Lasting Middle East peace won’t happen without truth-telling

Fundamental philosophical reform must occur before lasting peace can be achieved in the Middle East, writes Piers Akerman.

The ceasefire between Israel and the Iran-backed Gaza-based terrorist forces of Hamas and Islamic Jihad is to be welcomed but lasting peace will require the sort of truth-telling and soul searching that small-l liberals claim to love but actually abhor.

Anyone who relied on the taxpayer-funded ABC and SBS as primary news sources could believe that Israel was the aggressor in the past fortnight’s lethal rocket and air attacks. They would be wrong.

Despite the hours of interviews with frightened and traumatised residents of Gaza all understandably fearful of the Israeli military’s deployment, these news outlets have not given their audience the basic facts about the conflict.

Israeli security forces and Palestinian Muslim worshippers clash in Jerusalem's al-Aqsa mosque compound, the third holiest site of Islam, on May 21, 2021. Picture: AFP

First, it was Israel that was attacked and subjected to an unprecedented barrage of rockets. Second, the claim that the attacks were triggered by illegitimate Israeli attempts to remove Arabs from just four homes in East Jerusalem is pure baloney.

Those residents were living in homes owned by Jews in an historically Jewish neighbourhood. The pending eviction notices were finally issued after extensive litigation in Israel, with appeals going all the way up to Israel’s (very liberal) Supreme Court. The rioting that ensued involved young men, both Arab and Jewish Israelis.

Jerusalem authorities say Arab rioters set fire to 112 Jewish homes compared to a single Arab home that was set ablaze by an Israeli Arab who mistook the target for a Jewish house.

There were 386 Jewish homes plundered but not a single Arab home and while 673 Jewish homes were damaged, just 13 Arab homes were targeted. Nevertheless, the senseless violence gave the depraved Hamas leadership the excuse they needed to launch their attack.

Palestinian protesters hurl rocks amid confrontations with Israeli security forces at the Hawara checkpoint south of Nablus city, in the occupied West Bank, on May 21, 2021. Picture: AFP

The ineffectual President of the Palestinian National Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, had last month again indefinitely postponed elections for the Palestinian Legislative Council, due on May 22. The last election was held in January, 2005.

That’s four four-year terms ago and never another election. I’ve met with Abbas and the telegenic Hanan Ashrawi and neither can be believed.

Asked directly whether contacts between young Palestinians and young Israelis were outlawed, whether Palestinian schools are named for terrorists and whether Palestinian children are taught to hate and admire terrorists, they baldly claimed these statements of fact were untrue.

Until the Palestinian Authority stops corrupting the minds of the young with poisonous propaganda, there is little chance of an enduring peace, and it doesn’t suit the PA’s narrative to bring about peace while its existence relies on a constant enemy. That’s why Israel’s attempts to deliver humanitarian civil aid, COVID-19 vaccines, food and supplies to Palestinians in Gaza were thwarted by Hamas mortar attacks.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas speaks during an emergency meeting of the Fatah Central Committee and the PLO Executive Committee in the occupied West Bank City of Ramallah, on May 12, 2021. Picture: AFP

Left-leaning commentators like to compare the death toll — the New York Times reported 227 dead in Gaza and 12 in Israel — but that ignores the reality that Hamas and Islamic Jihad have no regard for death while the Israelis regard all life as sacred.

Ninety per cent of missiles fired from Gaza were destroyed before they could indiscriminately crash down.

So-called proportionality beloved of the ABC and SBS commentariat is meaningless unless both combatants observe the rules of war which Hamas, Islamic Jihad and Hezbollah in Lebanon do not.

Israel’s surgically accurate targeting of targets, including terrorist leaders, and its practice of sending warning messages to residents of buildings housing terrorists kept the death toll to a minimum.

A ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, the Islamist movement which controls the Gaza Strip, appeared to hold today after 11 days of deadly fighting that pounded the Palestinian enclave and forced countless Israelis to seek shelter from rockets. Picture: AFP

Iran’s sponsorship of terror must be dealt with before there can be lasting peace. The malevolent and immoral indoctrination of schoolchildren by the Palestinian Authority must end, but there is an even greater driver of hatred and that is the religious imperative embedded in the Koran.

As Henry Ergas pointed out in a straightforward article in The Australian on Friday, the Koran makes waging war on unbelievers an obligation.

“A much quoted verse in the Koran instructs the faithful to fight the unbelievers until ‘the religion is God’s entirely’ (K8:39), taking every opportunity to ‘terrify the enemy of God and your enemy’ (K8:60),” Ergas wrote. “Those warriors who lost their lives in slaying infidels were to be glorified as martyrs; in Paradise, they alone would wish ‘to return to Earth so as to be killed again 10 times over’.”

Fundamental philosophical reform must occur before lasting peace can be achieved.