|
Trending Topics
|
Source: http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/7953/arabs-jews
The Arabs' Real Grievance Against the Jews
(Gatestone Institute) Fred Maroun - As Arabs, how many of us have the courage to admit that waging war after war against the Jews in order to deny them the right to exist, and refusing every reasonable solution to the conflict, has led to the current situation? Our message to Jews, throughout history and particularly when they had the temerity to want to govern themselves, has been clear: we cannot tolerate your very existence. Yet the Jews demand the right to exist as equals on the land where they have existed and belonged continuously for more than 3,000 years. We Arabs pretend that our lack of respect for the right of Jews to exist is not the cause of the conflict. We would rather claim that the conflict is about "occupation" and "settlements." The Jews see what radical Islamists are now doing to Christians and other minorities who were also in the Middle East for thousands of years before the Muslim Prophet Mohammed was even born: Yazidis, Kurds, Christians, Copts, Assyrians, Arameans, and many others. Where are these indigenous people of Iraq, Syria and Egypt now? Persecuted, run out of their own historical land, and slaughtered by Islamists. Jews know that this is what would have happened to them if they did not have their own state. The real Arab grievance against the Jews is that they exist. We want the Jews either to disappear or be subservient to our whims, but the Jews refuse to bend to our bigotry, and they refuse to be swayed by our threats and our slander. Who in his right mind can blame them? The writer, an Arab based in Canada, lived in Lebanon from 1961 to 1984.