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A.P. photo/ Tara Todras-Whitehill File -- Lieberman
At the Munich Security Conference, Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Alon objected to the seating arrangements, which separated him from Saudi Prince Turki el-Faisal, former chief of Saudi intelligence and former Ambassador to the U.S.. El-Faisal said that the seating was in reaction to Alon’s having seated a Turkish Ambassador in a humiliating way.
Alon suggested that they make up, and offered his hand. El-Faisal shook it. The audience applauded (http://www.israelnationalnews.com/, 2/7).
They applauded because it seemed like a step toward peace. It may be just a step toward a pact, which, like the Munich Pact, when the Nazis shook hands with the Allies, led to war and not peace.
The Muslim-Israel conflict is part of jihad. The origin of jihad is a desire to conquer other religions. Radical Islam carries the Islamic sense of religious and legal superiority further, in the case of Jews, deeming them evil, the way the Nazis did. Muslims consider it ethical to deceive non-Muslims in behalf of jihad. Radical Muslims cite their holy books to justify exterminating the Jewish people. What is the practical import of those beliefs?
One result of those beliefs is a series of broken pacts and shunning of Jews. Thus the Arab boycott of Israel. Thus President Mubarak does not visit Israel. Thus the Jordanian journalist guild punishes reporters who do.
I know of Israeli scientists who collaborate with foreign Arab scientists on regional problems but cannot acknowledge it, lest their Arab colleagues be ostracized by their own governments. Much valuable research is not done, when bigoted Arab governments keep Israeli experts out of regional conferences. Does this Arab apartheid policy get noticed by people who routinely accuse Israel of apartheid policy?
When a prominent Arab leader shakes an Israeli leader’s hands, it certainly is news. Absent reformation of Islamic and especially Radical Islamic ideology, however, the gesture is not as significant as it seems.
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