A familiar death

Arrigoni and Hamas PM Ismail Haniyeh Photo: EPA

I read books about how and why people become terrorists. I've not seen any about how one becomes a supporter of terrorists, like these ISM people are. This is not quite true, though. These supporters remind me the stories about vampires and their human familiars. These familiars are in thrall to their lords, and follow all their commands. They also gain some benefits, picking up crumbs from their lords' tables, if not literally then by vicariously exercising power over other humans and perhaps hoping themselves to be turned. They also die in their lords' fights.

Vittorio Arrigoni, an Italian member of the International Solidarity Movement, lived in Gaza. He called the phrase "How can a man without a heart have a heart attack?" - about Mubarak rushed to the hospital - the "most astute comment discovered on the network." This was followed by "Stay Human Stay Human Vik da Gaza city. Vik from Gaza City",  the exhortation that concluded each post of his on Guerrilla Radio, his blog. Happy about Israel boycotts. Regretful that "The sporadic firing of homemade rockets of the Palestinian guerrillas, now did not cause casualties in Israel, nor even less substantial property damage". "Vik" called Goldstone's mealy-mouthed admission of his blood libel of Israel's intentionally killing civilians "another green light for more massacres." He was "disgusted" - not by his friends shooting rockets at Israeli towns with the goal to kill and maim Israeli children, from among the Gazan women and children, but by the Israeli response to terror, in which, unfortunately, somebody else in addition to terrorists sometimes dies. That blood, as befits vampires, also feeds them, used for getting more sympathy to their cause and more hate toward the oh-so-hated Jews. Which calls for more Jewish blood. And if my rare reader thinks I am being too dramatic and the vampire comparison is far-fetched - it is not mine, but the Hamasniks' themselves: "We are a nation that drinks blood, and we know that there is no blood better than the blood of Jews. We will not leave you alone until we have quenched our thirst with your blood, and our children's thirst with your blood. We will not leave until you leave the Muslim countries."

It is easy to guess why one gang of Gazan terrorists, Tawhid wal Jihad, Wahhabi vampires, kidnapped Vittorio Arrigoni as a hostage to make another gang, Hamas, release Tawhid's leader. On the one hand, "Vik" was a valuable asset for Hamas as the rulers of Gaza: not so many Westerners like Arab terrorists so much as to live in Gaza and share, as he did, the vampire lords' convictions. So there was indeed a good chance Hamas could agree to that demand. On the other hand, if Hamas did not, their vampire competitors in the fight over the Jewish blood could make good on their promise to kill "Vik" without extra risk they would incur if they kidnapped and killed a Hamasnik. So they murdered Vik - a familiar outcome of a close encounter of this kind. As with other kinds of gangs, this murder probably also raised Tawhid's status in the terrorist-approving society.

What is not so easy for me is to understand what makes one become a familiar. Is it possible not to know that there would be no "suffering" and "massacres" of Gazan Arabs if they did not incessantly try to murder Israelis? Is it not clear that Hamas and the rest of Gazan bandits commit a double crime against humanity every time they shoot a rocket or a mortar at Israel: by trying to indiscriminately kill, and by using their own women and children as human shields? It can't be just ISM's or Hamas's blood money: however strong that or other temptation might be, the stench of violence that is in the Gazan air must be overwhelming for somebody who has not been raised in that culture (for lack of a better word). Is the Jew-hatred of "Viks" as strong as to mislead them into trusting their vampire lords' protection?

No wonder he had to remind himself to "stay human", living among vampires. He could have tried harder - by staying away from them. He would still be alive.

Downgrading Gandhi

As the Wall Street Journal reports on a new biography of Gandhi (the respective quotes that follow are from that review), he was "the archetypal 20th-century progressive ­intellectual, professing his love for ­mankind as a concept while actually ­despising people as individuals." Regrettably, the progressives (aka leftists, aka socialists, aka communists - with various degrees of totalitarianism in their ideology) have not changed in the third millennium. It has been known for a long time that when Karl Marx was told, "I cannot think of you in a leveling society, as you have altogether aristocratic tastes and habits," Marx replied, "I cannot either.  That time will come, but we will be gone by then." (Unfortunately, some of us were not so lucky). Gandhi was not alien to luxury either, when he could afford it, adopting his simplicity principle only upon return to India where it would be good for his public image.

It is something new though, when we learn from Great Soul that Gandhi "advised the Czechs and Jews to adopt nonviolence toward the Nazis." His realism and humaneness come clear from his opinion that "'a single Jew standing up and ­refusing to bow to Hitler's decrees' might be enough 'to melt Hitler's heart.'" It is particularly striking that "he advised the Jews of Palestine to 'rely on the goodwill of the Arabs' and wait for a Jewish state 'till Arab ­opinion is ripe for it.'" The Jews knew then and know now how long they would have to wait for that opinion to ripen. What is really amazing, however, is that the world still relies on the expectations of the "good will of Arabs", so generously promised by that "mortal demigod". The one who turns out to be - according to this sympathetic biography - another fallen idol, a great deceiver and racist, who called Hitler "My friend".

A perfect metaphor

This is what happens (or finally should) when Israel reaches its limits of patience: