Jihad We Can Live With

A fellow named Jihad el-Khazen – an apparently respectable Arab name – is what you might call a moderate in the Middle East. He despises Israel and thinks the US is an Israeli puppet. He compares Israel to a cancer caused by smoking. He has provided, in this article, a list of pro-Israeli extremists (such as Pipes, Ledeen and Luttwak) along with the outrageous accusations these wicked people have made. (He particularly dislikes the term "Islamofascists".) Nevertheless, he has made two statements that absolve whatever hard feelings he may engender with these remarks.

1. He is against suicide bombing: "If suicide operations targeted soldiers exclusively, I would not object to them, were it not for the fact that they often hurt innocent bystanders along with the criminal. Therefore, once again, I call for them to be stopped."

2. He is for Israeli existence: "I do not want Israel wiped out, but I simply want it isolated behind the very exclusion wall it has built to isolate this cancerous tumor away from us."

I wonder how many more there are like him. And I wonder whether he would be embarrassed to know that the average Israeli would embrace him like a brother and kiss him on both cheeks.

8/12/2006 1:07 PM