The Real Conflict    

by Naomi Ragen
Jerusalem 
June 2, 2002

I, like most people in the world, for years assumed that 
the conflict between Arabs and Israelis was a conflict about 
land. I assumed that this conflict had something to do with 
the people losing land, wanting land, feeling disenfranchised, 
deprived of rights.

Recently, I began research into terrorism, Saudi Arabia, and 
Islam which has given me some startling evidence that everything 
that I believed in the past could not have been further from 
the truth.

The fact is the conflict between the Arab and Israel is a conflict
between Muslim and Jew. Moreover, it is only a tiny part of a 
much wider conflict between Muslim and all other religions, and 
those countries that treasure freedom of religion. It is the 
conflict between fanatical and intolerant and ignorant hordes 
bent on converting the world to their vision of the one
and only true faith, Islam.

The first inkling that this was the case were in the books I read 
on Saudi Arabia. Did you know that it is a crime to own a Bible in 
Saudi Arabia, and that people have been jailed for it? Did you know 
that no one is allowed to celebrate Christmas or Easter there, and 
that no churches or any denomination can be built there (let us not 
even talk about synagogues...)? Did you know that Jews are not 
allowed into Saudi Arabia, and that all things Jewish are a crime?  
Did you know that even those who practice Islam according to the 
Shia tradition are also considered criminals and are persecuted?

On the other hand, Saudi Arabia has been using its American-provided 
oil wealth to build elaborate mosques in places all over the world 
which have very few Muslims. That is what Peter Theroux (certainly 
no friend of Israel) wrote in his book "Sandstorms." Even the 
least observant Muslim in Saudi Arabia measured power and influence 
in religious terms (why else did the kingdom spend vast fortunes on 
palatial mosques in places where there were almost no Muslims? ) 
It was a subtle and informal way of marking territory. When the city 
of Rome decided in 1994 to grant a building permit for a mosque 
near the Holy See, the reaction of the Riyadh press (was) jeering 
articles that applauded this "tanazul", relinquishing or
surrender on the part of Rome and the Vatican. Europe and all 
Chistendom were gloatingly shown to have caved in to Islamic 
machismo. That falls easily on Western ears and sensibilities.  
By allowing this propaganda to succeed, unlike the shrines of almost 
all other religions who welcome visitors of other faiths, 
the Islamic cities of Mecca and Medina are forbidden to
anyone who does not practice Islam.

The desire of the Islamic world to take over Jerusalem has one 
reason and only one. Islamic intolerance. Before Israel took over 
the Old City in 1967, it was closed to Jewish worshippers.  
The outbreak of violence in Pakistan, Indonesia and parts of 
Africa are also being portrayed as territorial disputes 
by the press. But anyone with eyes in his head can see they 
too are Muslims against Hindus, Moslems against Christians, 
Muslims against anyone who is not Muslim.

Of all the freedoms we hold dear in the West, no one is more 
precious than the freedom of religion. Muslim immigrants are 
using that freedom and Saudi petrodollars to build an Islamic 
empire that will threaten religious tolerance in the West.  
We can already see the results with the rise of anti-Semitism 
in Europe, led by Muslims who attack Jews, burn synagogues
and target religious schools. In Israel, the turnover of 
Christian Bethlehem to Muslims, led directly to the destruction 
of the Christian Community and the desecration of one of the 
holiest shrines, the Church of the Nativity which was defiled 
by the Palestinians gunmen, raped of precious artifacts and
then trashed.

When the West urges Israel to allow Muslim fanatics to mark 
more territory, it is rewarding Muslims for their crimes 
against humanity. Already Muslims have lowered the standards 
of decency, and brought all of the civilized world to new lows, 
convincing so-called intelligent and moral people to accept 
the outrages of supermarket killings, playground bombings, 
school bus bombings, flying baby carriages, murdered 
grandmothers, blown up Seder nights, as a legitimate part of 
some moral equation in which the Muslims are always the ones 
with the understandable grievances that one can accept.
The Israelis murdered my brother, they explain after killing 
the baby, forgetting to mention that their sibling belonged 
to Fatah, or Islamic Jihad, or Hamas. And that is the way 
the press will present it. The Israeli or settler (baby in 
the carriage) against the idealistic freedom fighter willing 
to risk his life for ..you name it, any word or barbarous
acts become palatable with the help of their journalistic 
apologists, helping the West to engage in its own brand of 
moral suicide, preparing itself for the day when the norms 
of Saudi Arabia will soon be the norms of us all.

Every inch of land Israel surrenders, gives the Muslim vision 
a new victory. Infusing new strength into its megalomania.  
Every compromise Israel is forced to make by the world, 
or its own foolish leadership, strengthens the cynical 
resolve of the Muslims to expand the theatre of their 
conquests, and to turn the world into the hateful prison 
that is Riyadh and Jeddah, places where women walk like black 
ghosts, unable to work, or drive, or to go out without 
permission from their husbands and fathers, a place where 
music is outlawed, as well as movies and theaters, and 
where the worship of Jehovah or Jesus is a jailable crime.

Should Israel cease to exist, there would be no peace.  
It would simply whet the Muslim appetite to gobble up the 
next country and the next and the next, until they achieve 
their vision of one God, one Prophet, that is the Muslim
God, Allah, and the one Muslim Prophet Mohammed.

Those of you urging Israel to compromise should look out 
your own windows and think of the morning after!