Appeasement and Surrender

Ari Bussel

May 8, 2009

The United Kingdom is very conservative when it comes to defending the New Islam. It has zero tolerance to anyone else. Dutch Parliamentarian Geert Wilders, Israeli politician Moshe Feiglin, Los Angeles radio personality Michael Savage and others are unwelcome guests. Their presence is not “conducive for the public good.” Israeli Major Generals and former Chiefs of Staff cannot deplane lest they be apprehended and charged. Muslims who protest violently, British Muslim doctors who blow themselves up in a terrorist attack (highly educated and well trained, employed and well paid, they were not stricken by poverty, misery or oppression) and Muslims who openly object to the UK’s way of life in protests in London and elsewhere throughout the Kingdom must be appeased. Apparently their behavior is—by some awkward definition—conducive for the public order.

I am reminded of a protest against Israel held in front of the Israeli Consulate in Los Angeles. Three corners of the intersection had a mob of hundreds of protesters, with red (blood) splattered over posters of hatred (against the USA and everyone else). They were waving flags of Palestine and Hamas, none of the USA. We—representing the Free World—were standing on the last corner, holding flags of the United States and Israel. The police surrounded us, “for our protection.” They could be unruly, break the law and do whatever they saw fit. We were the easy targets, easier to handle, easier to “protect.”

Geert Wilders

I remember the day when the Geert Wilders’ movie “Fitna” (Fitna is an Arabic word means ordeal-Islam is the West’s ordeal) was first launched on the internet. Within two hours it was viewed by tens of thousands of people in the UK and was being removed from sites and servers faster than it appeared. The owners/operators of the UK main server hosting the film were exceptionally brave. They had announced they would not bow down to pressure. Their courage was very short lived, when they started receiving threats to their employees’ lives. However, then came to play the strength of the internet.

Once something is out, it cannot be obliterated. Like a fire in a very dry valley of bones, the movie spread. Copies were planted by individual activists around the world–-at times at a risk to their own lives; these copies would remain for perpetuity. One activist after another, one sane person after another brave soul viewed and embedded the movie, until the enemy had decided to leave this battleground and reach another. If the substance cannot be argued on its merits, attack the speaker, call him “Islamophob.”

The Anti-Defamation League, one of the oldest civil rights organizations in the United States, joined the Chorus of Wise across the Pond and declared to all those willing to listen that Geert Wilders’ message of “hate against Islam [is] inflammatory, divisive and antithetical to American democratic ideals.” In a widely publicized strong condemnation, ADL warned against “this rhetoric [being] dangerous and incendiary, and wrongly focuse[d] on Islam as a religion.” This is the same ADL that would transfer grants to “defend democratic ideals and eliminate anti-Semitism.”

While in Israel some months later, I was invited to attend the screening of Geert Wilders’ Fitna. The screening took place at the Begin Heritage Center in Jerusalem, a short walk from the Western Wall. Having heard and compared Mr. Wilders’ speeches, I do not believe he has become emboldened or otherwise more “racist” or “extreme” in his “rhetoric.” Mr. Wilders’ says things as they are, and indeed—what he says is quite alarming.

The short 17 minute movie Fitna superimposes verses from the Qur’an with terrorist attacks of this decade and provides clips of Muslim clergy “in their own words.” They preach and execute, and those who dare to speak are being targeted by Jewish organizations. ADL is proudly taking the leadership role in this respect.

Philippe Karsenty

Philippe Karsenty had to fight for years to clear his name in a libel lawsuit in France. His crime: He claimed (correctly) that the Al-Dura case was a hoax, a made-for-international-media production in which a father is defending his son, hiding behind a block of concrete, while Israeli soldiers shoot at them for 45 minutes (during which time there is not a single drop of blood and at the end of which episode, the son changes his position to a more comfortable one).

The American Jewish Committee had decided it was fit to fight. The AJC, like the ADL, is one of the oldest Jewish organizations with long reaches the world over. The AJC did not fight the root cause of evil, a segment that was used to justify hundreds of deaths and many more hundreds of severely injured Israelis in the Intifada that ensued as a result. Instead, the AJC elected to fight Karsenty.

Geert Wilders is to the ADL what Philippe Karsenty is to the AJC. In both cases our enemies celebrate while we—in the West and particularly in the Jewish community—are trying to be holier than Holy. It is always someone else’s rights, consideration and well-being before our own. From the comforts of their over towering palaces, the very established Jewish organizations reaching the century mark might have forgotten that holding ourselves to higher standards does not mean committing suicide. It means we must respect ourselves and protect our interests first. We may otherwise find the towers crumble in the wind, leaving us defenseless.

The right—and necessity—to speak out, to say things as they are, to warn of the impeding danger is not a luxury or an elective. The Torah talks about this obligation in Leviticus and provides the punishment for not sounding the alarm when on guard. The Jewish organizations may have distanced themselves from their roots. It is time to wake up.

Until one sees death and atrocities in one’s own eyes, one will continue his purported fight to “save the world.” When the sword comes down, swift and sharp, and the head then rolls on the ground like a ball, blood splattering all over, the last gasp of air may still be heard: “Forgive us, we have erred.”

Geert Wilders deserves our admiration. He needs protection around the clock not because he is racist or calls for the abolition of the West and its replacement with Sharia Law. Mr. Wilders needs protection since, like Mr. Van Gogh before him, he dared anger those who demand free speech and are the first to silence everyone else. Wake up world and fight—we are already fighting for our lives!

In the series “Postcards from Israel,” Ari Bussel and Norma Zager invite readers throughout the world to join them as they present reports from Israel as seen by two sets of eyes: Bussel’s on the ground, Zager’s counter-point from home. Israel and the United States are inter-related - the two countries we hold dearest to our hearts - and so is this “point - counter-point” presentation that has, since 2008, become part of our lives.

© Postcards from Home, May, 2009

Contact: aribussel@gmail.com