The lobotomy option
Reader comment on item: Assessing Binyamin Netanyahu's Speech at Bar-Ilan University

Submitted by Richard K. (United States), Jun 15, 2009 at 17:27

Mr. Pipes, you summed up Israel's position nicely in at least one of your sentences:

The principles that guide his government's policy: "Palestinians must clearly and unambiguously recognize Israel as the state of the Jewish people" and "The territory under Palestinian control must be demilitarized with ironclad security provisions for Israel."

However, what you may not accept as easily is that this is also offering them the "lobotomy option." Because the entire basis for the Palestinians' political movement, along with Hezbollah's; their bread and water sustenance;; the air of hatred they breathe; the meaning of life, if you will, is the spreading of Islamism everywhere. From their textbook's censorship of truth and history, to their version of summer camps for their kids (aka "martyrdom training camps"), to their daily prayers for genocide. These are their basic daily needs.

Hence, asking them to accept Israel as a state, much less a non-Islamic one, that is guided by completely foreign concepts such as the "rule of law," free press, free speech, free thought, is tantamount to asking them to submit to a lobotomy. They would be lost. They would suffer irreparable depression symptoms as they looked at their suicide-belt factories and their willing child martyrs and not know what they were all about.

"Peace" would become a deadly virus that would undermine their driving need for violence, supported by hate and popular incitement. They would risk having nightmarish visions of a bearded and smiling Jew standing above them, and holding up a glass of wine and shouting "To Life!" They would likely react by cringing in outright fear, maybe running out of their house in outright terror with shrieks of "mercy"!

At least in my opinion, those are some of the reasons why there was no harm in offering them the lobotomy option. As for Obama hinting that America's concern about Iran's nuclear growth is somehow related to Israel's showing some more respect to their terrorist neighbors, this could be interpreted as preparing O.R. 1 for our own version of a leftist lobotomy.

RK

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