Daniel Pipes summed it up well when he differentiated between 2 scenarios: The first is where there is a legitimate political disagreement, the second is where one entity intends to destroy the other.

The first type is handled by negotiations in which both sides try to assert their ground and then look for ways to work out their disagreements through compromise.

The second cannot be handled through negotiation. To attempt such is dangerous, even suicidal.

Failing to realize that the stakes are nothing less than Israel’s very existence represents what cannot be mere stupidity. It is utter insanity.

I would like to add an observation here, by considering the implications of Israel being wiped off the map.

There are those who droll on endlessly about how our support of Israel fuels Mohammedan hatred against us to the point where they’re willing to kill themselves to do us damage. Jared Taylor, for whom I otherwise have the highest respect, pushes this line. (See “Teaching Millions More To Hate Us” http://www.amenusa.org/wtc26.htm)

Mr. Taylor is correct that President Bush has not correctly stated the reasons for Arab hatred of America, but rather soft-pedaled it in P.C. terms Americans can still stomach. But he ignores the implications when this view is taken to its logical conclusion.

Both Israel and the U.S. are used as scapegoats by ruthless, dictatorial regimes to divert attention away from their own corruption and incompetence. Listen to any gathering of Arab groups on C-SPAN and the word “Is-rye-el” is heard every 10 seconds — as if all their problems would disappear if only the ‘Zionist Entity’ were crushed.

In fact, if Israel were defeated life would be economic hell for those Arabs in and around the Holy Land. It needs to be understood that Mohammedan countries cannot — and never could by themselves — create stable economies. Dr. Serge Trifkovic in his outstanding book, “The Sword Of The Prophet,” which see, notes that according to the World Bank, “the total exports of the Arab countries (other than fossil fuels) amount to less than those of Finland, a country of 5 million inhabitants.” (p 206)

Israel is very important economically to the Palestinians. What if she were gone? After the initial thrill of victory they would languish in ever greater poverty and want. This of course would lead to no soul-searching — such is not the way of Mohammedanism. They would simply search for another scapegoat. And who would that be?

Well, let’s see, there was “the Great Satan” and “the Little Satan.” We’ve taken care of “Little,” so who does that leave?

We of course, having betrayed our tiny ally feeding her to the wolves would be seen in the same way Britain and the allies were seen after they handed the Sudetenland — and then all of Czechoslovakia — over to the Fuhrer.

To illustrate just how much logic is thrown out the window by those who view our support of Israel in this way, consider the following statement made recently by Jared Taylor at http://www.vdare.com/misc/taylor_sailer_and_rpi.htm —

“I take this to mean that [Mr. Sailer] believes racial preferences should be abolished, not so much because they are wrong, but because whites will eventually rise up against them. This is a very dangerous argument. If we operate on the basis of a fear of riots rather than on a judgment of right and wrong, policy loses all coherence, and the nation can be blackmailed.”

I think Mr. Taylor’s observation applies by analogy quite well to this issue! The fact is, Israel is at the front lines against an enemy that has threatened Western Civilization for centuries — almost defeating us twice. If Israel were not there, absorbing Arab attentions, then the only enemies left would be us.

As a side note, I think the real underlying cause of the problems here are the treasonous policies that have left us dependent for decades on foreign oil. It is only because of our oil-hunger that the Mohammedan nations have their wealth and prominence. Without this demand their cars would still be camels, and we wouldn’t care what they think. This is entirely our fault.

A minor footnote to Joel’s superb essay posted 6/13,3:40 a.m.:

He says that the disappearance of Israel would lead to poverty and want among the local Arabs.

In fact, it was the economic opportunities created by Jews that attracted Arabs from all the surrounding countries to that small region in the early twentieth century. This historical truth undermines the widespread assumption that the Palestinian Arabs were there “from time immemorial” and that it’s the Jews who were the interlopers. Whenever people make that argument, we should advise them to read Joan Peters’s book FROM TIME IMMEMORIAL, which copiously documents the recency of the Palestinian Arabs’ arrival.

Joel’s observation rightly implies that, after several generations of living next to, and in many cases working for, Jewish enterprises, the Arabs have still not learned to emulate their neighbors’ inventiveness and industry. Nothing external is holding them back; the root is their culture and religion.

There’s an eerie resemblance between the Palestinian Arabs’ determination to destroy Israel and the black rioters’ efforts in American cities a generation ago to destroy their own neighborhoods and the businesses that employed them.

To underscore the inability of Mohammedan countries to develop sound economies, I should quote the rest of Dr. Trifkovik’s passage:

“Always reliant on the plunder of its neighbors and robbery of its non-Muslim subjects, Islam was unable to create new wealth once the conquerors had run out of steam and reduced the vanquished to utter penury. Pre-Islamic Egypt was the granary of Europe, just like the pre-Bolshevik Ukraine; now both have to import food. Pre-Islamic Syria and Asia Minor suffered a similar fate under Umar to the highly developed and prosperous East Germany and Czechoslovakia after 1945. Both Islam and Communism oppose the preconditions for successful economic development in principle as well as in practice. In both cases, attempts to copy Western methods of production failed because they were not accompanied by the essential changes of social, political, and legal structure…”

Again, I strongly recommend Dr. Trifkovik’s book in order to understand the true nature of the threat faced by the civilized world by the scourge of Mohammedanism.

And frieda, coming from yourself that was quite a compliment. Thank you kindly. :-)