Wednesday, October 6, 2010

Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Mairead Corrigan Maguire: NOT A PEACEFUL WOMAN


by Ben-Dror Yemini


We must not mistake her: The Nobel peace prize laureate is no “peace activist.” She identifies in absolute terms with Hamas, despite the fact that she knows that it is an anti-Semitic organization that has insisted on continued violence, openly preaches for the annihilation of the Jews and supports global jihad and the Islamic conquest of the entire free world.

I am merely worried about the children of Gaza, said Nobel peace prize laureate Mairead Corrigan Maguire in court, and we almost wanted to send her flowers. Worry about the fate of children, as such, is important. But Maguire couldn’t resist the temptation and said: I swore to myself during a visit to the concentration camps that I would never be silent in the face of suffering children.

The penny dropped. There are millions of children in Asia and Africa who are crying for help. They are being murdered. They are being pressed into military service against their will. They are being used as slaves. Maguire takes no interest in them. She has not demonstrated on their behalf and she has not acted on their behalf. She has just one thing that she is interested in doing: Comparing Israel to the Nazis. This wasn’t the first time that she has given voice to this despicable comparison.

Palestinian children were hurt. That is regrettable and tragic. But one really ought to be accurate with the facts. Children were turned into weapons by Hamas. Hamas has brainwashed them. Hamas has taught them to murder and to hate - not only to hate Jews, but to hate the free world. Hamas has educated them to be martyrs and suicide bombers. Hamas has admitted to using them as human shields. So, yes, children were hurt. Not because Israel wanted to hurt children. It happened because Hamas uses them and enslaves them. Has Maguire ever once spoke out against that destructive abuse of children? Besides, the number of children who were hurt in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and that includes Operation Cast Lead in the Gaza Strip, is the smallest number in comparison to every other conflict in the world. Thousands of children were killed in recent years in Iraq, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Somalia. Most of them were killed as a result of attacks by political Islam. Hamas is one of the cancerous branches of that very same political Islam. The children who live there could never even dream of a standard of living of the kind that exists in Gaza.

Maguire has boarded ships of hatred to support Hamas three times, disguising herself as a “peace activist.” She organized no help for children who suffer in the world. Like many others, she suffers from an obsession when it comes to the State of Israel. In the wake of the last flotilla to Gaza, Maguire claimed that: All the participants of the flotilla (including the passengers on board the Mavi Marmara) were committed to the spirit of peace. Indeed? The truth, of course, is diametrically opposed to Maguire’s description. The passengers on board the Mavi Marmara sang with fanatical zeal the war song for annihilating the Jews (“Haibar, Haibar).” Indeed, that is the “spirit of peace” that is maintained by Hamas and its supporters. When the question at hand is Israel, Maguire becomes blind deaf and obtuse. The facts have no impact on her.

I am not in favor of Hamas, said Maguire in an interview to Yair Lapid on Israeli television. Let’s check that statement. Well, Maguire is a signatory on a letter calling on the European Union to remove Hamas from the list of terror organizations. Maguire is a signatory on a letter calling for the banishment of the Israeli ambassador to Ireland. Maguire is a signatory on a call to impose a commercial boycott on Israel, a call that is rife with bald-faced and outrageous lies.

She is not alone. A large herd of anti-Semites who disguise themselves as anti-Zionists have signed petitions of that sort. When did you ever call for a boycott on Sudan, which is committing genocide against its own citizens? When did you call for the banishment of the ambassador of Saudi Arabia or Iran, where women are still stoned to death and human rights aren’t even one-one-thousandth of what the Palestinians have? So this is not a matter of conscience or a protest against injustice. It is an obsession. Once that obsession was against Jews. An obsession of demonizing and delegitimizing. Today it is an obsession against Israel. An obsession of demonizing and delegitimizing.

One can certainly criticize Israel. Israel makes mistakes. Israel is a vibrant democracy and an incisive debate is held within Israeli itself on a long list of issues that pertain to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. There are a lot of Maguire supporters in Israel. That is part of the democratic discourse. But even democratic discourse cannot blur the distinction between criticism and this anti-Israel lunacy that includes identification with Hamas.

Actually, Maguire is not an enemy of Israel. She is an enemy of the Palestinians and of the chance for peace. Because she and her ilk do nothing to bolster peace; rather, they bolster rejectionism, a perpetuation of the conflict and Palestinian suffering. Maguire is a signatory on a demand for the mass return of Palestinians into Israel. This is a demand to do away with the State of Israel - a demand that the moderate Palestinian camp has already abandoned. It is a ludicrous demand since it is applied only to Israel, out of all the countries of the world. After all, neither Maguire nor any of the others have signed similar demands in the aftermath of the tens of millions of people across Europe and Asia who were affected by population swaps in order to create nation-states. That demand bolsters Hamas and the Palestinian rejectionist camp.

Hamas is an organization whose official platform is anti-Semitic. It contains not only a call to destroy Israel but also to annihilate the Jews. The Hamas leaders, in the most overt way, perceive Israel as being merely the vanguard. Khaled Mashal, Younes al-Astal, Mohammed Abu-Itta and many other Hamas leaders explicitly and openly call for the murder of Jews, for the military occupation of the entire free world by Islam, and voice their identification with global jihad. They declare that terrorism is the path. But the useful idiots, such as Maguire, continue to tell bald-faced lies. They talk about a blockade, a humanitarian crisis, children, but ignore the full and real picture. They side with the anti-Semitic Hamas. Israel does not want to lay siege to Gaza or to boycott it. Israel left the Gaza Strip, down to the last centimeter. Hamas forcibly seized power in the Gaza Strip in a violent coup, in the course of which it murdered hundreds of its political opponents, imposed Sharia law, introduced the oppression of women and the use of terrorist tactics against its adversaries and Christians. Despite all that, Israel sends in hundreds of trucks laden with supplies every week. The Israeli blockade is the necessary minimum, given the terrifying regime that has seized control of the Gaza Strip.

Hamas was asked by the Quartet, not by Israel, to renounce terrorism and to recognize previous agreements. Not more than that. The Arab states also supported those demands. Except that Hamas wants neither peace nor reconciliation. Hamas could receive enormous international aid tomorrow if it only wanted to; it could establish industry and provide the residents of the Gaza Strip with a better future. That is its decision. All it needs to do is to agree to the minimum requirements put forward by the international community. Except that Hamas has insisted on persevering with terrorism, preaching annihilation and war against the entire free world. Against you too, Ms. Maguire. Your sycophancy will be of no avail. They speak their minds most explicitly. They are racists. They are misogynists. They murder Muslims who do not think the way they do. But you and your ilk have chosen to support a terrorist organization, which has rejected an end of violence and a peaceful arrangement.

Humanity has already paid an awful price for the folly of people like you. You and your colleagues have to be exposed because you aren’t only the enemies of Israel or peace. You are the enemies of the free world.

Ben-Dror Yemini is a Senior Writer for Maariv Daily Newspaper in Israel.

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

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