Yesterday I drove up to Jerusalem again and joined Ari Abramowitz and Jeremy Gimpel in the Voice of Israel studios. Ever since hearing their interview with Anjem Choudry the other day, I had a few things to say. We spoke for the first half of their show. You can find the whole show here and I’m embedding just the bit with me.
https://soundcloud.com/voiceofisrael/hl-1-inspired-jan21-2015
Brian of London, founder [NOTE From Brian: I’m not the founder, I’m just a very naughty boy] of the popular blog “Israellycool”, explains his obsession with focusing on the darkness of Islam versus sharing the beauty of Israel. Then, why was Brian so taken with VOI’s encounter with British radical Moslem Anjem Choudary? Also, should there be a fundamentally different approach between the way Israel and the west cover Islam?
During the show I told a story that had been passed on to me about the subjugation of Japan. I’ve only now done some rudimentary online fact checking but here’s how the story came to me and what I said on the show.
Someone I know very well had business in Japan with a partner. That partner was a fabulously successful businessman (now passed away) and he told my friend this story who told it to me. I had a glance around the web and have found at least one website to back up what I said and with tremendous comments from people there at the time though it differs in exactly which building we’re talking about but not the substance.
The business partner had been a young man at the fall of Japan. He had been educated in the US before the war so he spoke English and that gave him a very valuable skill. He went to work for the American as a translator and therefore worked in the command HQ. As I understood there was a debate on whether to remove the Emperor from his Imperial Palace or not. In the end MacArthur chose to leave him in his palace but needed to be physically above him. Tokyo (owing to earthquakes) was not a high rise city and the palace sits on a hill.
Without removing the Emperor (who was revered as a god by the people) he had to show superiority over him and be seen to have humbled him. Humiliated is another word we might use. As it was told to me, MacArthur actually had an extra floor (or two) added to The Imperial Hotel (though from the web it was the Dai-ichi Hotel) in order to be higher than the Emperor.
The point of the story, in the context of today, is about winning. The Allies won WWII. There is no ambiguity. They humiliated the Japanese and German peoples. They fought for and won total, unconditional surrender. They didn’t seek a ceasefire as Israel is always instructed to do and has largely done.
Whether or not the humbling and humiliation of violent Jihad will ever take place I can’t say, but it would seem that we’re going to be fighting the ideology of Jihad for a very long time because it will not surrender willingly and it’s adherents have very strong faith in the correctness of their beliefs.
Seems to me that separation (while they are still keen on killing you) and then cooperation and economic and cultural integration are better strategies than humbling and humiliation. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, Brian, but we Americans get along quite well with our previous enemies the Japanese and Germans. We must have come up with a better long-term approach than the one you’re presenting here.
That’s only after they were the recipients of thousands of tons of American bombs and they knew they were licked. They had no delusions that they were going to bounce back and destroy their enemy, like the Arabs still have.
I agree that the Arab fixation with Jew hatred is at the core of the problem, but I don’t see how humiliating and humbling them is a good long-term approach for the Israelis to follow.
Because with the Arabs, the problem is psychological. For millenia, the Jews were “Walad al Mitra”, children of death. The dregs, not manly. The rising of Israel and it’s initial victory in 1948 is like a rebellion of slaves for them. It was always in conjunction with some other sinister force, the Jews couldn’t have pulled it off by themselves. In 1945 Hirohito told his people that they had to “bear the unbearable.” This was a semi-medieval society that was given major root canal with the American Ceasar MacCarthur presiding over it. That’s how they were able to pull themselves out of the morass. In my humble opinion, my Semetic cousins haven’t as of yet gotten the major ass-kicking that they deserve in order to liberate them from the delusion of destroying Israel, and instead to make better lives for their people. Maybe they too have to “Bear the Unbearable.”
Well, I have to admit that from time to time, when I get down with what is going on in the Middle East, I go on YouTube and watch a documentary on Israel’s victory in the Six Day War. That does seem to pick up my spirits a bit.
There is a difference between a permanent strategy and a necessary strategy. The humbling was necessary. Once it succeeded, it could be lessened and then stopped. Had it never been implemented, the chance of resurgence would have been much greater.
MacArthur’s greatest humiliation he inflicted on the Japanese was to have his picture taken with Hirohito, in which he not only towered over the emperor, but did not wear a necktie and instead left the top button of his shirt open. The message he sent by circulating that picture was unmistakable.
For Israel to win the peace, it will have to stand up to the diplomats, the media and the self-appointed do-gooders and reject not only their efforts but their ideological motives which underlie their delusions and conduct. That is even more challenging than making war against an armed enemy, requiring unilateral assertion and openly identifying hostility. But the results will be more rewarding. As MacArthur himself said, there is no substitute for victory.