In an October 2010 article, Israeli Arab Knesset Member Ibrahim Sarsur, of the Ra'am-Ta'al party, wrote that just as the U.S. had invented the Muslim enemy in order to consolidate its exclusive control over the world, so too did Israel invent enemies and threats in order to justify its oppression of the Arab minority. One such invention, he said, was the demographic threat allegedly posed by the Israeli Arabs to the state of Israel – a lie that he said undermines both the coexistence between Jews and Arabs in Israel and the peace process with the Palestinians. Sarsur called on the Arabs and Muslims to abandon the defensive position to which the U.S. and Israel had pushed them, and to go on the offensive, in order to end Israel's and America's murderous policy towards the Arab and Muslim world.
The article was published in Al-Mithaq, the newspaper of the Islamic Movement in Israel, as well as on several Israeli Arab and Palestinian websites. The following are excerpts: [1]
America Has Replaced the "Red Enemy" – the Communists – with the "Green Enemy" – the Muslims
"...We have heard much about various alliances that fed people lies in order to justify their policies. The Warsaw Pact [i.e., the Soviet bloc] and the NATO [bloc] dominated the world for a long time, and from World War Two onward they perpetuated the cold war between them by means of Goebbels-style propaganda (named after Joseph Goebbels, the information minister of the Nazi German regime), which is based on spreading fear of the other, and on a dense concoction of demagogy and banal lies. When the Soviet Union collapsed, due to external and internal factors, giving the U.S. exclusive control over world affairs, [this country] had to invent a new enemy, with a new color. It [therefore] replaced the red communist enemy with the Muslim enemy, whose color is green. The ongoing war on what is termed 'terror' is one of the manifestations of this arrogance.
"[Just like the U.S.], Israel too has created, and continues to create, numerous [imaginary] enemies in order to cover up its crimes. The most prominent of these [inventions] is the notion of the 'demographic threat,' a brainchild of the diseased Israeli mentality. This notion... has spawned policies that have grown more and more radical and extreme, to the point that they threaten the peaceful [relations] between [Israel]... and its Arab population, as well as the chances of reaching a settlement with the Palestinians to put an end to over 100 years of conflict."
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"Israel's Talk about the Growing Military Power of Hamas and Hizbullah... Is Likewise Aimed at Preserving Its Image as a Victim"
"Is the Israeli talk about the demographic threat realistic, or is it part of a philosophy of intimidation aimed at justifying the policy of oppression and siege against the Arab minority and at tightening [Israel's] control over [the Arabs'] affairs? Israel's talk about the growing military power of Hamas and Hizbullah... which is [ostensibly] threatening its existence, is likewise aimed at preserving its image as a victim... in the eyes of the West. It serves to justify [Israel's] aggressive policy towards the Palestinians and Lebanon, as well as towards Syria, which is considered to be a supporter [of Hamas and Hizbullah], and towards Iran, which is thought to have embraced their jihad. The truth is that neither Hamas nor Hizbullah can threaten Israel's existence, despite their many sacrifices in defending the Arab and Muslim honor – [honor] that the official Arab regimes have lost...
"We [Arabs] have fallen right into the trap of this [propaganda]... so much so that we have consciously or unconsciously become a factor that is helping to spread it. In this fashion, Israel – with all its violence, might, military power, and numerous crimes – has [ostensibly] become the victim in this conflict, which it alone has been generating since its establishment, and for whose consequences it alone is responsible, along with the West - headed by America, Britain, and France. Worse still is the situation to which the West and Israel have wickedly and cunningly driven us: that of victims who are [always] on the defensive and have to convince the West and Israel that [they] seek peace, not war. [This,] when it is we who are the victims of their wars and deadly policy towards us... We are required to prove our good behavior and assure the West, while [the West] sheds our blood, slaughters us, defiles our holy places, occupies our land, grinds our bones, plunders our wealth, and violates our sanctities throughout the Arab and Muslim world, [but] especially in Palestine.
"It is Israel and the West Who Must Persuade Us of the Possibility of Cultural Coexistence with Them"
"We must free ourselves from the mentality of ones who are constantly defeated and defensive, and go on the offensive. It is Israel and the West who must persuade us of the possibility of cultural coexistence with them – not the other way around. We must object to [the situation] where the powerful and tyrannical dictate [our] history and geography, and even control the terminology. They are the terrorists, not us. They endanger global stability and security, not us. They are the aggressors and oppressors, not us... It is they who are depraved in morals and behavior, and contaminated of soul and mind, not us... It is they who suck the blood of nations and plunder the good of the land, not us. It is they who occupy our lands, not us. It is they who have brought disaster to our lands, not us...
"If America declared the so-called war on terror in response to the killing of 3,000 Americans of various ethnicities and religions, including Muslims, who will defend and avenge the millions of Muslims that America, Israel and their allies have killed in the last decade?..."
[1] Al-Mithaq (Israel), October 7, 2010.
