Why Peace Won’t Happen - One More Reason

Jonathan S. Tobin..
Commentary/Contentions..
12 April '13..

Anyone who regularly follows the translations of the Palestinian media available on Palestinian Media Watch (www.palwatch.org) or www.Memri.org understands that the blithe talk about the possibility of Middle East peace that is heard on the left is utterly unrealistic. But keeping one’s finger on the pulse of a Palestinian culture that continues to foment hatred of Jews and Israel isn’t the only indicator of just how deep this animus runs in Arab culture. Just as informative is a look at the cultures of the two Arab countries that have already made peace with Israel: Egypt and Jordan. The potent anti-Semitism of the Muslim Brotherhood as well as the prejudice that runs throughout the culture of the largest Arab nation is well documented. But the situation in Jordan is less well known.

Jordan’s reputation as a moderate Arab nation stems mostly from the attitude of former King Hussein and his successor King Abdullah. Like his father, the Jordanian monarch is well spoken in English, charming and, despite the criticisms he lobs across the border at Israel in order to maintain his standing as an Arab leader, very much uninterested in conflict with the Jewish state. But his people and even those in his government are a very different manner.

As the Jerusalem Post reports, 110 out of 120 members of the Jordanian parliament have endorsed a petition calling for the release of the former soldier who murdered seven Jewish children in 1997. The shocking incident at the Island of Peace along the border between Israel and Jordan prompted King Hussein to personally apologize to the families of the victims for what he considered a blot on the honor of both his country and its armed services. But to the overwhelming majority of Jordanians, he appears to be a hero. If that doesn’t tell you something about how difficult it is to imagine the end of the Middle East conflict, you aren’t paying attention.

A Jordanian Hero?

Paula R. Stern
A Soldier's Mother
16 February '11

Fourteen years ago, a school in Beit Shemesh took their students to the Island of Peace - Naharayim, on a school trip. Fourteen years ago, a Jordanian soldier saw the students, and opened fire, killing 7 young girls. I remember that day so well, and the days that followed. I watched the news and kept asking my husband to explain something that could not be explained.

How, I kept asking him...how does a parent send a child to school in the morning and bury her that night? That thought, that image, haunted me for years. What helped, a bit, was the amazing action of the Jordanian king. King Hussein did the unthinkable - he came to Israel. He insisted. He was deeply ashamed and angered by what his soldier had done and so he came to Israel, to Beit Shemesh, to the homes of the parents of these young girls and made a condolence call.

(Read full "A Jordanian Hero?")

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The culture of death and hate

Fresnozionism.org
15 February '11

http://fresnozionism.org/2011/02/the-culture-of-death-and-hate/

Sometimes we talk about anti-Jewish and anti-Israeli ‘incitement’ in the Middle East. We also understand that there is a deep reservoir of hatred built up among Arabs, in great measure a result of the constant drumbeat in their media. But this is abstract. Let’s make it concrete.

The Israel-Jordan peace treaty was signed in 1994. Like the treaty with Egypt, it wasn’t an especially warm peace. But unlike the Oslo Agreement with the Palestinian Arabs, the Jordanian leadership did not sign it with intent to violate it. In 1996 my wife and daughter visited the remarkable city of Petra. They are certain that border officials and others knew they were Israeli citizens despite their American passports, but nobody bothered them.

When the treaty was signed, a spot at the confluence of the Jordan and Yarmouk rivers, ‘nahariyim‘ [two rivers] in Hebrew, was set aside as a tourist site. It was called “the Island of Peace.” The area was under Jordanian sovereignty but the site was developed by several Israeli kibbutzim in the area.

On March 13, 1997, a Jordanian soldier, Ahmed Daqamseh, opened fire on a group of Israeli schoolchildren from the town of Beit Shemesh on an outing near the Island of Peace. Seven 11-year old girls were killed, and others seriously wounded. The event shocked Israel and Jordan as well. King Hussein himself traveled to Beit Shemesh and apologized to the families, something heretofore — and probably today — unthinkable for an Arab leader.

Various news reports call Daqamseh ‘mentally disturbed’. But here is a bit from an Aljazeera program broadcast in July, 2001:

The next caller was the mother of the Jordanian soldier, Ahmad Daqamseh, who murdered seven Israeli girls on the Israeli-Jordanian border in 1997. She made the following speech: “I am proud of my son, and I hold my head high. My son did a heroic deed and has pleased Allah and his own conscience. My son lifts my head and the head of the entire Arab and Islamic nation. I am proud of any Muslim who does what Ahmad did. I hope that I am not saying something wrong. When my son went to prison, they asked him: ‘Ahmad, do you regret it?’ He answered: ‘I have no regrets.’ He treated everyone to coffee, honored all the other prisoners, and said: The only thing that I am angry about is the gun, which did not work properly. Otherwise I would have killed all of the passengers on the bus.” — MEMRI tr.

If Ahmed was ‘disturbed’, so was his mother. Of course by enlightened standards, the slaughter of innocent children is beyond horrible, to the point that only mental illness can explain it. But there is a culture — and I am not saying this is Arab culture in general, clearly many Arabs, including King Hussein, were stunned and ashamed — in which this isn’t crazy.

This is the culture of people who have learned to reason according to rigid ideological strictures and to feel by pulling up the hatred that’s been pumped into them by parents, schools, media, religious leaders, etc. for as long as they can remember. These are people who do not empathize, at least not with others outside their family, tribe or religious circle. Fill them with hate and give them rules that legitimize murder, and they murder. With pride and without regrets.