Zionist terror and Anti Semitic terror- why the asymmetry?

Under British occupation, some brave Jews in Palestine took to terrorism. Later on, because Israel developed in a democratic and transparent way with public officials turfed out of office, no matter how charismatic, on the basis of their performance on ‘parish pump’ issues- terrorists, though still present in small numbers in the 1970s- were simply weeded out of the mainstream. The feeling was ‘oh the poor misguided fellow- well, what can you do? Some Mothers do have them, it sometimes happens even in the best families.’ Thus it was pity- and perhaps a faint hint of ridicule- which pretty much knocked Jewish terrorism on its head.

Turning to those Arab, and other self-professedly Islamic, societies which have made a quite deliberate choice of identifying with Palestinian victimology and harnessing its rhetoric to their own chiliastic legitimating ideology- we find in case after case that it was the absence of transparent political and judicial processes, the subversion of consultative representative bodies- elected or not- which created this formula of unlimited hate reinforced by spasmodic, strategically self-defeating, unlimited terror.
The case of Pakistan- the prime mover in the nexus which spawned Al Qaida and the Taliban- is instructive. A democratically elected tyrant- Zulfikhar Ali Bhutto- subverts all institutional checks on his power by using a matryology which in some garbled manner links up Chairman Mao and Chairman Arafat, with the result that the Pakistani economy- in particular its social infrastructure- goes into the toilet.
Bhutto believed his Army Chief- Zia- who had fought the Palestinians in Jordan- was too compromised to pose a threat. He was wrong. Bhutto was hanged. His sons went to Afghanistan- then under the Soviets- and engaged in terrorism. They gained sophisticated weaponry from the P.L.O- in return for cash provided by the Emirates- and tried to bring down Zia’s plane. They failed. Ultimately, Bhutto’s sons were probably eliminated by family members.
What is remarkable is that the slogan of Palestine could be used by both Zia and his successors in the Army/I.S.I, as part of their ‘Mard-e-Momin’ ‘Islamic Superman’ ‘josh’ sessions (morale building seminars), as well as by Bhutto loyalists. It seems Palestine- or more to the point, demonising Jews- is a multivalent symbol.It means everything to everybody because at bottom it means nothing. The former wife of a Bhutto satrap- Tehmina Durrani- has recorded a bizarre incident in her auto-biography. Her younger sister- who appears to have had a chequered past including a questionable relationship with her brother-in-law- is courted by a wealthy young Jewish man from New York. He agrees to convert to Islam to marry her. However, the real sticking point is her family’s demand for a large sum of money. After all, the fellow’s a Jew and not to bleed him would be irreligious. The New Yorkers smell a rat and back off.
I quote this incident to show that posturing hate speech plus terror is just adolescent immaturity which flourishes in regimes where there is no free discussion, no transparency, no accountability.
Ultimately, countries like Pakistan are reaping the whirlwind but not before they suckered us into paying them off big time. In other words, the question cui bono, the suggestion ‘follow the money’, is still the crucial element in explaining the whole sorry mess.
Turning to the question of shame and guilt cultures- an erroneous idea that entered scholarly discourse because of the special war-time conditions prevailing amongst Japanese p.o.ws- there is little evidence that such notions have explanatory power in the Muslim context. Certainly, kinship and quasi-kinship affiliations have a greater strength in a context of an absent or debilitated ‘civil society’- especially if there is a concerted political instrumentalisation of civic disorder- and, no doubt, expressing hate for the out-group has its value- but, surely in the Middle East more than anywhere else, there is also the notion that meaning is not in use but that meaning must be gamed. So ‘Death to Israel’ actually means ’sorry mate, I’m not gonna repay that loan you very kindly gave me,” while the riposte, “My Allah shower blessings on the Revengers tho’ Allah is the best of plotters and God destroy America y’all have a nice day now” actually means, “Oh yeah? Well in that case I’ll sick Al Qaida on your ass.” At which point the other guy mentions ‘Westoxification- the shameless way their women dress! Allah have mercy.Surely the End of Days is upon us’ which means, ‘Hey, no need to get nasty. I really don’t have any money. But my daughter’s just turned twelve. How about it?”
Which explains why you gotta kill your sister or mom or daughter- otherwise they just cease to be fungible assets. It’s a portfolio choice thing- simple economics is all. Change the incentive system- behaviour is changed. That’s the point of reason and the rule of law. We can get together and change the social contract to generate benefits for all. But there has to be transparency and accountability otherwise the bad coinage of nutty discourse will drive out the good currency of reason and utility and well, folks, that’s pretty much how these countries got to this mess in the first place.