The Russian Threat
by James Dunnigan
September 26, 2015

eptember 17, 2015: Israeli and Russian diplomats are quietly trying to work out an arrangement regarding the recent Russian military buildup in Syria. Russia plans to bring in warplanes and modern anti-aircraft systems and already has several hundred soldiers and air force personnel operating near the Syrian coast. The Israelis have bombed previous shipments of Russian anti-aircraft systems into Syria because they were believed likely to end up in Lebanon (with Iran backed Hezbollah) or in Iran itself. This could get ugly.

Palestinians are once more instigating violent protests around the al Aqsa mosque (which is just above the Wailing Wall, a popular Jewish holy place and tourist attraction) in Jerusalem. The current campaign began a year ago. Seeing an opportunity to grab more headlines , sympathy and, hopefully cash contributions from the Moslem world, the PLO invested some effort and cash to get something going. It is working and Israelis are calling for the government to wake up and admit that many of the violent “protestors” are organized and should be arrested.

The last time this kind of violence got out of hand was in 2010 when Palestinians threw stones at people below al Aqsa. The Palestinians were protesting Israeli settlers and Israeli policies in general. This happens periodically, even though Israeli security forces try to keep Palestinian troublemakers out of al Aqsa. Israeli police sometimes have to go into al Aqsa to deal with these disturbances before they lead to serious injuries. This usually results in even more violence before the police can haul everyone out. This is then denounced throughout the Moslem world as an Israeli atrocity against Palestinians and Islam.

It’s not just about al Aqsa. The Palestinians feel it is a religious obligation to attack Jewish religious shrines everywhere (especially in the West Bank where some are also Islamic holy places.) This attitude is common throughout the Islamic world but especially among Arabs. Another irritation for Moslems is Israelis who call for the rebuilding of the ancient Jewish temple, which originally occupied the post where the al Aqsa mosque was built. Even calling for allowing Jews to worship on the temple mount is considered anathema and stopping this through violent protest (by organized groups of Moslem men and women) was the main rationale for the current outbreak of violence.

The problems with al Aqsa are not unique. Moslems frequently built mosques on the ruins of places where other religions had temples or even religious shrines. This still causes resentments, and sometimes violence (as in India where many mosques were built over destroyed Hindu temples.) This sort of thing is an ancient practice and many Christian churches are built on the sites of older temples. The difference is that there is no problem when there are no more followers of the religion whose temple sites were built on. Moslems did destroy some religions during their conquests, and still want to wipe out Hinduism and even Judaism (which is supposed to be respected, according to Moslem scripture). This institutional antagonism against other religions is a root cause of most of the religious violence involving Moslems. Many in the West are either ignorant of this or would prefer that is was not true and deny it. But anyone reading the mass media in Moslem nations gets the “kill the non-believers” message loud and clear. While leaders of most Moslem majority nations realize that this hatred is not a sane basis for foreign policy, they still have to show support for it at home, while trying to be nice to foreigners, especially more powerful ones.

Israel has been dealing with this hatred since before the current state of Israel was created in 1948. Back then the Arab states declared that Israel had no right to exist and most Arabs still believe, and sometimes act, on that belief. Israel deals with the resulting violence by Moslem civilians by imposing more restrictions on the Palestinians until the violence subsides. Arabs, in particular, declare these methods as war crimes and demand that Israel be punished. This consumes a lot of time and effort in the UN, where Arab oil money has made it lucrative for non-Moslem states to go along with these poisonous passions.

In Gaza Hamas is facing growing public protests because of Hamas inability to effectively administer the area. There are shortages of all sorts including hours without electricity. At the same time Hamas diverts economic aid to military purposes and urges young men young men to volunteer for military training and join terror organizations. This has led to public calls for the return of Israeli rule. The Israelis left in 2005 as a peace gesture that was not reciprocated.

Meanwhile Egypt has become less of a problem for Israel since the 2011 Arab Spring revolution. Although Egypt again has a former general as an elected leader and a return to many of the police state features of the pre-2011 government, Egypt is now much less tolerant of Islamic terrorism, even if it is groups that say they are only interested in attacking Israel. Egypt and Israel now cooperate a lot more in counter-terrorism matters although there has apparently been no big shift in Egyptian public opinion (still largely hostile) towards Israel. In some ways Egypt is getting back to normal with large demonstrations by government employees (including police) demanding better pay and working conditions. Islamic terrorists are still active, especially in Sinai but these groups are less and less active, apparently because of heavy losses due to very active security forces. Yet Egyptian Islamic radicals, many of them let out of prison after the 2011 revolution, are still calling for a religious dictatorship along with violence against Israel and non-Moslems in particular. This includes the Egyptian Christians, mainly the Copts, who converted to Christianity more than 500 years before the Islamic invaders arrived in 639. Copts are still over ten percent of the population. The stubbornness of the Copts in refusing to convert to Islam has led to centuries of persecution. By 300 AD most Egyptians were Christians, nearly all of them belonging to the local Coptic sects. When the Moslems invaded threats and incentives were used to encourage conversion to Islam. By 1000 AD Moslems were the majority. Ever since, Egyptian Moslems have sought, often with violence, to convert the remaining Egyptian Christians. Some converted, but increasingly over the last century, Copts have simply fled the country. This is accelerating as it becomes obvious that the new government cannot or will not halt the growing persecution of the Copts. The new government has also proved unable to do much about the corruption, which was the main reason many supported the 2011 revolution. There is fear that there will be another revolution soon, not about radical Islam, but the crippling corruption.

The Russian Threat by James DunniganSeptember 26, 2015

The Russian Threat
by James Dunnigan
September 26, 2015