Yasser Arafat is worse than Hitler
I'm responding to a recent Daniel Pipes article not because he's worth replying to, but because he is such a transparently ethnocentric and Islamophobic fool (and an influential one) that anything that I can do to out him as such is surely time well-spent.
Wasting no time for the demonization game to begin, he claims that Palestinians "have established a worldwide reputation not just for relying heavily on suicide murder but for doing so enthusiastically." In fact, he can hardly contain himself in his orgiastic effusions on the exceptionally evil nature of "Palestinian Arabs" (as opposed to Palestinian Africans?):
No other press and school system indoctrinates children to become suicide murderers. No other people holds joyous wakes for dead suicide bombers. No other parents hope their children will blow themselves up. None other receives lavish endorsement and funding for terrorism from the authorities. Nor has another people produced a leader so inextricably tied to terrorism as was Yasser Arafat, nor so bountifully devoted its allegiance to him.
Strangely, in the annals of human history, Pipes can find no leader "so inextricably tied to terrorism" as Arafat, whose "terrorism" apparently surpasses that of such luminaries as Hitler, Stalin, and Reagan (and yes, those names do deserve to be mentioned together). Perhaps most sadly, Pipes' inexplicable Arab hate fests aren't just for WASPy U.S. neocons - the article is available in no less than 8 other languages. Prepare to be propagandized, Slovak-speakers!
On Pipes' blog, he reports Europe as being "under siege" by, amongst others, these most nefarious of groups - "asylum-seekers" and "refugees." If only those brown people could stop slaughtering each other, then Mr. Pipes' Anglo-Saxon brethren could rest easy at night, safe from the fleeing hordes invading Europe's soft underbelly. Cue Mr. Pipes' approval for the West's endangered white minority as it valiantly "protects its patrimony." (Curiously, attempts by Palestinians to protect Palestine's "patrimony" are looked upon less favorably by Pipes).
The only thing left to say is that the Wall Street Journal has dubbed him "an authoritative commentator on the Middle East."
posted by Kevin @ 6:35 PM
4 comments
4 Comments:
You know, it wouldn't be the first time "asylum-seekers, refugees, economic migrants, jihadists, and others" invaded Europe and took over. In fact, these same categories of people flooded into Europe and the Roman Empire in 5th century. Of course, they were being chased by the Huns...I wonder who would be their counterparts in this analogy?
If European history has taught us anything, it's that they do quite well themselves in creating their own fanatical mass murderers - the dominant trend in European history since the creation of the nation-state has been white Europeans slaughtering each other.
go see "paradise now" it's showing at the squirrel hill manor.
On "Palestinian Arabs": yes, Pipes uses the label for propaganda purposes -- that is, to deny the legitimacy of Palestinian national identity.
That said, I would argue that the phrase doesn't have to be used in this way. There are, after all, Palestinian Jews, Druze, Armenians, etc. More importantly, though, it allows us to recognize that Palestine, like the other Arab states, was artificially created by the British in the early 20th century.
Zionists use this fact to argue the point mentioned above, but the argument can be turned on its head -- or rather, placed back on its feet. If the Arab states are creations of colonialism, it follows that the entire Arab nation should be united under a single state or federation.
We should therefore see the tasks of ending the Israeli settler colony and of ending the reign of pro-U.S. elites throughout the region not as separate, but as dialectically connected, as the PFLP and its splinters have long argued.
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