Weapons taken from two Palestinian men near Nablus in January of 2012. Photo: wiki commons.

The indispensable PMW has just published a translation of an article in Ma’an, the Palestinian news agency publication. PMW emphasizes the vicious anti-Semitism of the piece (Israel and “the Jews” are interchangeable) which is pervasive in Palestinian media, and the fact that Ma’an is supported by the EU, UNESCO, and the Dutch and Danish governments, presumably to encourage their journalism which, we all know, is equally professional everywhere and therefore supportive of civil society.

I’d like to emphasize a different aspect of the text, namely the profound role that projection plays in its formulations about “the Jews.” Indeed, if it were not that they have insulated themselves entirely from real-world feedback (with the help of their European and global allies), they might have hesitated to publish so deeply embarrassing – indeed humiliating – a piece of self-revelation. But then again, projection lies at the heart of the anti-Semitic mind, as in The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.

Text bolded by PMW, my comments added throughout.

“Israel is Trembling”

by Sawsan Najib Abd Al-Halim

“We’re used to seeing vampires in Dracula movies, where the murderer and the vampire act in the dead of night, and as soon as dawn breaks, the murderer disappears and hides during the day.

The brave warrior, who at the very least has moral values, fights in the daytime. In all wars, in all eras, honorable nations conducted their battles during the day and slept at night. But has Israel even a trace of morality?

A brave warrior is proud when he confronts another [warrior] as brave as he, and the more he is struck, the stronger he grows, proud in his struggle and respectful of his adversary. But since Jews are – as our grandparents said of them – sons of death (expression of contempt, meaning ‘a coward,’ -Ed.), they are too cowardly to confront an enemy face to face, especially if their enemy is as well armed as they…

All of this coming from Palestinians, who have never fielded an army, Arabs who, despite being better armed and vastly more numerous, have repeatedly lost to Israelis since 1948, is historically risible. But it does illustrate an element in the pathology of Palestinian honor-shame culture. The description here of the true warrior (which has no historical example among Arabs in the modern world, and on the contrary, in their acts of deliberately targeting civilians, has countless counter-examples), is a classic depiction of the values of an honor-shame culture:

A brave warrior is proud when he confronts another [warrior] as brave as he, and the more he is struck, the stronger he grows, proud in his struggle and respectful of his adversary.

Not only does a true warrior rejoice in both battle and even death in a fair fight, but the last thing he would do is show weakness to his foe, much less parade his weakness and humiliation before anyone witness to the battle. And yet, since 1948, and the staggering humiliation of losing to the rag-tag, under-armed, troops of the historically weak and cowardly Jews (i.e., the Nakbah), the Arabs have been parading the humiliation and suffering of their refugees – a self-inflicted humiliation – before the world (indeed before their traditional enemies, Christian Europe), in an effort to blacken the face of an Israel whose very existence they find unbearably humiliating.

Jews think that their fortresses will protect them from death, but any breach of these fortresses or protective walls instills panic and fear in their hearts, and they are seized by fear and trembling. If a missile falls beyond their protective walls or if even a bullet passes over them, you can see how their hearts fill with horror – and this is because Allah has stricken fear in their hearts and decreed humiliation and degradation upon them until Judgment Day…

Aside from the wish-fulfillment involved in much of this, it’s notable that the depiction of the Israel’s reactions to attack describe much of the Palestinian response to Israeli attacks – widespread panic, cries of horror, accusations of genocide, all performances readily taken up by the world media and personalities like  Annie Lennox.

The remark about humiliation till Judgment Day is interesting in that normally, in the Qur’an, humiliation comes at Judgment Day. The humiliation of the Jews until Judgment Day, however, is carried out by the laws of theDhimma, the systematic legal subjection of Jews (and Christians) to degrading conditions meant to drive home their inferior status, resulting from their stubborn refusal to acknowledge Allah. The State of Israel, however, has reversed that condition: Israel is the state of the dhimmis who got away, and the inability of Muslims to re-subject them lies at the heart of the conflict.

So the line above about Allah decreeing the humiliation of the Jews till Judgment Day is both a projection and desperate substitution of a speech-act for an inability to act in the real world. On the one hand, the current Muslim condition is one of humiliation – i.e., until Judgment Day and the extermination of the Jews, Muslims are forced to live in a world where non-Dhimmi Jews live and rule in the heart of Dar al Islam. On the other, if anything illustrates the (allegedly racist) generalizations that observers make about the fantasy world that Arabs live in because they believe their own overheated rhetoric, then this certainly qualifies.

Historically, it is known that the lives of Jews have always been war and fighting.

Fine example of combining historically inaccurate generalizations with projection. If anything the Jews have been, especially since 135 and the elimination of the Bar Kochba rebellion, among the least belligerent cultures in the world, whereas the Arabs place war and fighting at the heart of their culture, and Islam, historically, is the most belligerent religion in global history.

The only reason for this is that they have been outcasts in every corner of the earth, and not one nation in the world respects them, for they cause strife, and scheme everywhere they settle.

As self-description this is rather painful. A colleague of mine who specializes in Muslims in China noted that although the Chinese did not know of the biblical passage describing Ishmael as “a wild ass of a man: his hand shall be against every man, and every man’s hand against him; and he shall dwell in the face of all his brethren” (Genesis, 16:12), that summarizes their description of their monotheist neighbors. As Pat Condell notes so poignantly, the world has no respect whatsoever for the Palestinians, whom they treat with contemptuous condescension.

We know that they have been defeated in every war they have fought throughout history, and they have been dispersed in every direction, but Allah’s curse upon them and his fury at them cause them to continue with their transgression and tyranny.

Alas for the poor Palestinians, the Israelis have won every war they’ve fought since (and with) their creation in 1948. If anyone would appear to be cursed right now, it’s the poor Palestinians, humiliated by their brethren, championed by people who only support them to get at the Jews, ruled over by leaders incapable of rising above their infantile rages.

A coward acts brutally when he can, but runs for cover humiliated, when he faces anyone who is his equal. Our fathers told us of one Palestinian before 1948 who was holding a stick while walking the streets of Tel Aviv, and he drove away scores of cowardly Jews…

Speech replaces, nay inverts, reality.

Psychologically, they have been defeated through the ages and feel inferior to the nations and societies in which they live, because of the hostility and evil rising in their hearts towards others and for their plots and schemes against the nations who know with certainty that the Jews are the root of conflict in the world, wherever they reside. Jews think that every shout is against them, and what better proof is there than the slogan they voiced to the world – which is ‘Antisemitism.’

Islamophobia, thy name is cowardice and projection.

Therefore, the only way we can deal with them, when we are weak militarily compared to Israel’s power,

Huh? I thought the Jews had been defeated in every war. Apparently, consistency is not the hallmark of this discourse. It’s like the contradicting lines about how the Holocaust never happened, but the Israelis are like the Nazis. Both feel good despite that the former undermines the latter.

is to stick to the threat to annihilate Israel, not to submit to its [Israel’s] desire for a cease fire, and keep the flame of resistance burning.

And lest one think this is mere rhetoric, note that Mohamed Morsi’s now famous rant in 2010 made precisely this point:

Dear brothers, we must not forget to nurse our children and grandchildren on hatred towards those Zionists and Jews, and all those who support them. They must be nursed on hatred. The hatred must continue.

And they do everything they can to live up to this noble goal.

Rather than [violently] resist and then back off somewhat, whereby we give them the impression that we are afraid of them. There is nothing wrong with our sitting with them to talk, but the resistance must always continue. Late President Yasser Arafat, peace be upon him, understood the Jews’ weakness, so he showed them the face of peace in negotiations, and at the same time raised the slogan ‘Every day a settler.’ This is the slogan that terrorized the Jews, and which many Palestinians have forgotten. They may have forgotten why the comrade-fighter Marwan Barghouti was arrested. Wasn’t it because he was the one given the job to fulfill this slogan? (Marwan Barghouti is serving 5 life sentences for orchestrating terror attacks against Israeli civilians. -Ed.)

Let us again be united in the message against the Jews and turn the weapons against them. Every time the guns and stones are directed at the Jews, they become angry, seized by fear, their brutality increases and our sacrificing increases more and more. Jews know that the more their brutality increases, so our resolve and defiance are strengthened against them, until Allah will strike terror in their hearts and they will be driven away from our land humiliated. This is revolution until victory.”

Of course, they don’t really mean this. I’m sure that if only Israel would withdraw to the ’48-’67 borders then all would be well and the Palestinians would live in peace with the Israelis. This foaming at the mouth is blowing off steam, mere rhetoric.