Young Golda Meir with menorah, pageant, 1919

Todd makes a good point:

The sad thing from as pacifist's perspective is that the Palestinians could get just about anything they wanted from non-violent non-cooperation. They are embedded into a nation. They have been an integral part of its economy. A figure like Gandhi could have led them to suffrage, statehood, or anything in between.

This is spot-on. Israel, besieged since day one, yet has a conscience, and would, I think, have responded to non-violent resistance by the land's Arabs, who do have legitimate grievances, and who could have appealed effectively to Israel's higher angels, as Gandhi and MLK did with the British Empire and the USA. (A strategy, it should be noted, that would not have worked for the Jews against the Nazis or the Arab death cultists.)

Instead, you have the executive editor of the Beirut Daily Star comparing slain Hamas founder Yassin to MLK.

Palestinian terrorists last week tried to use an 11-year-old child in a suicide bombing.

The Israelis sent the boy back to his parents.

In the words of Golda Meir: "There will be no peace in the Middle East until the Arabs love their children more than they hate the Jews."

* * *

From an Ottawa Citizen editorial:

Whether yesterday's assassination of Hamas founder Ahmed Yassin was a good thing depends on the answer to two questions: 1) Is the world better off without Sheik Yassin? and 2) Was it in Israel's strategic interest to kill him? In both cases, the answer is yes.

Ahmed Yassin was among the most brazen killers that the modern Middle East has produced, which is quite an achievement when you look at the competition. His hands were stained with the blood of hundreds, and we aren't referring only to Israeli civilians who died in the Palestinian terror attacks he supervised. We're also thinking of the Palestinian children whom he taught to believe that death is preferable to life and that a good Muslim is one who immolates himself in a pizzeria or a discotheque.

In interviews, you could see the old man take lascivious delight in the blood of his followers -- followers such as Reem Riyashi, a Palestinian who blew herself up in January, leaving her two children motherless. "I always wanted to be the first woman to carry out a martyrdom operation, where parts of my body can fly all over," she said in a videotaped message. Shortly after, Mr. Yassin ghoulishly confirmed that Hamas was now recruiting female bombers.

* * *

The Dissident Frogman has incorporated the Golda Meir quote above into an animated banner available for download at his site.

More Golda Meir quotes:

"Moses dragged us through the desert for 40 years to bring us to the one place in the Middle East where there was no oil."

"There was no such thing as Palestinians; they never existed. Before 1948, we were the Palestinians."

"A leader who doesn't hesitate before he sends his nation into battle is not fit to be a leader."

"We do not rejoice in victories. We rejoice when a new kind of cotton is grown and when strawberries bloom in Israel."

"Those who don't know how to weep with their whole heart, don't know how to laugh either."

* * *

The Israeli version of the Red Cross is the Magen David Adom emergency medical and disaster service. They have a difficult job, and you can lend support at their USA web page.

You can also send a pizza to Israeli troops on patrol.