There is more to the issue of Muslims in the West.
The state of Israel is a curious hodgepodge of things. On the one hand, it is officially a secular state, but its historical associations, language, currency, and symbols are based on religious texts and history. The Star of David refers to King David, who was not only the leader of the Jewish people prior to his son’s building of the First Temple but also the acknowledged author of Psalms. While there definitely are Israelis whom one might describe as completely anti-religious, most local Jews still connect with Judaism at some level. Most fast on Yom Kippur, eat matzah at Passover, and observe some aspects of the Sabbath and holidays. A lab mate gave birth, and someone described her husband as hating Judaism. I went to the circumcision of their son, and said husband was fully dressed in religious attire as he gave his son a “bris.” If he had really hated religion, he would not have performed the ancient custom, or he would have opted for a hospital circumcision without any of the dozens of family and friends present.
When we talk about Islam and the Muslim Brotherhood version that is causing havoc here (Hamas) and in the West, we oftentimes forget that the goal of Muslim domination is not strictly a religious phenomenon. Let’s go back to the 1960s and 1970s when secular military parties ruled in Egypt, Syria, and Iraq. Their leaders were virulently antisemitic and made several attempts to get rid of the Jewish state. Sure, you could find a video of Daddy Assad visiting a mosque or Anwar Sadat meeting with an important Islamic official. But the leaders themselves were not religious Muslims. The same could be said of Yasser Arafat and most of the top people in the Palestinian Authority (PA). And this is an important point for consideration.
If we associate violent behavior with religious Islam as practiced in Iran, Turkey, Qatar, and Gaza, then we will give a pass to secular Muslims, like many of those in the PA police force. We will wrongly assume that a lack of religious observance or fervor implies a lack of antisemitic zeal. And that is simply not the case. Arafat was personally involved in the authorization of numerous attacks against Israeli civilians during the second intifada and before. He shed no tears when Israeli women and children were murdered by suicide bombers or when his terrorists slipped into Jewish towns, where they killed the locals. The hatred of Jews by Muslims is something that transcends outward Islamic fidelity. I doubt that Marwan Barghouti has seen the inside of many mosques. Yet, he was the force behind dozens of lethal attacks in Israel during the early 2000s.
The fake dichotomy “Islamic Hamas bad, secular Palestinian Authority good” was the basis for the “two-state solution” that has been bandied about for over 50 years. Arafat and, in the last 20 years, Abu Mazen, could show up in the West claiming to want peace, and his hosts would assume that he was a reasonable man not tied down by that Jew-hating Muslim Brotherhood version of Islam. But the hatred is all the same. Arafat tried to destroy Israel through terror. When that did not work, he tried to destroy Israel through peace. Why didn’t he accept any of the numerous peace offers given to him by Israeli prime ministers such as Olmert and Barak? Arafat knew that he could not accept any deal that did not give him an opportunity to destroy Israel in the future. He was insistent on the “right of return,” namely, to flood Israel with a million ersatz refugees waiting to leave Iraq, Lebanon, Jordan, and the like. Though my parents fled Germany, I am not in any way a refugee; not so with the Palestinians. They are already on the fourth generation of non-refugee refugees. Arafat wanted weak borders for Israel and refused a weapons-free Palestine. Abba Eben, Israel’s man in the UN, called the pre-1967 borders the “Auschwitz Borders” due to the ease with which one could cut the country in half by a short thrust from “Palestine” to the Mediterranean. Arafat hated the Jews and Israel no less than Yahya Sinwar. One was irreligious, while the other professed to be dedicated to Islam. The results of spilled Jewish blood were the same.
There can be no peace with Hamas or the Palestinian Authority. I doubt that one could find leaders who were both free of terror and acceptable to the Palestinian people. The only reason why Marwan Barghouti is still discussed as a possible leader if he should get out of Israeli jail is that he has never renounced terror. His value to the “Palestinian cause” is that he would go back to killing Jews, the favorite sport in Ramallah, even more so than soccer or basketball. The best situation that might be achievable is a reservation system, where certain areas (it should be Jordan, but you can’t discuss the same in polite society) will be for Palestinian Arabs. They will not have significant arms beyond the needs of a local police force. They will not have a state, and Israel will be in charge of all security along the Jordan River and the Egyptian border. Anyone who actually left in 1948 can apply to enter these areas, while anyone born abroad will be treated like the descendants of all other world refugees: a local of where he was born. Israel can let 5,000 old codgers move to Ramallah, but it cannot have two million delusional Arabs show up and tell stories about their great-grandfather having a falafel stand in East Jerusalem. The pogrom in southern Israel shows what happens when the Palestinians have a Jew-free state and a border that allows the movement of weapons and people without any Israeli interference. Israel cannot rely on the UN, the EU, or any other body to do the security work between a Palestinian enclave and a foreign state.
There was a time not that long ago when Israelis freely went to Palestinian towns, mostly to go shopping. Things were much cheaper in such places as compared to in Israeli stores. One fellow who lives in a town in Samaria told me that his wife and daughter used to go to the house of a woman in a neighboring Palestinian town, and they would all have their nails done and enjoy coffee together. The second intifada ended those days, and since then, any Israeli who accidentally enters a Palestinian area is immediately rescued by either the local cops or IDF troops who are sent there. Palestinians made their livelihoods in Israel, and there are still those who enter the country legally or otherwise to work in local industry. Construction, farming, and other labor-intensive fields were almost entirely staffed with daily Palestinian workers. Those who made ten times the local salary in Gaza did so in Israeli fields and towns. Those days are over. Nobody wants to see them in Israel, and nobody would trust them. And rightfully so: many of those who came to work also came to kill. Others provided detailed maps and information on the towns where they worked, down to how many people lived in each house. Go look at the pictures of the burned-out and destroyed houses of Kfar Aza and Be’eri. That was the thanks from those who made decent money in the Israeli economy.
I just came back from the open market “shuk.” At a shwarma place, two Arab women sat outside and enjoyed their food. Until Israelis can do something similar in Ramallah, there will be no peace here. And in the absence of peace, there needs to be self-protection from the Palestinians.