a graduate research assistant in the department of plants, soils and biometeorology. Comments can be sent to gserbin@mendel.usu.edu.