By Rick Kardonne
Tribune Correspondent
A noisy but small pro-Palestinian demonstration, complete with Palestinian Authority flags, led by a York University teaching assistant, Rafif, did not deter an overflowing audience from attending a stirring, no-holds-barred speech by former IDF Chief of Staff General Moshe Ya’alon at Beth Emeth Bais Yehuda Synagogue.
Moshe Ya’alon, formerly chief of Israel Defence Forces, is now a research fellow at the Institute of Near East Studies in Washington, DC.
A large police presence discouraged things from getting out of hand.
According to Ynetnews.com, the group – consisting of left-wing organizations, mostly Arabs, some Jews – putting on the demonstration was behind a failed attempt to have Ya’alon detained in Canada and held on “suspicion of committing war crimes.”
Ya’alon’s speech was sponsored by Beit Halochem, Aid for Disabled Israeli Veterans and Israeli Victims of Terror.
Ya’alon said that the Hamas victory in the Palestinian Authority elections was “an outcome of the (Israeli) disengagement from the Gaza strip.”
This statement evoked applause from the audience.
“We strengthen the Palestinian goal of the destruction of Israel, and we weaken the Israeli Zionist goal. The Hamas victory is a boost to radical Islamists all over the world,” including the Iraqi insurgents who are fighting the American and British forces.
“Hamas foreign minister Khaled Mesha’al and Iran president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad use the PA to challenge Israel,” he said. “We will enjoy international empathy until the end of the Israeli election. Hamas has been strengthened. We are weakened.”
Ya’alon believes that another reason for the Hamas victory was the Palestinian Arab education system, which under Yasser Arafat, preached hatred of Jews and the total destruction of Israel. In August 1995, while head of military intelligence, Ya’alon told then-Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, “I see no sign of reconciliation with the Palestinian Authority as long as their education system preaches such hate. Arafat mentioned the Christian and Muslim holy places in Israel, but no Jewish holy places. Arafat preached a denial of a linkage between the Jewish people and the land of Israel.”
Brought up in this educational attitude of hate, Ya’alon was “not surprised that the younger Palestinian Arab generation voted for Hamas.”
He believes that “we have been fighting a war since Sept.2000. Arafat started this war. It was not an intifada, which in Arabic means a spontaneous uprising. Arafat did not want a two-state solution. He, like Hamas, wanted to destroy Israel.
“Every time we make concessions, whether it be the Peel Commission recommendations of 1937, the UN partition of 1947, or up until the Oslo accords of 1993, the Arabs undertake a new round of terror.”
In the past, the Arab response was conventional war, up until the Yom Kippur War of 1973, he said. But since the Israel Defense Forces are by far the most powerful army in the Middle East, the Arabs, since 1973, have been afraid to attack Israel on the battlefield. So now, they are resorting to what he called “sub-conventional” war: terror attacks on Israeli civilians.
“Qassam rockets are not aimed at Israeli military installations, but are aimed at Israeli civilians. This terrorism is financed by Iran, Syria and Saudi Arabia. Ya’alon feels that while Israel is superior to the Arab states and Iran in terms of conventional warfare, Israel is inferior when it comes to fighting the present-day sub-conventional war.
In the past, Arab leaders such as Egypt’s Gamal Nasser and Syria’s Hafez Assad used secular banners such as pan-Arabism and Ba’athism (Arab national socialism) as the ideologies to attack Israel. “Today, they no longer utilize secular nationalism. Today, they use religion to justify the destruction of Israel.”
While there are theological differences between the Shia and Sunni branches of Islam, they agree on one goal: the destruction of Israel, he said.
“The Iran Shia Islam claims that Israel should be wiped off the map. Ahmadenijad uses Shia Islam as a justification to destroy Israel, and Iran arms Hezbollah, the Shia terrorists in southern Lebanon. Hamas and Islamic Jihad, both of which are Sunni, again want to destroy Israel, and will go to Shia Iran for aid to do so.”
In response, Ya’alon, whose mother was a Holocaust survivor, is now a research fellow at the Institute of Near East Studies in Washington. He advocates a policy of Zionist determination to fight the present war on terrorism. To rousing applause, he declared: “Israel should enjoy defensible borders and freedom of military operation in Judea, Samaria and the Jordan River Valley. Israel, and not only Israel, faces the threat of global radical Islam.”
He feels that civilian populations not only in Israel but also “in New York, London and Madrid are on the front lines of the war on terrorism.”
And this global radical Islamic threat is aimed at the whole world, not only Israel. Often, global radical Islam has nothing to do with Israel. “Al-Qaeda originated in Saudi Arabia without any connection to the Israel-Palestinian dispute. Likewise, the Iran Islamic revolution of 1979 had nothing to do with Israel.”
With this in mind, Ya’alon advised the West to take the following steps to combat global Islamic radical terror: “Any money given to the Palestinian Authority should be conditional on, first of all, education reform, so not to preach terror and hate; secondly, political reform, and third, societal reform. The Hamas-led Palestinian Authority should be boycotted and isolated. The Iran nuclear machinery should be stopped: the sooner, the better. And we should encourage moderate elements within the Islamic world.”
Above all, he believes that Israel must state its case in the spirit of a return to positive Zionist values. Israel has much to be proud of. No longer should Israel have the attitude of: “They blame us and we blame ourselves.” He is proud of the fact that this past week alone, terrorists were caught in Ramallah and the Tel Aviv-Jerusalem main highway before they could carry out their deadly acts.
And to conclude on a positive note, Ya’alon is proud of the current Israeli young generation in the army today. “The Israeli young generation is strong and more highly motivated than was my generation. I am also highly encouraged by the spirit of Jewish people from all over the world,” as manifested last week by strong Toronto support for Beit Halochem.
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