The Trojan Horse

October 26, 2008

Islamic fundamentalism is persistently aggressive and passionate in its endeavors. Jerusalem, for them, is a major target. Mark Gabriel was professor of Islamic history at Al-Azhar University, Cairo. He is a former Muslim, now a Christian, and wrote Islam and the Jews: The Unfinished Battle. Gabriel describes the conflict between the Palestinians and Israel, as the “front line.” His wisdom and experience on this topic should be at the forefront of consultation for every western politician and peacenik. Here are just some of his comments:

From the Muslim point of view, the land of present day Israel does not belong to any group of people—it belongs to Islam.

The only acceptable solution from the Muslim point of view is the elimination of   Israel.

The Great Imam of Al-Azhar (comparable in status to the pope of the Roman Catholic Church) was interviewed after the first female Palestinian suicide bomber blew herself up. He made this statement: ‘Every Palestinian person—man or woman—who blows himself up is a martyr!’ (Note: Those we call “suicide bombers,” are heroes in the Arab world).

Gabriel drew specific attention to the area surrounding the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem. He explained how any foreigner or Jew in or around the sanctuary is offensive to Islamic belief. “The impure, corrupting presence of non-Muslim Americans and Jews must be cleansed from the area.” He specifically referred to Jerusalem, the third holiest city to Islam. Because it holds special value for Muslims, Christians, and Jews, it attracts dispute.

The City’s New Terrorism

The name Jerusalem means “city of shalom (peace).” Ironically, “peace” for this city has been very elusive. Already a new and more dangerous form of terrorism has impacted Israel this year. I call it “Trojan-horse” because the perpetrators are residents living within the land. They are already inside the security fence and have no need to negotiate border crossings. They live alongside the people they hate. They rub shoulders on a daily basis with the people they have been taught to hate as infidels. They shop side by side and travel on buses together. They have work permits. They may be driving the taxi you hire or cut your hair or prepare your lunch. They are positioned to strike when the time is right.

As of June 30, 2008, 71 “Palestinians” living in East Jerusalem were arrested for terrorist involvement, as opposed to 37 for all of 2007. “The terrorists target the innocent precisely because they are innocent. In assaulting them, he [the terrorist] tells us that his atrocity is out of bounds, that he is prepared to pursue by any means to achieve his goal which is to frighten us into submission,” former Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said. “Any means” expanded this year to include bulldozers, which many people on Jerusalem streets now call “killerpillars.”

What inspires such brutality? On June 8, 1974, Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) Chairman Yasser Arafat invoked a resolution of the Palestinian National Council (PNC), known as the “Phased Plan” for Israel’s destruction. About that plan, the late Rev. Dr. David Allen Lewis wrote, “The decision contains two key elements: first, to create a Palestinian state on any territory vacated by Israel, and second, to use that state as a base for mobilizing a general Arab assault on Israel.”

That platform, established 34 years ago, still seeks its goal. It echoes in other statements by the PLO leader. In Ramallah, Arafat said, “The [Palestinian] state will be established with Jerusalem as its capital whether they like it or not. If they don’t like it, they can drink from the waters of the Dead Sea.” In other words, they can die. To drink the waters of the Dead Sea is deadly. It was Yasser Arafat and the PLO who introduced aircraft hijacking, holding innocent passengers as bargaining chips or even murdering them.

The “Palestinians” within Jerusalem

Now, the new innovation is bulldozers, driven by Arab residents from East Jerusalem. Israel has the dilemma of dealing with this problem without condemning and labeling innocent Arabs. It is a precarious assignment. Before the second bulldozer attack, which wounded 29 people, Shin Bet (Israel’s internal security agency) Director Yuval Diskin issued a stark warning. He described the Jerusalem Shuafat (Arab suburb of northeast Jerusalem) as more dangerous for security forces than the Jenin refugee camp.

In a joint operation by Israeli police and Shin Bet, six suspects were arrested; four of them were residents of East Jerusalem. According to the indictments, the six met regularly at the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem. One of their plots was to attack the helicopter of US President George W. Bush during his visit to Israel. According to a Debkafile report, Meir Sheetrit, Israel’s minister for the interior, said research into the Palestinian family reunion program, introduced recently by Israeli authorities, (provides conditional entry visas for relatives of residents) had been used to position scores of active terrorists to the West Bank (Judea and Samaria) and Jerusalem for future assignments.

There are 290,000 “Palestinians” living in greater Jerusalem, according to the Israel Central Bureau of Statistics (June 1, 2008). Those residents hold Israeli identity cards or blue cards. This enables them to move freely throughout Jerusalem and all Israel. They are entitled to national insurance and medical benefits provided by the State of Israel. In July 2008, after the second bulldozer tragedy, Jerusalem Mayor Uri Lupolianski told Channel 10, “We should reconsider the employment of these people.”

However, Public Security Minister Avi Dichter visited the scene of the attack and stressed, “I have no doubt that this terrorist and the previous ones this year do not represent the residents of east Jerusalem. The overwhelming majority are regular people who work in various parts of the city—unfortunately a small portion of them take part in terror attacks.” In May 2008, an opinion poll conducted by Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government found 77% of Israeli Arabs preferred to live in Israel than anywhere else in the world. The survey of 1,721 people, which included Arabs and Israeli Jews, showed 73% of Jews and 94% of Arabs want Israel to “be a society in which Arab and Jewish citizens have mutual respect and equal opportunities.”

The survey statistics indicate that the security risk comes from a minority group and not from the wider Arab population. Nevertheless, Israel security is very concerned about the “enemy within,” a Trojan-horse element positioned to cause mayhem as and when required.

Exporting Islamic Terrorism

A mosque in East Ham, London There is a well-supported belief that the enemy first tests its violent terrorism in the Middle East and then exports it to the Western world. A recent survey in the United Kingdom revealed that almost a third of British Muslim students believe killing in the name of Islam can be justified. The study also found that two in five Muslims at universities support the incorporation of Islamic sharia codes (laws regulating day-to-day life) into British law, and one-third support the creation of a worldwide caliphate or Islamic state. Anthony Glees, professor of security and intelligence studies at Buckingham University, said, “The finding that a large number of students think it is okay to kill in the name of religion is alarming.”

Israeli news agency Ynetnews.com published details of the report in July 2008, days after Jerusalem suffered its second bulldozer attack. The report said, “Researchers polled 1,400 Muslim and non-Muslim students and visited more than 20 universities to interview students and listen to guest speakers. They found that extremist preachers regularly gave speeches that were inflammatory, homophobic, or bordering on anti-Semitic.” The United Kingdom was stunned when their army generals in Afghanistan said that Taliban enemies who are killing and wounding British soldiers are being financially supported by Islamic groups in England, a clear identification of the “enemy within.” It would be naive to believe that such Trojan-horse activity is isolated to Israel and the United Kingdom.

Signs of a New Intifada

Journalist Alex Fishman, writing for Ynetnews.com, described the sequence of attacks in Israel as “signs of a new intifada.” He thought back to the days when bus drivers were running over soldiers at hitchhiking stations. He recalled stabbings, the hurling of Molotov cocktails, and stone throwing. (Even as I write this, Arabs attacked vehicles in a stone-throwing incident on the highway between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv!)

Fishman pointed to a new modern incitement: “Today, one need not go to the mosques in order to absorb the venom; the mosques reach the home—via the internet. All the Arab-Israeli cells recently nabbed and charged with Al-Qaeda membership signed up for the organization through global jihad forums. There is no longer any need for secret agents who recruit new activists. You can just go into the right online forum.”

Jonathan Spyer, senior research fellow at the Global Research in International Affairs Center at the Interdisciplinary Center (GLORIA) in Herzliya, Israel, said: “The latest events appear to reflect the arrival of global jihad methods and codes of practice to our shores. They are the most visible part of a broader and little-remarked-upon process taking place in Jerusalem, the West Bank and (particularly) Gaza. This is the growing presence of preachers, organizations and individuals committed to the extreme Sunni Islamist current known as ‘Salafiyya.’ This is the ideology associated with Al-Qaeda.”

When I spoke to Spyer for a BFP radio feature, ”Terror Crisis,” he said, “‘Loose cannon’ or vigilante-type attacks will be very hard for intelligence sources to contain or detect.” When we spoke to Israel Police Spokesman Mickey Rosenfeld after the July attacks, he said that security sources had received no warning.

The profile for Arabs in Israel is a serious issue. The vast number are productive and resourceful. But, on May 5, 2006, The Jewish News of Greater Phoenix (USA) carried an article entitled, “Task Force Addresses Israeli-Arab Issues.” Reporter Rachel Silverman wrote: “Opinion polls show that Israeli Arabs increasingly are identified as Palestinian rather than Israeli and—led by political leaders who often seem to go out of their way to provoke the Jewish majority—the community is seen as increasingly radical.”

Tom Doyle put the problem bluntly—“They [the Islamists] want Jerusalem minus the Jews!” In his book The Roadmap to Nowhere, Yitschak Ben-Gad quotes an article from the New York Times, October 29, 2000: “When asked by his Palestinian mother what he wants to be when he grows up, her two-year old son replies, ‘A martyr!’”

Pray for the Peace of Jerusalem!
The enemy is indoctrinated, lethal, and passionate. The enemy is also within, which tells us to be committed in our prayer for the peace of Jerusalem. The greatest hope for the city of the Lord is found in Bible verses like Psalm 132:13, “For the Lord has chosen Zion; He has desired it for His dwelling place.” The key to our role in the struggle for Jerusalem is found in 2 Samuel 5:7, “Nevertheless David took the stronghold of Zion (that is, the City of David).” Take “the stronghold of Zion”! Take it in prayer, intercession, and fasting. And throughout the battle, remember—“The victory is the Lord’s!”

By Ron Ross, Host, BFP Israel Mosaic Radio

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Photo Credit: Photoby Johan Schutte

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