|
|
|
JUST THE FAQs
"Why Did This Happen?"
by H. David Blalock
It was inevitable that an attack like that carried out on 9/11 should occur. In light of the possible scenarios, we should consider ourselves lucky. It was much more likely that a tactical nuclear device would have been detonated in New York or Washington. Five thousand is a horrible, but light, number of casualties.
America has become the de facto enforcer of UN policy worldwide. To accomplish this, the US has established bases in parts of the world historically considered powder kegs, including the Middle East. The mere presence of America forces is not the full reason for the 9/11 attacks, as the last article pointed out. The "why" of all this is much more complex, and requires us to turn to history no longer taught in our politically correct American school curricula.
From the time of the Babylonian captivity, the Jews had tried to re-establish an independent state. The majority of Jewish people worked hard toward that end, bringing on themselves through that hard work a great deal of prosperity. With this prosperity, however, Jews found themselves the targets of the envy and enmity of the less fortunate around them. The gentile world became progressively more anti-Semitic until, as late as just before World War II, it was almost fashionable to hate Jews. Jews were persecuted, hounded, and generally harassed throughout Europe and the Americas, often with the sanction of national political authorities.
Then, at the close of World War II, the conscience of humanity in general was ravaged by the revelation of the Holocaust. The death of over six million Jews at the hands of the Nazi regime shocked and stunned the Western World. Stricken with guilt at their previous attitude toward the Jew, an attitude that had enabled the Holocaust, the Allies attempted reparations by establishing a nation for Jewish refugees.
We must understand that, prior to the establishment of the state of Israel on May 14, 1948, the Arab nations were not places of peace and paradise. Nor did the Arab nations hold a specific hatred for Jews at that time. The existence of the Jews was not a matter of intense concern to the Arabic community, although they were not on the friendliest of terms. It was only after Israel was created from Palestine that the ire of the Arabs descended on the Jews. Arab land was commandeered by the British and the new United Nations to form what the Arabic nations considered an invader state. On the day after its establishment, the Arab world declared war on Israel. They have been at war ever since.
The Arab-Israeli conflict has gone through covert and overt stages of conflict. From 1948 to late 1949 the bloodshed was nationally sanctioned by Egypt, Syria, Transjordan, and Lebanon. After the armistice between Israel and Syria in July 1949, the conflict went underground, where it festered and brewed, erupting time and again in skirmishes and terrorist activity. In 1967, Egypt made its first real effort to obliterate Israel. In what came to be known as the Six Day War, Israel not only held off Egyptian and other Arab forces, it advanced into and captured land on the West Bank of the Jordan and in the Gaza strip. This contention went on pretty much uninterrupted, although not officially, until the Yom Kippur War of 1973 brought the hostilities back to the forefront. Egypt and Syria struggled to dislodge the Israelis, without success. Their lack of success finally convinced Egypt that Israel could not be displaced by force. In 1979, Egypt made peace with Israel. Two years later, in 1981, Muslim extremists assassinated the Egyptian architect of that peace, Anwar Sadat, for his role in the Camp David Accords.
The assassination of Sadat was the most prominent opening shot in the terrorism to come. High political figures and ordinary people on the street would feel the impact of Arabic discontent with Israel's continued existence. Although most Arab nations have come to realize Israel cannot be eliminated by force because of its support from the West, they also know that any democratic form of government can be undermined from within by popular pressure. To that end, they have fallen back on hostage-taking, guerilla warfare, and terrorism. The methods are not new. In the thousands of years men have lived in the Fertile Crescent, they have been major factors in resolving, and inciting, conflicts between nations. Nearly every tribal and religious dispute in the region has its origins in a past act of terror.
Evolving out of the displaced Arab populace, the Palestinian Liberation Organization gained preeminence as the official voice of the Palestinian people in the mid- to late-1980's. Western nations' alarm at escalating conflicts in what the Palestinians refer to as "the occupied land" eventually forced Israel to the negotiating table with the PLO in 1993. Since then, Israel has waged a war as much against changing diplomatic boundaries and policies as against terrorism.
America's support of the continued existence of Israel casts it in the darkest light for Muslim extremists. Convinced that Israel could not stand on its own without American support, men like Osama bin Laden work tirelessly to sever the relations between the two countries. They do not consider any American any less of a target than any Israeli. To them, we are all soldiers in a war about Arab sovereignty. In this war, to them America is the invader, the occupier, the oppressor, and obviously in the wrong. God could not possibly be on America's side, the side of injustice. That would make them soldiers of justice. They see themselves as the Army of God.
It is very difficult to convince a person, once they have decided what they are doing is for God and justice, that they are wrong. Worse, using that presumption, they see no problem with suspending ethical treatment of the enemy. After all, why have mercy on Satan's troops?
So, the answer for "Why did this happen?" must be: Because it was inevitable that the expiation of the Western world's conscience at the expense of the Middle East should bear bitter fruit.
This does not in any form or fashion excuse the actions of the men who carried out the 9/11 attacks. Even the Islamic community condemns those actions as outside the law of Islam, murderous and unspeakable atrocities perpetrated on innocents. But there are those who feel that, if we could just understand why this happened, we could find a way to stop it happening again. To those people I hold up the history of the last century. The people involved in this conflict in the Middle East understand it better than anyone. If anyone had a chance of resolving this issue, it would have been them.
Pure and simple, neither the Muslims nor the Jews are interested in peace. Both parties are, at this point, interested only in vengeance.
NEXT:
JUST THE FAQs: "Will this happen again?"
Visit David Blalock's web site at…