January 27, 2004
No Peace with the PLO
I've often said that peace will be impossible with the PLO. My main reason for believing that is the effective and efficient way that they have been able to teach and spread their message of hate and intolerance against Jews.
The virulent anti-Semitism of the Arabs may be more extreme than the Third Reich's version. Only the relative weakness of the Arabs keeps them from acting more like the Nazis.
Over at IsraellyCool, I found the link to this BBC article about a PLO terrorist who seems to have become a peace-maker. I wish there were many more like him.
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Notable is the fact that this sort of article which almost accuses the PLO of irrational hatred of Jews, is published by the pro-Arab BBC.
The report is about Walid Shoebat, a young Arab humiliated by the Israeli victory in the '67 War, who joins the PLO, moves to America and eventually has his anti-Semitic position softened when he married a Catholic woman.
"I wanted her to convert to Islam," he said. "I told her Jews had corrupted the Bible and she asked me to show her some examples of this corruption. At this point I had to go and buy a Bible and I started reading it and I saw the word 'Israel' all over it. I had to be brutally honest - the very word I hated the most was throughout this book!
"I thought: 'How do you explain this?' Then I started thinking, really the Jews didn't do us any harm but we hated them and accused them of all this horrible stuff. I began to think more openly."
In the mid-1990s, Walid went to a family reunion in southern California where a row broke out after he defended the biblical matriarch Rachel, whom his uncle had called a "Jewish whore".
" 'You deserve to be spat at'," my uncle said, "and they threw me out the house".
"I realized they knew nothing about history, all they knew was the same propaganda that I had been taught.
He seems to understand what he's up against, and I'd love to see him succeed in opening a few Arab minds and hearts. I wish him luck and would support his efforts to reach out. He has seen the lies behind what he was taught, and regrets his youthful mistakes, borne of ignorance. He wants to bring the truth to the young palestinians, hopefully to open their eyes too.
"I was taught songs about killing Jews. You need to get rid of the education system where they are teaching this type of thing and get rid of the terrorist groups. It will take a generation, but until then, there's not going to be peace, it doesn't matter what kind of land settlement you have."
A [terrorist]militant-turned-peacemaker, Walid wants to meet the Israel soldier he tried to kill almost 30 years ago.
His voice cracking with emotion, Walid said he would offer the soldier his hand and say to him: "'Please understand, we were just children, brainwashed to kill you, to hate you.' I would seek his forgiveness."
I'd forgive him and I'd work with him to try to make a difference.
Maybe the BBC will have its eyes opened by Walid and some of the other News agencies who devour the PLO propaganda and help spread the hatred. At least they ran Walid's story...
Update: here's more on Walid:
The Toronto Star
Aaron's Rantblog from September 2003
World Net Daily
Walid's own Site
Aish
Hootinan and
Betar-Tagar UK
Even an Indy Media Site! which quotes:
"My purpose is to tell the West that they aren't getting the real picture, that what they're seeing is propaganda. I know the truth because I was there, I was part of it. And the truth is, we wanted to kill Jews long before the occupation. I wanted to kill Jews. Indoctrinated in the PLO as a child, Shoebat was involved in many anti-Israel riots, terror, and violence against Israel, and was imprisoned in Jerusalem's central prison. After a period of self-study and reflection, Shoebat rejected his previous life of terror and intimidation, concluded that hate and violence will not further the cause of Palestinians towards a stable future. He has dedicated himself to fighting hatred and achieving a just peace in the Middle East.
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