At the outbreak of the Six Day War of June 1967,
Ahmed Shukairy, leading the so-called “Palestine Liberation
Organization” (PLO) proclaimed: “Israel must be thrown into the sea.”
Observing Arab politics over the last half century,
Harald Vocke is firmly convinced that in spite of all assurances to the
contrary, the present leader of the Palestinian Arabs, Yasser Arafat,
and his collaborators have never negotiated with Israel in the hope of a
durable peace. The real intention of Arafat, in the erroneously
nominated “peace process’, was always, by cunning and deceit, to gain
better military positions in favor of the Arabs of Palestine, ready for
future wars with Israel .
Tolerance and human rights are late fruits of
European thought, but unknown to the Middle Ages and even now to
contemporary Islam. In throwing stones on Israeli soldiers, young Arabs
are trained to believe that Jews are devils, as their throwing of stones
reminds these Arabs that during the pilgrimage to Mecca, all Muslims
must stone symbols of the devil in the valley of Muna. The true meaning
of the Arabic intifada is not “revolt” as foreigners are told. In
classical Arabic the verb intifada means “to shake dust or dirt
from a garment”, in the dialects of Syria and Palestine, intifada
may mean as well “to shudder in disgust when seeing a person”.
Such choice of words reveals the deadly aggressive
mentality of Arafat and his companions in their relations with Jews.
Therefore, for long-term analysis, the scenario of Huntington’s “Clash
of Civilizations” still has to be accepted as valid.
