One More Reason Why Peace Won’t Happen. By Jonathan S. Tobin. Commentary, April 12, 2013.
A Day at the Museum. By Bat Ye’or. Translated from the French by Jean Szlamowicz. Jihad Watch, April 12, 2013.
Tobin:
Anyone
who regularly follows the translations of the Palestinian media available on
Palestinian Media Watch (www.palwatch.org) or www.Memri.org understands that
the blithe talk about the possibility of Middle East peace that is heard on the
left is utterly unrealistic. But keeping one’s finger on the pulse of a
Palestinian culture that continues to foment hatred of Jews and Israel isn’t
the only indicator of just how deep this animus runs in Arab culture. Just as
informative is a look at the cultures of the two Arab countries that have
already made peace with Israel: Egypt and Jordan. The potent anti-Semitism of the Muslim Brotherhood as well as the prejudice that runs throughout the culture of the largest Arab nation is well documented. But the situation in
Jordan is less well known.
Jordan’s
reputation as a moderate Arab nation stems mostly from the attitude of former
King Hussein and his successor King Abdullah. Like his father, the Jordanian
monarch is well spoken in English, charming and, despite the criticisms he lobs
across the border at Israel in order to maintain his standing as an Arab
leader, very much uninterested in conflict with the Jewish state. But his
people and even those in his government are a very different manner.
As the Jerusalem Post reports, 110 out of 120
members of the Jordanian parliament have endorsed a petition calling for the
release of the former soldier who murdered seven Jewish children in 1997. The
shocking incident at the Island of Peace along the border between Israel and
Jordan prompted King Hussein to personally apologize to the families of the
victims for what he considered a blot on the honor of both his country and its
armed services. But to the overwhelming majority of Jordanians, he appears to
be a hero. If that doesn’t tell you something about how difficult it is to
imagine the end of the Middle East conflict, you aren’t paying attention.
The
details of the Island of Peace shooting were horrific. Ahmed Daqamseh, one of
the Jordanian soldiers on duty at the site that day, turned his gun on a group
of visiting Israeli schoolgirls, killing seven and injuring five. The death
toll was limited only by the fact that his gun jammed. He was spared a death
sentence because a tribunal ruled that he was mentally unstable. But the
elevation of his former defense attorney, Hussein Mjali, to the post of
minister of justice in 2011 gave new life to the campaign to spring the killer.
Unlike
other such causes to free long-imprisoned figures, this effort isn’t based on
any ideas about a miscarriage of justice or an overly harsh sentence. It is,
instead, based on the abhorrence with which Israel and Jews in general are
viewed in Jordanian society. Daqamseh is unrepentant about his crime and that
appears to make him popular. Part of this can be traced to the fact that the
majority of Jordanians are Palestinians who are generally marginalized in a
government run by and for the Hashemite ruling family. But it must also be
traced to a general current of Jew-hatred that grips the Arab and Muslim
worlds. It is only that feeling that can explain the desire of so many in
Jordan to treat a madman who went on a rampage killing little girls as a hero
or imprisoned martyr.
The
problem between Israel and its neighbors has never really been the location of
borders, settlements or the severity of its measures of self-defense. It’s
about the unwillingness of a critical mass of Palestinians and Arabs in general
to tolerate Jewish sovereignty over any portion, no matter how small, over part
of the Middle East. The hate that leads serious people to demand freedom for a
mass killer of children is the same factor that makes true peace unlikely in
the foreseeable future. This is regrettable, but those who wish to claim any
insight into the politics that drive the Middle East conflict cannot ignore it.
