Land for Peace Doesn’t Work

Below is a magnificent op-ed from De Volkskrant, written by Geert Wilders and Martin Bosma, who are both PVV members of the Dutch Parliament. The translation is by our indefatigable Flemish correspondent VH:

Land for peace doesn’t work
by Geert Wilders and Martin Bosma

It is one of the central doctrines of the Leftists’ church: “land for peace.”

That was supposed to put an end to the conflict in the Middle East. These days we encounter the definite end of that dream. The Israeli army last Sunday returned to Netzarim. Three years ago, Netzarim and other so-called ‘settlements’ were abandoned as a part of the framework of disengagement. This withdrawal should have then led to peace. But 5,000 arguments for a different reality rained down in the form of Kassam rockets on the residents of the Negev.

“Land for Peace” is a medicine based on the wrong diagnosis. The war against Israel is not a territorial conflict and thus can not be solved with territorial concessions. Giving away an area does not help. Hamas cum suis are not fighting for pieces of land but for the total final victory of Islam, to which the rapid destruction of Israel is only a transitional stage. The conflict is jihad, the violent duty of every Muslim. Israel is located on the fault line of the dar-al-Islam and dar-al-Harb. To Islam, all of Israel is occupied territory and Tel Aviv is as much a “settlement” as was Netzarim. The Hamas charter doesn’t know the word ‘polder model’.

Encouragement

The withdrawal from Gaza in 2005 was a huge encouragement to aggressive Islam. What the West convulsively tried to view as a step towards peace is translated by true Muslims as a sign of weakness. The 5,000 rockets from Gaza were therefore the logical consequence of an ideology that seeks to destroy the West. Samuel Huntington, who ironically enough died in the week before the first bombing of Hamas, already wrote it: “Islam has bloody borders”. You can move those bloody borders of Islam, but with that you only shift the jihad. What does it show? “Settlements” are no barrier to peace, but a barrier against terror.

Muslims view the conflict as an Islam-related conflict. It is not without reason that during pro-Hamas demonstrations over the whole world “Allahu akhbar” is prominently chanted. Saturday this was illustrated when Muslim colonizers demonstrated in Amsterdam, together with the extreme Left. The SP (Harry van Bommel), the Olive Trees Campaign/ICCO (from Doekle Terpstra), and the inevitable Gretta Duisenberg showed how much the Left in the Netherlands has merged with Islam and hatred of Israel.

My colleague Van Bommel showed without the slightest embarrassment his true extreme face by publicly and loudly calling for another intifada against Israel. The Left demonstrates with flags of Hamas and Hezbollah, along with portraits of Khomeini and the Hezbollah leader Nasrallah.

The fight against Israel is a fight against Europe and the Netherlands

Seventy years after Auschwitz, in the streets of Amsterdam, partly at the expense of the taxpayer, sounds the cry “Hamas, Hamas, Jews to the gas.” This is what Doekle the Dhimmi [Doekle Terpstra, Christian Democrat] apparently means with his “benoemen en bouwen” [“naming and building”]. Would he view the Jew Haters of Saturday as moderate Muslims?

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Therefore, never give away any more land to the Arabs. But what then? To begin with, there is already a Palestinian state, and that is Jordan. This land covers nearly eighty percent of the historic Palestine. Most residents of Jordan are Palestinians, for instance queen Rania. Those who are looking for a territorial solution have thus found it. An eventual second Palestinian state is no improvement, but rather an encouragement for more jihad and thus more bloodshed. Judea and Samaria, the heart of Israel, must therefore remain in the hands of Israel whatever the cost, with Jerusalem as the undivided capital of the Jewish state.

Deterrence

The war against Israel is permanent because it is jihad. However, the conflict can be made manageable and the Netherlands can play a role in this. To begin with, deterrence should again be the cornerstone of the Israeli security policy. That used to be so until Israel in 1992 surrendered to the Oslo wishing dream. The Netherlands must help to press forward the notion that Israel is fighting for the West and therefore must not give in to the Arabs. Not an inch. If Israel falls, Europe is next. Israel is our first defensive frontline. The fight against Israel is a fight against Europe and the Netherlands.

The billions that the EU and the UN in past years dumped down the endless drain in Gaza must be reversed. The Palestinians have done nothing positive with the money, apart from making it serve the madly popular Hamas terror. It would be good to invest that money in masterful Israeli science and high-tech. The tiny state of Israel has grown to become a global center where the brightest minds in the world are creating inventions on a daily basis that have been a blessing for all mankind. Such a change will provide a boost to the Israeli economy. This success shows the whole world that Israel is not of transitory nature, but a persistent source of progress.

Would it not be great if the money that now goes to the terrorist infrastructure of Hamas, might be used by, for example, the Weizman Institute in Rechovot to find a cure for Alzheimer’s disease or multiple sclerosis? International aid money, not for death and destruction but for a future to our sick and elderly. A more beautiful beginning of the new year is cannot be imagined.

And to the Israeli army: kol hakawod, all success! You fight for us too.

Geert Wilders and Martin Bosma are respectively fraction leader and member of the Party for Freedom (PVV) in the Parliament of The Netherlands and recently visited Israel.

VH adds this material on Doekle Terpstra, translated from Het Vrije Volk:

Doekle Terpstra must leave the Public Broadcasting organization after the pro-Hamas-march;

Stop state subsidy to the ICCO

The Party for Freedom [PVV] wants Minister of Education, Culture and Science, Plasterk [PvdA, Labour], to remove Doekle Terpstra from the Supervisory Board of the Netherlands Public Broadcasting organization. Last Saturday, ICCO (“interchurch organization for development cooperation”, with Terpstra as Chairman of the board) organized a pro-Hamas march in Amsterdam where an intifada against Israel was called for.

Demonstrators displayed Hamas and Hezbollah flags, plus portraits of Khomeini and Sheikh Yassin. In addition, texts such as “Israel repeats the Holocaust” and “Israel burn in hell” were displayed, and the Israeli flag was trampled underfoot. There were chants such as “Hamas, Jihad, Hezbollah,” and “Hamas, Hamas, Jews to the gas.” The subsidy of the Minister for Development Cooperation [Bert Koenders, PvdA, Labour] to ICCO should be discontinued immediately, says Wilders, PVV-parliamentarian and Bosma [MP for the PVV].

PVV media spokesman Martin Bosma: “The demonstration was amongst others organized by the Olive Trees Campaign, a club that is funded by the ICCO. The President of that club is Doekle Terpstra. Terpstra [who earlier this year called Wilders “the evil that has to be stopped”] is financing pro-Hamas activities. Hamas wants the immediate destruction of Israel and the rest of the Holocaust. Someone who sits in the extremist quarter like Terpstra does is not credible to continue monitoring the public broadcaster that claims to be ‘of us all, for all of us.’ Doekle must go!

“The publicly-funded organization ICCO subsidizes a demonstration together with the International Socialists, the Communist Party, Milli Gorus and the Palestine Committee. These are the friends of Doekle Terpstra. In the newspaper Trouw he announces that he wants to join the initiative ‘Eén land, één samenleving’ [‘One country, One Society’], of the professional extremist Mohamed Rabbae [who advocated a successful ban on the book The Downfall of The Netherlands, laughed at 9-11, and called Wilders ‘a little Hitler’]. Should we pay such a man any longer with our tax money? Terpstra can take care of himself very well. He earns a lot in the Higher Education Board, and has commissionerships with the Grontmij, Aegon, and Unilever. He is chairman of the ICCO.”

The Party for Freedom finds Terpstra unfit to be a member of the Supervisory Board of the Public Broadcasting organization. Terpstra believes that freedom of expression must be curtailed. He finds that “freedom should not be used to offend.” Someone like that is not fit to monitor public broadcasting.