Because the basic contention of the Islamists is that the Jews have to go:
Israel should not have to remove any settlements in a peace agreement with the Palestinians, Strategic Affairs Minister Moshe Ya’alon has told The Jerusalem Post, adding that just as Arabs live in Israel, so, too, should Jews be able to live in a future Palestinian entity.
“If we are talking about coexistence and peace, why the [Palestinian] insistence that the territory they receive be ethnically cleansed of Jews?” Ya’alon asked during a wide-ranging interview that will appear in the Post’s Yom Ha’atzmaut supplement on Monday.
“Why do those areas have to be Judenrein?” he asked. “Don’t Arabs live here, in the Negev and the Galilee? Why isn’t that part of our public discussion? Why doesn’t that scream to the heavens?”
Ya’alon said that if Israel and the Palestinians were truly headed down the path of peace and coexistence, “Jews living in Judea and Samaria under Israeli sovereignty and citizenship” should be possible.
Now, if I were a Jew, I wouldn’t want to live under Moslem rule. Heck, as a Christian I don’t want to – Islamists have this habit of brutality towards Christians as well as a penchant for desecrating Christian holy places. You know, treating us in a manner we’d never dream of treating them – and yet, oddly, they whine endlessly about perceived slights to Islam at the hands of Christians. Strange, huh?
Anyways…
Until the Moslems say to the Jews, “we want you to stay”, there can be no real peace. Until, that is, Islam comes to grip with the fact that non-Moslems have as much right to live and participate fully in society as Moslems, then there can be no real peace. Not between Islam and Israel – not between Islam and anything.
Terribly sorry for my Moslem brothers and sisters, but just because you say your founder talked to God doesn’t mean we have to agree. We Christians, to put it bluntly, consider Mohammed to just be this guy who picked up a bit of the Arian heresy, adapted it to his personal rule and proclivities, and had at it. We respect those aspects of Islam which are morally excellent (calls to regular prayer, strong family life, almsgiving, etc), but trying to tell us, say, that our mere existence is a pollution in your holy city is not conducive to peace and cooperation.
Doesn’t help, either, when Christians are murdered for alleged “insults” to Islam, nor does it help that Moslems who convert to Christianity are then threatened with death. There are lots of things, on all sides, which can promote peace but most of what must be done needs to be done by Moslems – who have been routinely in the wrong.
This is why calls for a renewed peace process in the Israeli/Moslem conflict fall on deaf ears with me – what is the point? Until they change their ways, the best which can be hoped for is an armed truce. And given the nature of things, Israel must be more heavily armed and always able to strike much harder blows than the Moslem world can.
Its a hard thing, but there’s not much we can do about it. The ball is in Islam’s court – lets see what they do with it, then we can move from there.
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