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WHAT IS REALLY HAPPENING IN THE MIDDLE EAST NOW? – Part VI: Murderous Thugs

[additional-authors]
August 27, 2014

We guess it is very likely that many of our readers are people whom the word 'normative' – in its western context – will describe fairly well. So you may be a peaceful citizen of Boston or New-Orleans, a resident of London or Stockholm or somebody trying to make a reasonable living in Shanghai, Sidney, Moscow or Buenos-Aires. Some of you may live in a higher standard, some settle with a somewhat lower level, but basically you all wish to have a fairly acceptable life: wake up in the morning, give a nice hug to your spouse, a kiss to your children and may be walk them safely to school or kindergarten, get back home and find all of them safe and fairly happy, meet some friends, read a book, worship and pray freely, listen to some music you like or watch TV and so on.

But please imagine the following situation. You find out that there is a brutal thug in your immediate neighborhood. Actually he lives just next to your house. People tell you he is not interested in sharing the neighborhood's norms or moral values. Believing that reaching out in a friendly way will always do miracles, you stand at the edge of your property and call him, extending your hand to shake his and get acquainted. He pulls a gun and shoots, screaming: “This is in the name of God, because you are different from me!” So, you run back home for shelter, and decide to build a fence between you and him, hoping that what Robert Frost and others said about it, namely: “Good fences make good neighbors”, will eventually come true. But your community immediately condemns you for being estranged from your neighbor; some were even blaming you for Apartheid…

One day your wife tells you she was forcefully robbed by your neighbor. So, you call the police, but alas, something happened to John, the police officer: he tells you that there is nothing to do about it, because that person comes from a totally different culture, he has a different set of values and therefore politically-correct thing is to accept his conduct and hope for better days. You understand – or at least you think you do – and accept.

Next day, one of your kids is beaten by one of that thug's kids. You see his injuries, and walk to the thug's house to ask him control his kids and educate them. The thug fully supports his kid and violently throws you off his porch. You decide to stop at the police station to press charges against this thug. There you enter John's office, but quite quickly you realize that the thug threatened John as well. “It is much wiser to accommodate with this small change in the neighborhood”, John tells you in a very soft voice. You don't give up and immediately enter chief's office just to find out that the police chief himself has actually immigrated to your town from the same country the thug is from, and you are overwhelmed to hear from him that your neighbor's conduct derives directly from his native mentality and education and you – as a law abiding citizen are expected to understand this.

Feeling frightened and quite insecure you talk with some of your friends about the continuously worsening situation. Some of them say something should immediately be done. Some – who think they understand more about the psychology of violent people but are totally unaware of the importance of law as the agreed basis of mutual existence – say some time has to pass until this thug absorbs the rules of your normative system and gradually begin to adopt them. Nobody knows how much time should be allowed. Other neighbors are more “realistic”, and they begin paying protection money to this thug. But you just don't earn enough money to bribe the thug, or you may be guided by other principles such as justice, reciprocity, fairness, abiding the law. You understand that those friends who are liberal enough to preach for accepting the thug's actions are hypocrites, as they grant him privileges that they deny from you and actually even from themselves.

They are politically correct.

As time goes on, you hear that this thug is gaining more and more nerve. He uses the money people pay him for “protection” and buys lots of weapons and ammunitions. There are rumors that he even possesses a fairly large quantity of rockets. You wonder why he doesn't use his money to educate his children or refurbish his home, but you fairly quickly understand that no expectation or preference of yours could fit into his value system. Now, he already robbed a few banks; people say he dug a few tunnels, using children's labor and slaves, to get under those banks, and he is digging more tunnels to get under people's homes, and your own home is most probably first. He wants you to leave your house or else he will forcefully infiltrate into it. As a matter of fact, he already killed a few people for their money or just for being different from him, destroyed the city hall and church tower as a warning sign, forced people to convert from their religion to his and when some of them resisted he just slaughtered them in the middle of the street.

People kept away from trouble – nobody interfered. In the middle of the nights, you could hear underground noises – the thug's slaves and hostages were digging under your house. After your firstborn was shot dead by your neighbor and no one responded, you decided to act for your survival. You started by building a shelter and then bought some weapons and ammunition. Talking with your wife and the rest of your kids who were still alive, you all agreed that the thug himself is the only target – not his kids, or wives (he had a few women) or hostages or slaves. So, you made your weaponry as accurate as you could.

Next morning, when he started firing at your property, you put your dear family in the shelter and only then aimed your weapons to precisely hit the thug and finally stop the horror. But you saw that the thug has surrounded himself with his kids, women, hostages and slaves, while continuing shooting at you and your family. He knew that shooting at the people he forcefully tied to himself is a big moral “NO” for you, and taking advantage of this he increased his aggression and eagerness to kill you while hiding behind them.

Most of your neighbors – some of them even whispered to you they are your friends – shouted “Don't shoot the kids, don't shoot the innocent!”. You explained that your kids' survival is at stake and you have to shoot back until you kill the murderous thug. You called out for the help of your neighbors, and asked them to stop any assistance that they were giving the thug.

You and your family decided to hold on to your moral rules as much as possible, but it became necessary to fight back in order to save your home and lives. The danger was very real and the horror intolerable.

So, you eventually returned fire, and unfortunately some of the thug's hostages were killed or wounded. This was a very clear sign for the criminal thug that you haven't lost your will to live and your decisiveness to protect yourself. As a result, the city council was assembled and issued a declaration of condemnation against… you, my reader.

This is what's happening in the Middle-East since I remember myself as a small kid, and this is going on for almost 70 years now. The vicious cynical thug – extreme Islam – has been and still is fighting the West and the democratic idea as manifested in the Middle-East by Israel only.

Would you act differently from Israel? Wouldn't you call for peace and at the same time protect your lives and way of life? It must feel very “progressive” to sit back in your armchair and condemn the Israelis, but just remember what the free world – you and your allies – did to the Nazis and their allies some 70 years ago, when Hitler was screaming “Death to Britain, the US and their allies”. MY neighbors are screaming “Slaughter the Jews” [in Arabic it sounds: “ITBAKH AL-YAHUD”], and also “Slaughter all heretics”` by 'heretics' they mean you, my reader, be you Christian, Buddhist, Yazidi or non-extremist Muslim.

We live in a small world – MY neighborhood will become YOUR neighborhood very fast. It is only a matter of (ever shortening) time and you are on the sun deck of the Titanic enjoying the ride…

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