"I just don't think Haj Amin AL-Husseini's collaboration with the Axis has much to do with the genesis of suicide bombing."

More distortions. Hajj Amin was not guilty of "collaboration with the Axis", or, if he was, then so was Himmler (a Nazi of equivalent rank) guilty of "collaboration."

Aside from this distortion, however, it now appears that the ludicrous portrayal of Hajj Amin al Husseini as an anti-Nazi has been dropped (by the standards of this discussion, this must be considered progress). Instead we have a retreat to the position that Hajj Amin is irrelevant to suicide terrorism, both by Scott Atran (who merely states it), and by Basel Saleh, who makes an argument. But that, too, cannot succeed.

Saleh does the following:

1) He alleges that Israeli leaders Begin and Shamir were terrorists, but all the same managed to negotiate peace with Arabs later on;

2) He complains that "Holding the PLO and the Palestinian leadership hostages to their history is unfair," because, just like Begin and Shamir, they have changed their stripes (i.e. they are supposedly no longer in thrall of Hajj Amin's fascist ideology), and they can therefore honestly negotiate peace.

There are only two problems with this argument: 1) Begin and Shamir were never terrorists; and 2) the PLO has never changed its stripes.

I address each in turn.

Supporters of the PLO often claim that the Irgun, in its later years led by Menachem Begin, was a terrorist organization. This is an attempt to create a moral equivalence between the Israeli Jews on the one hand, and the Nazi-trained Palestinian fascists on the other. This has been helped along by slanders emanating from the leftist movements which dominated Jewish political life at the time of the founding of Israel, and which did everything they could to discredit their rivals, the Revisionists, of whom Begin was the most prominent leader after Jabotinsky's death.

It is true that Begin was an armed revolutionary, but this in itself does not make him a terrorist. A terrorist deliberately targets innocent civilians. Did the Irgun? No. Quite the contrary.

The Irgun was formed to retaliate against Arab terrorists because the Revisionists were disgusted with the policy of self-restraint advocated by the dominant leaders in the Yishuv (the Palestinian Jewish community), which policy called for no reprisals despite the serious loss of Jewish civilian life. Retaliation against one's attackers is self-defense, not terrorism.

When the Irgun later proclaimed a Revolt against the British they went to great lengths in order to protect civilian lives. Their strategy was designed to affect only property.

[Start Quote From Foreign Affairs, 1975]

...[This] was explained to me and to others at a meeting in New York City sometime in 1945 by one of the founders of the Irgun Zvai Leumi, a tiny group of Jewish militants in what was then the British-mandated territory of Palestine. His organization had no more than 1,000 or 1,500 members, and it was at odds with the Palestinian Jewish community almost as much as it was with the mandatory regime. Yet he proposed to combat Great Britain, then a global power whose armed forces in the Second World War numbered in the millions, and to expel Great Britain from Palestine.

How could such a thousand-to-one struggle be won? To do so, as he explained it, his organization would attack property interests. After giving advance warning to evacuate them, his small band of followers would blow up buildings. This, he said, would lead the British to overreact. . . [1]

[End Quote From Foreign Affairs]

In order to prevent loss of life (even military loss of life whenever possible!), every time the Irgun targeted British government buildings in Palestine, they would plaster notices all over and make anonymous phone calls to the British well in advance. This cost the Irgun its element of surprise and endangered its troops, which is the best measure of their concern.

It is this singularly moral underground army, the Irgun, that Basel Saleh calls "terrorist," comparing them to the murderers of the PLO (i.e. Fatah and its appendages such as Tanzim and Al Aqsa Martyrs). The latter send even women and children to be human bombs which slaughter other children. [2]

How can the moral bravery of the Irgun be compared to the PLO's unspeakable cowardice?

But there is a reason for this. By pretending that Begin and the Irgun have been forgiven for their supposed terrorism, one can say that Arafat and the PLO should similarly be forgiven! This of course requires suggesting further that the PLO has shed its Nazi baggage, as Basel Saleh intimates when he argues that "Holding the PLO and the Palestinian leadership hostages to their history is unfair."

But Yasser Arafat, the protégé of the genocidal Nazi Hajj Amin al Husseini, is still the supreme leader of Fatah, the PLO, the PNA, and the Palestinian movement. So Hajj Amin is irrelevant? Arafat and his followers continue to launch terrorist attacks against Israeli civilians and, just like Hajj Amin before them, they murder any moderate opponents among Palestinians. And since Arafat's followers share his ideology, we have little reason to expect that things will change when he is thankfully gone.

Since the PLO remains true to its Nazi heritage, how can I be holding the PLO hostage to its history?

Consider that immediately after signing the Oslo accords, Arafat made clear that he considered the accords a "Trojan Horse" meant to cheat the Israelis and wipe them out in stages. Faisal Husseini, Arafat's right arm until he died (and a supposed 'moderate'), said the same thing even more clearly before he died. [3]

Consider also that the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) controls the Palestinian media and educational systems with an iron hand. So we can gauge their goals by studying what is taught in their schools and shown on TV. Itamar Marcus from Palestinian Media Watch wrote an article for the Jerusalem Post last week where he details how the PNA uses the schools to teach Palestinian Arabs hatred against Jews (everything is referenced). You may read it here:

http://emperors-clothes.com/archive/bulletin-71.htm

If the PNA wanted to prepare Palestinian Arab children to live in peace with a Jewish State - the famous "two-state solution with dignity for all" - they would use their control over education to teach tolerance. But as Marcus demonstrates, the PNA school curriculum teaches hatred of Jews and legitimizes the destruction of Israel. And it has done so since the very beginning of the "peace" process, which shows that their intentions were never to make peace. This system is indoctrinating a future genocidal army. Every conceivable symbol is recruited to glorify suicide terrorism: even the children's soccer teams are all named after suicide bombers. [4]

Regarding the media, Itamar Marcus has made a 20-minute film from PNA Television clips. [5] In one of the clips, two young girls are interviewed concerning their views of Shahida, which means dying for Allah or, in this case, dying as a suicide terrorist. The interviewer asks Walla, a child of 11:

"What are better, peace and full rights for the Palestinian people or Shahida?"

And the child, age 12, answers with a delightful smile, "Shahida. I will achieve my rights after becoming a Shahid." To which the interviewer nods, pleased with the reply.

On Palestinian Authority Television, sermons may routinely be seen which exhort "Blessings to whoever put a belt of explosives on his body or on his sons and plunged into the midst of Jews crying: 'Allah Akbar, praise to Allah'." You may see one such video for yourselves here:

http://stream.realimpact.net/rihurl.ram?file=realimpact/memri/memri_fridaysermon_01.rm

Basel Saleh argues that, "Holding the PLO. . .hostages to their history. . .does not contribute to the understanding of suicide terrorism."

What history? This is the PLO's present! And if we don't explain suicide terrorism in its historical and ideological context, what is left? Let me guess: the alleged oppression of the Israelis, which is precisely the argument PLO supporters like to make. But understanding Palestinian suicide terrorism is not so difficult if we examine the facts. It is based on fanaticism taught by Arafat through the PNA's institutions of indoctrination (schools, TV, and mosques). Suicide terrorism is the highest ideal of the embryonic Palestinian state. A future Palestinian state with an army composed of recruits for whom suicide terror is an ecstatic prospect guarantees a catastrophic war, and Palestinian Arabs will hardly benefit from this.

So let me turn Saleh's point around: Why should anybody advocate that ordinary Palestinians be held hostage to the gangsters who run the PLO, and who have not shed their Nazi history? Is the desire to attack the Jews so strong that we cannot even feel compassion for the innocent Palestinian children who will be brought up in a climate of hatred and destruction? How can anybody apologize for these fiends who are actively destroying an entire generation of Palestinians?

Palestinians need a revolution. But not against Israel. Israel is not their problem. Their problem, their very difficult problem, is how to get rid of the fascists who pass for their leaders. When they do so they will be able to work together with others in the region to turn the Middle East into a decent place. So long as Western academics are less interested in explaining antisemitic suicide terrorism than in apologizing for it, we will be giving aid and comfort to these fascists who are not only the worst enemies of the Jews, but of the Palestinians as well.

References

[1] The Strategy Of Terrorism; Foreign Affairs, July 1975; by David Fromkin.

[2] http://emperors-clothes.com/gilwhite/Israel.htm#part1

[3] Visit this link to find out how the Palestinian leaders thought about the Oslo "Peace" Process from the very beginning:

http://emperors-clothes.com/gilwhite/Israel.htm#part3

[4] "PA Soccer Tourney Named After Passover Massacre Suicide Bomber" by Itamar Marcus http://www.israel-wat.com/b1_eng.htm#a12

Introduction: A Palestinian soccer tournament for 12-year-old boys has been named after the suicide bomber who killed 29 Jews during Passover Seder. The suicide bomber's brother has been chosen to present the trophy to the winning team. All seven teams participating in the tournament are named after terrorists and others who the PA refers to as Shahids - those having died for Allah.

The following is the report in the official PA paper:

"In Tulkarma Abd Al Majid Tia School soccer field, under the auspices of Jamal Tarif, director of education; Sport Supervisor Jamal Odeh; and in the presence of school principal Jamal Ayat; the head of the Sports committee, and committee members; the Tulkarm Shahids Memorial soccer championship tournament of the Shahid Abd Al-Baset Odeh [the suicide bomber who attacked a Netanya hotel last Passover Eve], began with the participation of seven top teams, named after Shahids [suicide bombers] who gave their lives to redeem the Homeland. Isam, the brother of the Shahid [of the Passover eve Massacre], will distribute the trophies.

The teams are: Abed Al Basset Odeh [carried out the Passover Eve Massacre at the Parka Hotel in Netanya]

Raed Carmi [slain Tulkarm Fatah Al Aksa Martyrs Brigade commander]

Wajdi Al Hatab [Palestinian child who requested cake be distributed after his death in combat]

Tarek Abu Safaka [carried out the suicide attack on the Samaria community of Hermesh on Feb. 10, 2002, killing three Israelis]

Tarek Alqato [Al Aksa Martyrs Brigade operative killed in a clash with IDF troops]

Mahmud Marmash [Netanya suicide bomber]

Husam Al Hamshari"

(Sports pages of the official PA daily newspaper Al Hayat Al Jadida Jan 21, 2003)

[5] For fast connections, use this link to watch the video.

http://www.isratv.com/video/filmpmwadsl.asx

For 56k modem, use this link:

http://www.isratv.com/video/filmpmw56k.asx

'The Bible says that Abram removed his tent and came and dwelt in the plain of Mamre, which is in Hebron, and built there an altar before the Lord. Hebron is in the West Bank. It is at this place where God appeared to Abram and said, ``I am giving you this land,'' — the West Bank.

This is not a political battle at all. It is a contest over whether or not the word of God is true. The seven reasons, I am convinced, clearly establish that Israel has a right to the land.' (CBN News, March 4, 2002 http://cbn.org/CBNnews/news/020308c.asp)

Republican Dick Armey has also supported ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians: 'I'm content to have Israel grab the entire West Bank. I happen to believe that the Palestinians should leave' (CNBC, May 1, 2002 http://www.counterpunch.org/armey0502.html).

These right-wing extremists do not engage in or endorse suicide terrorism.

As William Dalrymple argued in the Observer yesterday,

'It has become increasingly clear since 11 September that Western intelligence agencies have completely failed to understand or to penetrate successfully the networks of Islamist ultra-radicalism. No intelligence agency predicted the attacks on New York or Washington. Nor were there any warnings of the attacks since then in Kenya, Bali or Morocco. Intelligence briefings linking Saddam to anthrax attacks in the United States, or to a nuclear and chemical weapons programme at home, have all proved wildly inaccurate or, in the case of the documents detailing Saddam's search for nuclear materials in Africa, were simply made up.

Meanwhile, Tony Blair's neo-conservative chums in Washington, immune to the justifiable fears of the Muslim world, talk blithely of moving on next year from Iraq to attack Iran and Syria. To add petrol to the flames, they then invite Franklin Graham, the Christian evangelist who has branded Islam a 'very wicked and evil' religion (Christianity and Islam, he writes, are 'as different as lightness and darkness') to be the official speaker at the Pentagon's annual service - and this immediately prior to Graham's departure to Iraq to attempt converting the people of Baghdad to Christianity.

All the while, the paranoia and bottled-up rage in the Muslim world grows more uncontrollable, queues of angry young men volunteer for suicide bombings and attacks by Islamic militants gather pace, with ever wider global reach and technical sophistication. No wonder we feel scared' (Dalyrmple, 2003).

Gil-White's view of the Irgun as a benign orgnization is not shared by the Israeli military:

'The day of the recapture of Kastel was also the day on which Irgun and Stern Gang forces attacked the Arab village of Deir Yassin, on a hill even closer to Jerusalem. It was the last village on the western side of Jerusalem whose Arab inhabitants had not largely or totally fled. The attack, in which 245 Arabs were killed - many of them women and children - generated a controversy and a bitterness that remain to this day a contentious issue in Israeli life. The official account written in 1961 by Lieutenant-Colonel Netanel Lorch, who had fought in the war, and was later head of the Military History Division of the Israeli General Staff, describes how Irgun and Stern Gang forces "massacred hundreds of villagers, took the rest prisoner and paraded them proudly through the streets of Jerusalem", The Jewish Agency and the Haganah High Command both immediately expressed their deep disgust and regret". A Jewish Jerusalmite, Harry Levin, wrote in his diary, "None of the barbarities the Arabs have committed in the past months can excuse this foul thing done by Jews. Most Jews I have spoken to are horrified"'. (Gilbert, 1998, p. 169).

In an article in today's Ha'aretz Zvi Bar'el writes,

'Give us a month, two weeks, three days without terror, and we will start to conduct negotiations. That was the sales slogan of the national unity government at the height of the intifada. The new government of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon was ready to make do with a 100 percent effort by the Palestinians to prevent terrorism - even if the effort was not successful - in order to start proposing “painful concessions.” If only a Palestinian prime minister was appointed - as long as it wasn’t Yasser Arafat - and if the incitement ceased, some small move, a hint, then you will see what I am ready to do, Sharon promised.

The coveted cease-fire was achieved following a huge effort. Israeli army officers say the Palestinian security forces are making a sincere and wide-ranging effort to thwart terrorist operations, intelligence cooperation has been renewed and even the skeptical chief of staff is speaking in terms of a historic turning point and perhaps even the end of the intifada. This, it would seem, is the appropriate time to launch the next stage of the road map: to withdraw to the positions the Israel Defense Forces occupied on the eve of the intifada, to begin preparations for elections to the Palestinian Authority, to demarcate the provisional borders of the Palestinian state, to reopen the Palestinian trade offices in east Jerusalem and to enter into serious, intensive negotiations on basic issues such as the status of Jerusalem, the status of the settlements, the right of return, the water sources and the other volatile subjects.

Here’s the dilemma. Now things are quiet, we have a hudna, there is no terrorism, the number of warnings about possible terrorist attacks have fallen dramatically, so what’s our rush to start negotiations? If the Palestinians lose their patience and if the hudna is canceled after three months and the terrorist attacks resume, there will certainly be no need to conduct negotiations, as it’s well known that we don’t negotiate under terrorism. If they decide to extend the hudna so they won’t have to bear the blame for violating the road map, there is also no need to hurry to the negotiating table. In short, our political situation has never been better.

The Israeli government appears to be adopting the current quiet as a permanent situation that does not oblige action of any kind.'

Given the couse of events there is plenty of scope for pessimism about the capacity of the powers-that-be to understand and prevent suicide terrorism.

References

Bar'el, Z. (2003, July 21). The Palestinians' big achievement. Ha'aretz. http://tinyurl.com/hjne

Dalrymple, W. (2003, July 20). Who is the real enemy? A review of Al-Qaeda: Casting a Shadow of Terror by Jason Burke. The Observer, p. 15. http://tinyurl.com/hjn9

Gilbert, M. (1998). Israel: A history. London: Black Swan Books.

Harel, A. (2003, July 21). Shin Bet and police trying to crack Jewish terror cell. Ha'aretz. http://tinyurl.com/hjnj

Reinfeld, M., Shragai, N., & Harel, A. (2003, July 21). Pas and Shvu suspected of terror involvement. Ha'aretz. http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/319983.html

I've written at length about the various Arab and Jewish leaders from 1917-1948 and have said enough in this forum. Neither do I think this is the place for Francisco to try to convince people that the PLO is bad and the Irgun is good. He adds nothing that is not known from the voluminous literature, and tells us nothing at all about suicide terrorism or how to deal with it.

My contribution to this line of discussion is at an end.

I posted a lot of documentation that makes clear that Palestinian suicide bombing is a direct product of an explicit ideology of suicide bombing, which relies on:

1) teaching antisemitism in Palestinian schools;

2) glorifying suicide bombers by recruiting every available symbol (even the children's soccer teams are named after suicide bombers);

3) having the Muslim clerics extol the suicide bombers (and also shame those who have not yet become one), and then

4) broadcasting those sermons on Arafat's Palestinian Authority TV.

One must add that Arafat and the other fascists who run the Palestinian institutions murder anybody who deviates from their line.

To this, Ian Pitchford replies that right-wing ideology is not what causes suicide terrorism because he can point to many examples of right wing groups that do not use this tactic. Pitchford must have completely missed, then, that I never made the case that right-wing ideology is what causes suicide terrorism (although the premise in his reply seems to grant that the PLO is fascist, and given the tenor of this discussion this admission, too, must be regarded as an improvement). The argument I made is that an explicit ideology of suicide bombing is what causes suicide bombing. Do we really need to be searching for special reasons when Palestinian children are being taught by all of their official institutions that the most wonderful thing in the world for them is to become a "shahid'?

Basel Saleh says that "Francisco has a myopic reading of the Palestinian-Israeli history." What he really means, I think, is that I have a politically incorrect reading of the Palestinian-Israeli history - in other words, my reading is not full of antisemitic distortions and outright lies which are considered polite among academics. It remains significant that after every false interpretation or claim with a pro-Palestinian or anti-Israeli bent, submitted with no documentation (or else simply quoting the opinions of others who themselves are not documented), I have answered with evidence. Some claims that were being made at the beginning, therefore (such as Scott Atran's idea that the fascist and Islamist Hajj Amin al Husseini, the father of the Palestinian movement, was supposedly an anti-Nazi who detested Hitler [!]), have now either been softened or dropped altogether. It is significant that Basel Saleh does not appear to think that Atran has a "myopic reading of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict" despite such outrageous claims.

And Saleh himself only makes claims. I have yet to see him submit any documentation whatever for any of his positions. He accuses me of "derailing the debate." Sorry, but a debate is a debate. It cannot be derailed by one person's opinions when the whole point of the debate is to air one's opinions. And I especially cannot be derailing any debate when my postings are continually replied to (including replies by Saleh himself!). It takes (at least) two to tango. So Saleh's accusation that I am derailing the debate suggests that he was expecting to have something else. What? A nice little party where Jews can be attacked with impunity? This seems to be the current favorite pastime of academics, but documented facts can get in the way of that, can't they?

Basel Saleh further says that "[Francisco] denies that Yitzhak Shamir was a wanted terrorist by the British during the period of the British mandate on Palestine."

He must not have read my posting very carefully. What I denied was the claim that Shamir and Begin were terrorists. I did not deny that they were wanted by the British. The intelligence services of the British imperial government were responsible for spectacular terrorist massacres against innocent Jews, because they assisted Hajj Amin al Husseini, who organized these outrages, and the fact that he organized them was precisely why the British were so fond of him [see my discussion "Are we then to defend the Nazis?"]. Just because such people accuse those who defended the Jews from these attacks - namely Begin and Shamir - of being terrorists hardly makes them so. But I suppose that Saleh considers sticking up for civilian Jews who are under attack from murderers a form of terrorism? And this is not a "myopic" reading of Israeli history?

On the piont about the supposed terrorism of the Irgun, Pitchford replies with the tired refrain of "Deir Yassin": this is the allegation that Irgun soldiers carried out a massacre at the Arab town of Deir Yassin (he defends the claim by quoting the IDF). He may not know this, but the official IDF history on this was written by Meir Pail, the official IDF historian, who among other things mythologized Yitzak Rabin as a great war hero with nothing but lies. Uri Milstein (who authored the definitive history of the War of Independence) has subsequently shown Meir Pail to be a propagandist and liar whose job was to smear the Revisionists. The IDF was formed primarily by the same leftists who considered the Revisionists their rivals, and David Ben Gurion did not flinch at spreading lies about Menachem Begin and the Irgun when he felt that their popularity threatened his political supremacy. And he did not flinch from other things either: for example, Yitzhak Rabin was the man responsible for treacherously firing on Menachem Begin and the other Jewish compatriots of the Irgun on the Altalena, on orders from David Ben-Gurion. It should surprise nobody with even a passing acquaintance of the history of Israel that the official IDF history contains these lies. I was not going to bring this up because, contrary to what Atran thinks, my intention in this discussion was never to refute every lie about the history of Israel and the Palestinian-Israeli conflict (but since Ian Pitchford brings it up, I will reply to him in my next posting and refute this lie as well).

Whoever looks at the history of these postings will see that I merely expressed my opinion about Pitchford's dichotomy, and then Atran called my portrayal of Hajj Amin as a genocidal Nazi "off the wall" and in categorical terms claimed that the man was as an anti-Nazi who detested Hitler! This is something I simply had to correct, and things got interesting from there. But don't blame me for it. I have merely been correcting distortions that others posted in reply to me. Anybody who examines the history of these postings will also notice that every time I refute a claim with documentation, there is never a retraction. Rather, what happens is that a new anti-Israeli or pro-PLO claim is made. Every time I am forced to issue a new refutation because, so far, the claims have been false. Stick to the facts and I won't have to correct anybody, but let us not blame me for making corrections to falsehoods that are posted on this discussion.

Fascism is a political philosophy that exalts nation and race above the individual, and preaches a centralized, dictatorial government as the bset way of managing the affairs of humankind. It also calls for severe economic regimentation. None of these principles were espoused by Haj Amin al-Husseini.

Haj Amin allied himself with Germany because Germany oppsed Britian, which 1. had originally sought to have a Jewish Homeland In Palestine, and 2. opposed Arab nationalism, which Haj Amin favored in in nearly every public discourse he ever gave.

In fact, there is much more similarlity in political philosophy between classical fascist political philosophy and Jabotisnky's revisionist movement (to which Begin and Shamir belonged) than to the Muft's stated objectives for how to run a nation (see Jabotinsky's writings) -strong authoritarian leaders, paramilitary training for youth on the pahalangist model (which Jabotisnky favored), glorification of national history and ehtnicity.

As for Begin not being a terrorist, it is true that he gave British military personnel and support warnings before blowing them up. He did not do likewise for the Arab civilians he ordered murdered. On January 4, 1948, members of Irgun, under Begin's order, drove a produce truck loaded with explosives into the main square of the Arab city of Jaffa. After retreating to a safe distance, they detonated the truck, killing 26 Palestinians, mostly women and children.

On April 9-10, 1948, under Begin's orders, the the village of Deir Yassin was captured following a brief battle with its defenders. All the inhabitants of this Arab hamlet to the east of Jerusalem who, either voluntarily or non-voluntarily, had decided not to flee - a total of more than 250 men, women, and children - were slaughtered. Begin admitted to this fact, saying: "Out of evil, however, came good. This Arab propaganda spread a legend of terror amongst Arabs and Arab troops, who were seized with panic at the mention of Irgun soldiers. The legend was worth half a dozen battalions to the forces of Israel."

He was right. The civilian Arab ppopulation was scared out of its wits. Over 200,000 fled; others,though an order of magnitude less according to the Hagannah's own estimates, fled because Haj Amin and leaders of the Palestine Arab National Movement encouraged them to do so, with the promise that they would return to land wiped free of Jews by victorious Arab armies.

In a letter that I copied (and published) from the Israeli Prime Minister's office (I was working in the archives of Shamir's office at the time), Yigal Yadin (head of Haganah forces) wrote to Ben Gurion, "we cannot let them back; I suggest we say explain this for reasons of health, because of infectious diseases."

In the months prior to Independence, Yadin prpared Tochnit Daled(Plan D). He explained that its objective "is to gain control of the territory of the Hebrew State and to defend its borders and to gain control of the areas of Jewish population and settlement outside the areas allocated to the Jewish State." He wrote that "if Arab towns or villages occupied strategic points … the Haganah must undertake … the expulsion of the population outside the borders of the State."

Though neither Yadin nor Ben Gurion publicly acknowledged - in fact publicly denounced - Begin's actions, Hagannah commanders worked alongside Irgun (including attacks on Arab villages and the attack on the King David Hotel -with Hagannah's Moshe Sneh as the go-between).

Haj Amin Al-Husseini and Menahem Begin are both distant factors in the genesis of Palestinian suicide terrorism.

The contributors have responded to your claims with appropriate evidence. The PLO charter does not call for genocide; you have not produced any evidence that Arafat, the PLO, or any other Palestinian organization endorses Nazism/fascism, even though practically everything you say is based on this premise; far from being "routinely violent British anti-semites" the British are largely responsible for the creation of Israel and have helped to sustain the Israeli state and military ever since, to the point of conducting joint operations with Israel against the Arabs (or have we forgotten Suez?); Haj Amin al-Husseini himself claimed far more Arab than Jewish victims, and the history of Irgun as a terrorist organization is not controversial. I refer participants to the many sources already quoted and cited.

Furthermore, in your original contribution "Grievance vs. Ideology: A fundamental difference or a false dichotomy?" (14th July) you say that I have argued for the,

"separation of a) ideologically-driven groups and b) grievance-driven groups [which] may be read to suggest a distinction between a) groups whose terrorism we unequivocally condemn (his example is Al Qaeda), and b) groups whose terrorism we "understand" (his example is Hamas)"

I argued for a tentative framework that would allow us to understand both grievance-driven groups and ideology-driven groups, and in fact I said "I wonder whether we can develop the notion of grievance-driven versus ideology-driven terrorism in a meaningful way." I did not argue that the difference between the two is that one has grievances, the other ideology, although this is what you imply in your response. Read the message again. Condemnation and approval are superfluous in this context. One could endorse or condemn organizations belonging to either or both hypothesized groups without it making any difference to the analysis. I did not give Hamas as the example of grievance-driven groups, I mentioned Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Hezbollah, and the LTTE. Read the message again.

Please quote what I say accurately and refrain from the implication that I am amongst Western academics who "are less interested in explaining antisemitic suicide terrorism than in apologizing for it". Also, please indicate how your contributions address the themes of the seminar, who are the suicide bombers? What are the causes of suicide attacks? What are the possible lines of defence? If your whole explanation is now that "an explicit ideology of suicide bombing is what causes suicide bombing" please explain what a "suicide-bombing" ideology is, what the connection is between suicide bombing and Nazism, how such an ideology arises, how suicide bombers are inspired to act on the ideology, and what can be done to prevent it. Please do not restrict your comments to Israel/Palestine, or to historical matters, but to the themes of the seminar.

Mohammad Nafissi