What is happening to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict? Reader comment on: Why Palestinians Want Israeli Citizenship

Submitted by Batya Casper, Israelathebook.com, Oct 23, 2012 10:20

It is becoming increasingly clear to Israeli Palestinians - particularly to Palestinians who live in East Jerusalem and are not subject to Palestinian or Hamas rule - that Israeli democracy is theirs for the taking. As terror increases around the world, Israeli Arabs are realizing that the Arab-Israeli conflict is a ploy engineered and fostered by a global fundamentalist Islamic ideology, and that Israel is not their enemy.

Holocaust survivor finds haven as Muslim in Israel Wednesday, 18 April 2012

Leila Jabarin was a Jewish Holocaust survivor born in Auschwitz concentration camp. (AFP) inShare1 By AFP
UMM El-FAHM

For more than five decades, Leila Jabarin hid her secret from her Muslim children and grandchildren − that she was a Jewish Holocaust survivor born in Auschwitz concentration camp.

Although her family knew she was a Jewish convert, none of them knew of her brutal past.

It was only in the past week that Jabarin, who was born Helen Brashatsky, finally sat down and told them the story of how she was born inside Auschwitz, the most notorious symbol of Nazi Germany’s wartime campaign of genocide against Europe’s Jews.

In an interview with AFP to mark Holocaust Memorial Day which begins at sundown on Wednesday, Jabarin, now 70, chuckles as she talks about what to call her.

Her Muslim name is Leila, but in this Arab town in northern Israel where she has lived for the past 52 years, most people call her Umm Raja, Arabic for “Raja’s mother” after her first-born son.

Like most Jewish children, she also has a Hebrew name -- Leah -- but she just likes to be called Helen.

She was six when she came to live in Mandate Palestine with her parents, just months before the State of Israel was declared in May 1948.

They arrived in a ship carrying Jewish immigrants from the former Yugoslavia, which was forced to anchor off the coast of Haifa for a week due to a heavy British bombardment of the northern port city, she says.

Despite the war which broke out as soon as the British pulled out, it was a far cry from the savage reality the family had witnessed inside Auschwitz, says Jabarin who is dressed in a hijab and long robes, but whose pale skin and blue eyes belie her Eastern European parentage.

Her mother, who was from Hungary, and her father, who was of Russian descent, were living in Yugoslavia when they were sent to the Auschwitz with their two young sons in 1941.

“When they took them to Auschwitz, she was pregnant with me, and when she gave birth, the Christian doctor at Auschwitz hid me in bath towels,” she says, explaining how the doctor hid the family for three years under the floor of his house inside the camp.

Her mother worked as a maid at the doctor’s home, while her father was the gardener.

“They used to come back at night and sleep under the floor and my mother used to tell us how the Nazis were killing children, but that this doctor saved us,” she says, recalling how her mother used to feed them on dry bread soaked in hot water with salt.

“I still remember the black and white striped pyjamas and remember terrible beatings in the camp. If I was healthy enough, I would have gone back to see it but I have already had four heart attacks.

“It is scary and very, very difficult to remember that place where so many people suffered,” she admits, speaking in a mix of Hebrew and accented Arabic.

She also speaks Hungarian, a little Yiddish and some Russian.

The family were finally freed when the camp was liberated in 1945 and left for Mandate Palestine three years later.

At first, the new immigrants were put in camps at Atlit, some 20 kilometers (12 miles) south of Haifa, but two years later, they moved further south to Holon and then to Ramat Gan near Tel Aviv.

Ten years later, when she was 17, Helen Brashatsky eloped with a young Arab man called Ahmed Jabarin, and they moved to live in Umm al-Fahm, which caused a huge split with her family.

“She ran away with me and she was 17 when we got married,” her husband says. “The Israeli authorities used to come to Umm al-Fahm and take her back to her family in Ramat Gan, then she would come straight back here.”

Initially, her family did not speak to her for two years, but later they were reconciled.

In the end, it was her mother who suggested she convert to Islam when her eldest son turned 18 and was asked to do his compulsory military service.

“My mother advised me not to send my son to do military service because if he did, my daughter would also have to do it.

“She said I should convert to Islam to save my daughter from serving in the army because Muslims would not let a girl live away from home on an army camp.”

So she converted.

But she never told her family the full extent of her history.

“I hid my pain for 52 years and the truth about my past from my eight children and my 31 grandchildren. I hid the fact that I was born in Auschwitz and what that painful past means.

“I was just waiting for the right moment to tell them.”

The moment came several days ago when a man turned up from the Israeli social services and got talking to her about her past, just days before the annual ceremonies remembering the Holocaust.

“Whenever it is Holocaust Memorial Day, I cry alone. There are no words to describe the pain that I feel. How can children eat dry bread soaked in water? If this happened to my children, I don’t know what would become of me.”

For her family, the revelation was a huge shock -- but it answered a lot of questions, admits her 33-year-old son Nader Jabarin.

“Mum used to cry on Holocaust Memorial Day watching all the ceremonies on Israeli television. We never understood why. We all used to get out of the way and leave her alone in the house,” he told AFP.

But by telling her long-kept secret, it had brought release to both her and her family, he said.

“We understand her a bit more now.”

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Batya Casper Wouldn't it be wonderful if we women could join hands and bring an end to our onerous Israel Arab conflict? Imagine if we could bring about a world of peace, stability, honest education and well being for our children? I say, to that end - anything is worth a try. Batya Casper The Human face of Conflict www.Israelathebook.com

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Batya Casper batyacasper@gmail.com 7:43 AM (11 hours ago)
to Gatestone.
Unfortunately, for many Americans, politics is a team sport. People under the blue banner will fight to the end for their team. It would be simply inconceivable for them to change team - and same with members of the red team.
It is anathema for democrats to change sides. Simply disloyal. Theirs is the winning team; the politically correct team; the cool, intelligent, progressive team. When faced with facts, democrats claim that America has never given as much support to Israel as today. True. Obama has upped the amount of military support to Israel. He has also raised it signifcantly to his Islamist friends, thereby merely raising raising the stakes on deadly warfare.
When I argued with a friend of mine about the negative aspects of the Obama administration with regard to world stability, the threat of Iran, and the Israel Arab conflict, his response was "Well, I just can't vote for Romney." "Why not?" I asked. "Because I have always voted Democrat. I belong to the democratic party.
In times like these, should we not stretch? Should we not look beyond party rules and examine the issues? Surely more is at stake here than the red and the blue?
In today's climate, it would, indeed, benefit us to look to Canada

We're safe for now: Raising children in Netivot. AG

By DANIELLE SCHREIBER RUBIN

10/10/2012        

I thought I’d share this, because some of you have no clue what’s going on halfway across your own country.

I thought I’d share this, because some of you have no clue what’s going on halfway across your own country. And others have no idea what’s happening halfway across the world. And I’m one of those naïve believers who keeps thinking, if people only knew what we live through.

So it’s 10:20. Night. Husband’s on the way home from a meeting in Tel Aviv (yes, the other part of the country). I have successfully maneuvered all three children, ages four, two and three months, into bed.

Going over e-mails is getting boring... and suddenly there’s that sound. It takes a split second to recognize it, since I’ve heard it over and over again in my head for the past four years, ever since my oldest son was born (a few months before Operation Cast Lead, December 2008), so I need to confirm that I’m not just humming that old tune. But, alas, it’s that same siren. Yup, and it’s definitely coming from our town, not from one of the regional councils a few miles away. And now comes the tricky part.

Which child do I pick up first? It’s a first for me because this time I’m alone, with three children at home, all asleep, none in a protected area (i.e., clear of windows and external walls). Do I go for the baby? Last time I grabbed him out of his crib, waking him ,and decided that this is how traumas begin, so I told myself that next time I’d just wheel him in with his carriage, so as not to interrupt his peaceful baby sleep.

But what about my two-year-old daughter? She’s the one who’s really having a hard time, stopping short every time an ambulances passes, mistaking it for a siren.

After sitting up with her for an hour and a half after the last midnight siren, I told myself that next time I’d carry her in gently, so as not to wake her at all. But what about my oldest son, the one who has been living for four years under the missile threat, who is most aware of the situation and reminds me every time we visit our parents that there, up north, we are safe.

Forget the emotional consequences, he’s on top of a bunk-bed I can’t climb up! This all takes a split second. I don’t have much more than that; a little more than half a minute before the rocket lands. I run for my oldest, hoping to wake him to get him to climb down the ladder. Yeah, right.

I climb up the ladder, pull him toward me by the leg, hold him carefully as I run toward a safe area, and lay him gently on the carpet.

Back to kids’ room. Have no idea how I got number two out of the tractor-turned-bunk- bed trenches below. Bring her into safe area. On my way to my room to get the baby I note that the siren has stopped.

Grab stroller and wheel into safe room just as loud explosion is heard.

We’re safe. For now.

Two oldest are still sleeping. Baby stirring.

He’ll need to wait a minute or two since I can’t really stop this thumping in my chest, and I’m not sure how that tastes.

Then I’ll calm him down, put him back to sleep and remind myself that next time I should try to be a little more gentle with him.

Back to those boring e-mails. Boring is good.

The author lives in Netivot, Israel.

Dr. Alex Grobman

Executive Director

America-Israel Friendship League, Inc.

134 East 39th Street, 3rd Floor

New York, NY 10016

Phone: 1-212-213-8630 ext. 230

Fax: 212-213-1055

eFax: 917-398-1329

 

The Talmud (Gittin 56a) records a rather unlikely story that unfolded in approximately 70 C.E. With Jerusalem surrounded by a Roman siege, it was increasingly clear that the era of Jewish sovereignty in the city was about to reach an abrupt end. Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai, a leading sage of his era, arranged for his students to smuggle him out of Jerusalem in a coffin (the Romans were still permitting burials outside the city), and, once outside, demanded to speak to the emperor. “Give me Yavneh and its sages,” Rabbi Yohanan ben Zakkai pleaded. Ben Zakkai was determined to focus not on the battles still being waged against the Romans, but rather on the preservation of Judaism’s greatness. Jewish life could survive, he understood, even if the world in which it existed was about to be radically transformed. All that was required was an academy and its sages.

Jerusalem, thankfully, is not about to be destroyed, at least not physically. But that does not mean that we do not face a challenge of great proportions. Strange though it sounds with Israel so successful on many fronts, Zionism is in decay. It is being attacked by Israel’s enemies, made ugly by too many of its most passionate adherents, and to the masses, it seems utterly irrelevant. If the purpose of Zionism was merely the creation of a Jewish state, many ask, why should we not just declare victory and move on? We have a state, do we not?

Reframing the Zionist conversation Yes, the Jews have a state, but that is not enough. If a previous generation’s work was the creation of a state, our generation’s responsibility is to shape it, to make it profound and decent, to ensure that substantive Jewish discourse resides at its core. How many Israelis can speak articulately about why a Jewish state matters? How many of Israel’s religious citizens can speak meaningfully about the significance of democracy, and how many of its secular citizens can say something profound about what should be Jewish about the Jewish state?

Yes, the Jews have a state, but that is not enough. If a previous generation’s work was the creation of a state, our generation’s responsibility is to shape it

As was the case in the time of Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai, we have allowed ourselves to become preoccupied with issues that most of us cannot affect. Most contemporary discussions of Israel, sadly, are but idle chatter. We cannot change what will happen with the Arab Spring. We cannot bring the Palestinians to the negotiating table, and most Israelis agree that even Israeli capitulation on borders would not bring the conflict to an end. We can, and must, fight international de-legitimization of Israel, but that, too, is deeply rooted in Christian Europe, and we dare not delude ourselves into imagining that we can fully stem that tide.

In the meantime, though, the battle for Israel’s soul is being lost. How do we know this? We know this because one can read Israeli newspapers for months without seeing any serious discussion of what should be Jewish about the Jewish state. One can live in Israel for years without hearing the prime minister (of any party) address the nation and speak to the values that are at the core of the state. Israel’s democracy and economic viability are threatened by broad swaths of the population that feel no passion for the state and do not help to shoulder its burdens; yet few Israelis know how to respond. Israel’s newfound economic success has created an unprecedented economic disparity that has brought hundreds of thousands to the streets in protest, but in the protesters’ speeches, one almost never hears even a reference to Judaism’s sense of justice or equality. They can say nothing about why Israel ought not to be simply a Hebrew-speaking version of any other European country.

Israel will not survive this way. If Israelis cannot articulate why a Jewish state matters and what they would like to see it become, they will drift away. Ironically, there is an enormous community of (former) Israelis living in Berlin who never look back. They left not in anger, but out of sheer disinterest. Berlin offered culture, vibrancy, a new beginning. What did Israel offer? They would be hard pressed to answer. The same is true of Israelis living in the US, Australia, South America and throughout the world. A few left as a matter of principle; most, however, left because they could not begin to articulate a sense of why they should not.

This reality is particularly pervasive among Israel’s youth, as they grow increasingly distant from the narrative that inspired their parents and grandparents to build and defend the Jewish state. The products of an educational system that does not successfully engage students with the Jewish and Zionist tradition, many of these young people lack an understanding of why they should serve their country, and the tools and resources with which to do so meaningfully. Combine the incessant conflict, the lack of ideological passion, the harshness of everyday life, and one has a recipe for a society that cannot sustain itself. But unlike Israel’s external problems, these challenges can be addressed by people like us. They can be met in the way that the Jewish people have always addressed existential challenges in times of crisis. They can be addressed through education.

Re-investing in Judaism’s lifeline – education What the Jewish people needs – what the State of Israel needs – is a new Yavneh, devoted to the study of both Western and Jewish civilization and to the fostering of an engaged and sophisticated Zionist conversation; one that models civil discourse and nuance; one that encourages active citizenship and service; one that allows young people to engage great ideas and great texts in order to see beyond their own horizons and to navigate an increasingly complex world. When the very best of Israel’s university students, those who will become the county’s leaders in years to come, discuss democracy, do they do so with the benefit of having read Plato’s “Republic”? Machiavelli’s “The Prince”? Do John Locke’s works on the social contract and toleration mean anything to them? And what about the Jewish tradition? Do these students know if the Talmud endorses democracy, or not, and why? Can they say anything at all about Judaism’s political philosophy? And can they say anything about the differences between Ahad Ha’am and A. D. Gordon, or Ben-Gurion and Berdichevsky?

If our young people cannot articulate a complex worldview with Judaism and Zionism at its core, how will they withstand the forces (such as European universalism and Muslim rejectionism) that are deeply rooted in ideological fervor? If they cannot articulate why Israel matters, why should they stay? It is not their fault that they are unequipped to have these conversations; they simply were not taught. It is up to us change that. What is required is a new Yavneh – a great academy filled with wise men and women.

That is what Shalem College* will be. When we open our doors to our first incoming class, Shalem College will be more than Israel’s first liberal arts college; it will be the one place where Israel’s finest students can spend their undergraduate years becoming deeply conversant with the traditions of the West, of Judaism and of Zionism. It will be the one place that has a great texts-based core curriculum modeled after elite Anglo-American colleges and universities, providing a common ground for exploring the underpinnings of society and enabling Israel’s best students to spend their undergraduate years thinking deeply about how they will serve their country, their people and humanity, and how they will commit their lives to addressing the critical challenges facing each.

What the Jewish people needs – what the State of Israel needs – is a new Yavneh, devoted to the study of both Western and Jewish civilization

But Shalem College will be even more than this. It will foster a culture of debate coupled with pervasive civility, restoring the discourse that was at the heart of rabbinic Judaism, and the passionate conversation that was once at the heart of Zionism, to the very core of Israel’s future intellectual, political, professional, social, and cultural leadership. It will expose students to literature, philosophy, history, economics, art and music in order to shape their understanding of the forces that drive people, the yearnings of the soul, the complexity of social relationships and the human condition, and the importance of service to one’s country and one’s people. Israel is a small canvas, so a small number of leading citizens can have a significant impact on their society. We simply have to afford these young people one place in the country where they can engage in this dialogue, with both deep passion and abundant civility.

Saving the state that saved the Jews Creating a new college in this day and age is an enormous undertaking. But as we at Shalem are asked whether such an effort might not be too much to take on, we find ourselves turning time and again to history, because that is what Jews do as we plot our course. At the end of the nineteenth century, it was clear to a small but growing number of people that the Jewish experience in Europe was going to come to an ugly end. Half a century before the fact, it was already clear that the brave new European future that Jews had once imagined was not going to be. Different people had varying ideas of how to respond. Some advocated going to America, which many then did. Others advocated reforming Judaism, making it more palatable to a European culture that was constantly judging the Jews. Still others retreated into insular community, escaping from modernity altogether (or trying to, at least).

In the midst of all this, one man had an idea more outrageous and unrealistic than all the rest. Theodore Herzl believed that the only real solution to the “Jewish problem” lay in the creation of a Jewish state. It was an audacious, grandiose, unrealistic idea. It had no chance of succeeding. And yet it saved the Jewish people.

At Shalem, we believe that we are not a people with the luxury of saying “great idea, but too big for our time.” Yavneh was too big for Rabbi Yohanan ben Zakkai’s time, and a sovereign Jewish state was too great for Herzl’s. But Yavneh saved Judaism under the Romans, and the Jewish state has saved the Jewish nation.

It is precisely because a college is an audacious idea, particularly in these times, that it demands the courage, vision, support, enthusiasm and risk-taking that preserving the Jewish people has always required. The Jews exist today because we have always stuck to our fundamental game-plan – education. The Jews are here today because we dare to dream, and to dream big. What we need now is a new academy, one that will create new leaders, new ideas, bold and imaginative solutions both to problems that we already face and those that we cannot yet imagine.

It would be hard to imagine a project more ambitious. But nothing less ambitious will suffice.

___

Perhaps we can yet find a resolution to our ongoing Arab Israeli conflct thanks to this brave writer, Abdulateef Al-Mulhim, and others like him.

Saturday 6 October 2012

Last Update 6 October 2012 2:53 am

Thirty-nine years ago, on Oct. 6, 1973, the third major war between the Arabs and Israel broke out. The war lasted only 20 days. The two sides were engaged in two other major wars, in 1948 and 1967.
The 1967 War lasted only six days. But, these three wars were not the only Arab-Israel confrontations. From the period of 1948 and to this day many confrontations have taken place. Some of them were small clashes and many of them were full-scale battles, but there were no major wars apart from the ones mentioned above. The Arab-Israeli conflict is the most complicated conflict the world ever experienced. On the anniversary of the 1973 War between the Arab and the Israelis, many people in the Arab world are beginning to ask many questions about the past, present and the future with regard to the Arab-Israeli conflict.
The questions now are: What was the real cost of these wars to the Arab world and its people. And the harder question that no Arab national wants to ask is: What was the real cost for not recognizing Israel in 1948 and why didn’t the Arab states spend their assets on education, health care and the infrastructures instead of wars? But, the hardest question that no Arab national wants to hear is whether Israel is the real enemy of the Arab world and the Arab people.
I decided to write this article after I saw photos and reports about a starving child in Yemen, a burned ancient Aleppo souk in Syria, the under developed Sinai in Egypt, car bombs in Iraq and the destroyed buildings in Libya. The photos and the reports were shown on the Al-Arabiya network, which is the most watched and respected news outlet in the Middle East.
The common thing among all what I saw is that the destruction and the atrocities are not done by an outside enemy. The starvation, the killings and the destruction in these Arab countries are done by the same hands that are supposed to protect and build the unity of these countries and safeguard the people of these countries. So, the question now is that who is the real enemy of the Arab world?
The Arab world wasted hundreds of billions of dollars and lost tens of thousands of innocent lives fighting Israel, which they considered is their sworn enemy, an enemy whose existence they never recognized. The Arab world has many enemies and Israel should have been at the bottom of the list. The real enemies of the Arab world are corruption, lack of good education, lack of good health care, lack of freedom, lack of respect for the human lives and finally, the Arab world had many dictators who used the Arab-Israeli conflict to suppress their own people.
These dictators’ atrocities against their own people are far worse than all the full-scale Arab-Israeli wars.
In the past, we have talked about why some Israeli soldiers attack and mistreat Palestinians. Also, we saw Israeli planes and tanks attack various Arab countries. But, do these attacks match the current atrocities being committed by some Arab states against their own people.
In Syria, the atrocities are beyond anybody’s imaginations? And, isn’t the Iraqis are the ones who are destroying their own country? Wasn’t it Tunisia’s dictator who was able to steal 13 billion dollars from the poor Tunisians? And how can a child starve in Yemen if their land is the most fertile land in the world? Why would Iraqi brains leave Iraq in a country that makes 110 billion dollars from oil export? Why do the Lebanese fail to govern one of the tiniest countries in the world? And what made the Arab states start sinking into chaos?
On May 14, 1948 the state of Israel was declared. And just one day after that, on May 15, 1948 the Arabs declared war on Israel to get back Palestine. The war ended on March 10, 1949. It lasted for nine months, three weeks and two days. The Arabs lost the war and called this war Nakbah (catastrophic war). The Arabs gained nothing and thousands of Palestinians became refugees.
And on 1967, the Arabs led by Egypt under the rule of Gamal Abdul Nasser, went in war with Israel and lost more Palestinian land and made more Palestinian refugees who are now on the mercy of the countries that host them. The Arabs called this war Naksah (upset). The Arabs never admitted defeat in both wars and the Palestinian cause got more complicated. And now, with the never ending Arab Spring, the Arab world has no time for the Palestinians refugees or Palestinian cause, because many Arabs are refugees themselves and under constant attacks from their own forces. Syrians are leaving their own country, not because of the Israeli planes dropping bombs on them. It is the Syrian Air Force which is dropping the bombs. And now, Iraqi Arab Muslims, most intelligent brains, are leaving Iraq for the est. In Yemen, the world’s saddest human tragedy play is being written by the Yemenis. In Egypt, the people in Sinai are forgotten.
Finally, if many of the Arab states are in such disarray, then what happened to the Arabs’ sworn enemy (Israel)? Israel now has the most advanced research facilities, top universities and advanced infrastructure. Many Arabs don’t know that the life expectancy of the Palestinians living in Israel is far longer than many Arab states and they enjoy far better political and social freedom than many of their Arab brothers. Even the Palestinians living under Israeli occupation in the West Bank and Gaza Strip enjoy more political and social rights than some places in the Arab World. Wasn’t one of the judges who sent a former Israeli president to jail is an Israeli-Palestinian?
The Arab Spring showed the world that the Palestinians are happier and in better situation than their Arab brothers who fought to liberate them from the Israelis. Now, it is time to stop the hatred and wars and start to create better living conditions for the future Arab generations.

— This article is exclusive to Arab News.
almulhimnavy@hotmail.com

Abbas and his henchmen create and sustain fictitious stories about Israeli mistreatment of Palestinians to maintain the Arab Israel conflict Reader comment on: The Palestinian Authority's Policy of Duplicity at the Gatestone Institute

Submitted by Batya Casper, Israelathebook.com, Sep 28, 2012 13:22

And so Palestinians - and the rest of the world - continue to believe that Israel is the source of all Palestinian suffering. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is a manufactured aspect of the more global Arab-Israeli conflict, one that is not limited to the Middle East, for it has designs over the West, too.

Tyger, Tyger burning bright... Reader comment on: US and Europe's "Oneness" Integration Project posted in Gatestone Institute

Submitted by Batya Casper, Israelathebook.com, Sep 27, 2012 11:12

Wonderful article. So far we've been dealing with little tigers, with murdering people in embassies, burning of mosques and toppling twin towers, not to mention turning our own blind eye in Western countries to the horrendous abuse of women and children and other horrors of Sharia law. But now that we are reaching into the maw of a nuclear-ready Iran? The armament that ultimately saved the world in World War II was Churchill's abiding understanding of Western values, his clearheadedness and, unlike Chamberlain, his refusal to ride the tiger. It was Churchill's sense of right and wrong that wone that war, his understanding of the consequences of such a breach. We have lost that. Since Vietnam, we have learned to be embarrassed by such rigidity and have increasingly given in to the blurring of boundaries. Wrong is not really wrong; it is understandable confusion, or simply a different perspective - and in many cases, that is indeed the case. Yet, in a current, politically correct society, condemning something as wrong has become tantamount to being a fascist. Right is not right; it is rigidity. Again, while in many cases that might be true, in some, right is still right, and wrong is still dangerous. To clean up our current mess, right and wrong have to be brought out of the closet in their original garb, because without them, we will be hopelessly ill-equiped to protect our civilization. We have to clearly and honestly know what we stand for, and what the tiger in our midst stands for - and recognize the difference, because the Iranian threat is like the Arab-Israeli conflict or the Arab-West conflict, tenfold.

Hezbollah and its stance in the ongoing Arab-Israeli conflict. Reader comment on: Kick Me: European Union Backs Iran's Hezbollah

Submitted by Batya Casper, Israelathebook.com, Sep 25, 2012 17:44

The EU's self interest with regard to the Hezbollah and other fundamentalist agents of evil is neither new nor surprising. What is surprising is how the rest of Europe allows the EU to perpetrate, and thereby normalise, the ongoing atrocities made in the name of the Arab-Israeli conflict, the destabalization in the Middle East, and the increasing threat to the West. When will the West take responsibility for it demise?