Dear Editor:
We often hear that no one ever informs us of the brutalization and murder of Palestinians by the Israelis. This kind of comment of reminds me of Nikolai Lenin's term "useful idiots", which he used to describe western true believers who flocked to Leningrad in 1917 to take part in the new worker's paradise. There were some 20,000 of them, and all perished in the Soviet gulag.
Just a few of the other things we won't hear from the useful idiot: The U.N., right after the war, sought to recognize Jewish claims for a right to live in Palestine by proposing that Jews be allowed to live alongside Palestinians, each in self-governing communities in an Arab Palestine under the control of Jordan. It was the first "one-state" solution. The Arabs threatened to go to war. As a result, the partition of Palestine in 1948 proposed adjoining Jewish and Arab States, still under the control of Arab Jordan. This was the first "two-state" solution. This time the Arabs and Palestinians did go to war.
Useful idiots are forever reminding us of how 350,000 Palestinians were raped, brutalized, and expelled from their rightful homes during that first war. But we won't hear that 850,000 Jews were expelled from the Arab world with only a few clothes on their backs.
There are some six million Palestinian refugees, more than the population of Israel. Does anyone ever think of asking why there are no Jewish refugees? That is because, arriving in Israel, they buckled down and rebuilt their lives, transforming Israel into an economic and political powerhouse. What happened to those poor Palestinian refugees? Those Arab world dictators, some of whom have private gold-plated airfields, made sure no Palestinian refugee could own property in Arab lands, or take jobs, or receive any economic support or medical care. The Palestinians were crowded into festering ghettos, at western (U.N.) expense, and taught that one day they would get their revenge.
Useful idiots can stage Israeli Apartheid Weeks, but never apply a critical light to the Arab world. They flit by Sep 11, Madrid, London, Bali, the Shoe and Christmas Day bombers and the Fort Hood murderer, not the mention jihadist massacres which occur daily. They never ask why most terrorists are Muslim, presumably because that is a racist slur implying that most Muslims are terrorists.
Really? Most RCMP officers in Yorkton are residents. Does that imply that most residents of Yorkton are in the RCMP?
Has anyone noticed that during the current wave of unrest throughout the Arab world, only the dictators who have supported the terror of Hezbollah and Hamas are involved, with Israel barely mentioned?
Western critics of Israel ignore the feudal gulag that Islam forces its women to endure, but manage instead to convince themselves that Palestinians are the world's great victims. Lenin would have understood.
Yours truly,
Lance Irvine
Yorkton, Sask.
