Garbanzo Toons: Battling the Islamic Fascists and Jew Haters on Campus

Wednesday, September 27, 2006

Battling the Islamic Fascists and Jew Haters on Campus

The Michigan Daily, campus newspaper at the University of Michigan, ran this pro-Israel editorial. Israel advocates are off to an early start. They aren't waiting for the Islamic hate-monkeys to spew their anti-semitic vitriol all over U of M. The best defense is a good offense and all that jazz. The entire editorial is reproduced below.

If on July 12, 2006 Hezbollah militants had not crossed the Israeli border, murdering and kidnapping Israeli soldiers, would there have been war? The answer is no. Unfortunately, Hezbollah, a terrorist organization funded and armed by Iran, initiated a war that nobody wanted.

Some suggest that diplomacy was an option for Israel. However, Hezbollah's leader, Hassan Nasrallah, leaves no doubt as to his feelings. Nasrallah said in an interview in 2000: "I am against any reconciliation with Israel. I do not even recognize the presence of a state that is called Israel … That is why if Lebanon concludes a peace agreement with Israel … (Hezbollah) deputies will reject it." How can Israel sit down at the negotiating table with those sworn to its destruction?

Had Hezbollah not fired about 4,000 rockets into Israel, would the Israeli Defense Forces have had to enter Lebanon? Israel was forced to do what any other sovereign state would and should do - defend its people, Jews and Arabs alike.

If Hezbollah had not launched rockets from schools, hospitals and neighborhoods, how many innocent lives would have been spared? Hezbollah fighters used Lebanese children as human shields while deliberately targeting densely populated civilian centers. Jan Egeland, UN undersecretary general for humanitarian affairs, summed it up best in July when he said: "Hezbollah must stop this cowardly blending in among women and children."

If Israel had not sent soldiers door-to-door to seek out Hezbollah terrorists, how many more lives would have been lost? Israel could have shown disregard for civilian life through an intensified aerial campaign, but out of respect for innocent life, it sacrificed its own troops. More than 100 Israeli soldiers died in order to prevent unnecessary harm to Lebanese civilians.

There is no question: Hezbollah started this war, and Israel was forced to protect itself from a terrorist entity avowed to its destruction.

While hundreds of thousands of Israelis huddled in bomb shelters and fled their homes in the north, Israel was forced to defend itself on yet another border. Hamas simultaneously kidnapped an Israeli soldier and launched more than a thousand Qassam rockets into southern Israeli towns.

Let's simplify the issue. Imagine if Hezbollah and Hamas laid down their arms and recognized Israel's right to exist. Whereas Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmet openly supports the establishment of a Palestinian state, Ismail Haniyah, the democratically elected Palestinian prime minister, reiterated Friday that his government will not recognize Israel. There is no prospect for peace when only one side wants it.

For years, Israel's enemies used its presence in the Gaza Strip as an excuse for terrorism. In a unilateral step toward peace, Israel uprooted 10,000 of its own citizens (many of whom are still homeless) and ceded control of the Gaza Strip to the Palestinian Authority. Instead of using this opportunity to build a civil society, the Palestinian Authority used this land as a launching pad for further terrorism, violence and indoctrination to hate. This has become an all too familiar theme - Israel makes unprecedented sacrifices, and in turn Israel is thanked with rockets and suicide bombings.

Israel wants a real and lasting peace. Unfortunately, this sentiment is not being reciprocated. A 2006 report by the Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center at the Center for Special Studies on fifth-grade Palestinian Authority textbooks shows that Palestinian children are being taught the importance of dying as a martyr. In addition, the maps in these textbooks fail to recognize Israel's existence, calling the entire region Palestine. Furthermore, in both Palestinian Authority and Hezbollah media, Jews are portrayed as evil people who drink the blood of Arab children. This hateful propaganda may cause even more damage to the peace process than any rocket or bullet. While buildings can be repaired in a few weeks, it takes a lifetime to repair the mind of young child.

As long as children are taught to hate, there will not be peace in the Middle East. Along the same lines, as long as some at the University continue to inaccurately attack Israel while failing to understand, respect and listen to each other, we will not be able to make a positive difference on this campus.

It's time to be blunt. With thousands of Jews and Arabs on this campus, we have two options. Either we contribute to a deteriorating peace process through irresponsibly inaccurate and disrespectful propaganda, or we set a tone for future dialogue by providing an exemplary model of coexistence and respect. As a campus community, the decision is ours - where on the road map will we stand?