southsider2k5 Posted September 12, 2006 Share Posted September 12, 2006 I hate forwards. Hi, all--I checked this against Snopes, and it's for real, and very sobering. Take care. LSH PIERRE REHOV and the "Contre-Champs" project Vive la France is not a choice chant for most Jews who have sadly witnessed that country's recurrent and blatant antisemitism. Still, it is hard not to love the seductive France that intoxicates the heart and mind with fantasies of romance-it is harder yet if you're a woman with an affinity for men who hold the door open, who rise when you excuse yourself from the table, who make you feel like you're the most beautiful woman in the room, and who, in an age of feminism, still appreciate the feminine. Pierre Rehov is one such Frenchman. But his intrigue goes beyond the stereotypical charms. For although there are many who would love to love him, there are even more who would love to kill him. For Pierre Rehov, life only took on true meaning when he began putting it at risk. He had been a movie producer, a novelist, a journalist and a lawyer. But none of those professions satisfied his searching soul. In moments of deep personal introspection he questioned himself, "Who and what am I really?" For him, the answer came when he turned on the news on October 6, 2000, and saw the images of the shooting of Mohammed al-Dura, the 12 year-old Palestinian boy, whom Israel was summarily accused of targeting. "I was in shock," says Rehov, who rarely watches the pro-Arab French broadcasts. "In this case, I knew as a producer that there was something very fishy about the images. The angles just weren't right." The day after al-Dura was shot, there was a pro-Palestinian rally in the streets of Paris, where the participants screamed, "Death to the Jews." Rehov was reminded of one century ago when the exact same antisemitic scene played itself out on the streets of Paris prompted by the Alfred Dreyfus trial. Rehov's instincts told him that the death of Mohammed al-Dura was another blood libel against the Jews. "I knew that I was no Herzl, but I had to do something," Rehov says. Pierre Rehov was born in Algeria where his ancestors had lived for almost 500 years. He and his family left for France in 1961 with 250,000 other Jewish refugees who were expelled from the newly Muslim-ruled territory. Rehov was 6 years old when he found out that he was Jewish-after seeing graffiti on the wall of his building where he and his family lived. The graffiti read, "The French in the boat; the Arabs in a castle; and the Jews to be exterminated." Living in Algeria, the young boy knew very well what "French" and "Arab" meant, but the other word was new to him. Turning to his father, who was a well liked and respected dentist, he asked, "What is a Jew?" His father explained that Jews were a very different group of people who were always treated badly by the rest of the population and a people who would always have troubles. He then told little Pierre that he was a Jew. It was not long after Rehov told his classmates that he was Jewish that they began to call him un sale juif-a dirty Jew. Other kids would also praise the works of Hitler. If only words were the worst type of hate that Rehov experienced, he would have gotten over it. But as a child, in Algeria, he observed hatred in its most evil manifestation-terrorism. He'll never forget the day he and his father were about to enter a café when a grenade, tossed by Muslim extremists rebelling against French rule, exploded. He saw people exiting drenched in blood and without limbs, some people didn't exit at all. His father grabbed him in his arms and they ran. Another explosive incident happened at his own school where 11 of his classmates were killed. "I saw the worst images of my life as a child," Rehov says. So at 9 years old, Rehov, his mother, and younger brother left Algeria to join his father already in France, all hoping for a better and calmer life. But the French refugees were hardly met with open arms by the native French who displayed great antipathy toward the influx of Algerian immigrants. "It was ironic that we were kicked out of Algeria by the Muslims because we were French, yet we were treated so poorly by the French themselves." "In those days nobody said 'Palestinians,'" Rehov recalls. "They were called 'Arabs.' They only later became "Palestinians" as a political ploy against Israel." He remembers telling the story of Napoleon who, upon passing a synagogue during the Ninth of Av (a day of mourning), looked inside and saw Jews sitting on the floor and weeping. When he inquired further, he was told the Jews were mourning over the destruction of their Holy Temple. "How long ago did this occur?" Napoleon asked. "About 1,500 years ago," he was told. "In that case there is no doubt that their Temple will be rebuilt," Napoleon said. "A people capable of crying for so long over its destroyed temple and land will eventually find its way home." Rehov feels that Jews have cried long enough, and now that they have their homeland once again they must do whatever it takes to protect it. "I believe that Israel is the miracle of the 20th century," Rehov says. "It is also the result of the worse injustice that has ever been visited upon a people. No other people but the Jews have been exterminated, non-stop, for 20 centuries." He cautions fellow Jews by reminding them how 470,000 Jews were deported from the Warsaw Ghetto before the remaining the 30,000 realized what was happening and decided to put up a resistance. "How many Jews are going to be killed before we wake up and decide to fight back?" Rehov questions passionately. "I don't want to be among the last 30,000 to start fighting. I'm starting to fight right now." And so after the shooting of Mohamed al-Dura and the antisemitic rallies that ensued, Pierre Rehov took his fight off the streets of Paris to the courts of France. He rallied Jewish organizations in France to join him in a lawsuit against the French government for its defamation of the State of Israel. Rehov, who also holds an Israeli passport, was then off to the Holy Land to investigate the circumstance surrounding the tragic, yet suspicious death of al-Dura. His own research, an IDF investigation, and the sources he interviewed, revealed that the trajectory of Israeli gunfire and the position of the bullet holes were inconsistent. Other inconsistencies were enumerated as well. Al-Dura was buried before any autopsy could be performed. Rehov's investigations, however, had satisfied his suspicion that it was the Palestinians themselves who killed al-Dura for propaganda purposes. "It is not so hard to believe from some of these extremists who indoctrinate their children to be martyrs and suicide bombers," he says. When Rehov returned to France, he found out that the defamation case had been dismissed after only six weeks, with no explanation. Rehov says it usually takes two years for a case to be dismissed in France. But Rehov's resolve could not be dismissed. With his French passport, Arabic features, and a digital recorder, he went into the territories (which are forbidden to Israeli citizens) posing as a French tourist and began an undercover investigation of what is really going on behind the scenes. He has thus far produced six documentaries from the "tourist attractions" he visited in the territories: A War of Images, which reveals shocking images of incitement displayed on Yasser Arafat's Palestinian Television network; The Trojan Horse, which betrays Arafat's true intentions and shows rare footage of Palestinian leaders advocating the eradication of the Jewish state and the extermination of the Jewish people, and his film The Holy Land: Christians in Peril, which exposes the true story behind the Church of Nativity confrontation and reveals the dangers for Christians living under Islamic rule, he then filmed The Road to Jenin, that shows there was no massacre in Jenin, as some Palestinians claimed. Silent Exodus, which tells the little known story of the plight of the million Jews who had to leave the Muslim countries their families had lived in for centuries. Hostages of Hatred, that gives all the real data about the Palestinian refugees, a question that is not as well known as it might be imagined. On July 15, MSNBC's "Connected" program discussed the July 7th London attacks. One of the guests was Pierre Rehov, a French filmmaker who has filmed six documentaries on the intifada by going undercover in the Palestinian areas. Pierre 's upcoming film, "Suicide Killers," is based on interviews that he conducted with the families of suicide bombers and would-be bombers in an attempt to find out why they do it. Pierre agreed to a request for a Q&A interview here about his work on the new film. Q - What inspired you to produce "Suicide Killers," your seventh film? A - I started working with victims of suicide attacks to make a film on PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) when I became fascinated with the personalities of those who had committed those crimes, as they were described again and again by their victims. Especially the fact that suicide bombers are all smiling one second before they blow themselves up. Q - Why is this film especially important? A - People don't understand the devastating culture behind this unbelievable phenomenon. My film is not politically correct because it addresses the real problem, showing the real face of Islam. It points the finger against a culture of hatred in which the uneducated are brainwashed to a level where their only solution in life becomes to kill themselves and kill others in the name of a God whose word, as transmitted by other men, has become their only certitude. Q - What insights did you gain from making this film? What do you know that other experts do not know? A - I came to the conclusion that we are facing a neurosis at the level of an entire civilization. Most neuroses have in common a dramatic event, generally linked to an unacceptable sexual behavior. In this case, we are talking of kids living all their lives in pure frustration, with no opportunity to experience sex, love, tenderness or even understanding from the opposite sex. The separation between men and women in Islam is absolute. So is contempt toward women, who are totally dominated by men. This leads to a situation of anxiety, in which normal behavior is not possible. It is no coincidence that suicide killers are mostly young men dominated subconsciously by an overwhelming libido that they not only cannot satisfy but are afraid of, as if it is the work of the devil. Since Islam describes heaven as a place where everything on Earth will finally be allowed, and promises 72 virgins to those frustrated kids, killing others and killing themselves to reach this redemption becomes their only solution. Q - What was it like to interview would-be suicide bombers, their families and survivors of suicide bombings? A - It was a fascinating and a terrifying experience. You are dealing with seemingly normal people with very nice manners who have their own logic, which to a certain extent can make sense since they are so convinced that what they say is true. It is like dealing with pure craziness, like interviewing people in an asylum, since what they say, is for them, the absolute truth. I hear a mother saying "Thank God, my son is dead." Her son had became a shaheed, a martyr, which for her was a greater source of pride than if he had became an engineer, a doctor or a winner of the Nobel Prize. This system of values works completely backwards since their interpretation of Islam worships death much more than life. You are facing people whose only dream, only achievement goal is to fulfill what they believe to be their destiny, namely to be a shaheed or the family of a shaheed. They don't see the innocent being killed, they only see the impure that they have to destroy. Q - You say suicide bombers experience a moment of absolute power, beyond punishment. Is death the ultimate power? A - Not death as an end, but death as a door opener to the after life. They are seeking the reward that God has promised them. They work for God, the ultimate authority, above all human laws. They therefore experience this single delusional second of absolute power, where nothing bad can ever happen to them, since they become God's sword. Q - Is there a suicide bomber personality profile? Describe the psychopathology. A - Generally kids between 15 and 25 bearing a lot of complexes, generally inferiority complexes. They must have been fed with religion. They usually have a lack of developed personality. Usually they are impressionable idealists. In the western world they would easily have become drug addicts, but not criminals. Interestingly, they are not criminals since they don't see good and evil the same way that we do. If they had been raised in an Occidental culture, they would have hated violence. But they constantly battle against their own death anxiety. The only solution to this deep-seated pathology is to be willing to die and be rewarded in the afterlife in Paradise . Q - Are suicide bombers principally motivated by religious conviction? A - Yes, it is their only conviction. They don't act to gain a territory or to find freedom or even dignity. They only follow Allah, the supreme judge, and what He tells them to do. Q - Do all Muslims interpret jihad and martyrdom in the same way? A - All Muslim believers believe that, ultimately, Islam will prevail on Earth. They believe this is the only true religion and there is no room, in their mind, for interpretation. The main difference between moderate Muslims and extremists is that moderate Muslims don't think they will see the absolute victory of Islam during their lifetime, therefore they respect other beliefs. The extremists believe that the fulfillment of the Prophecy of Islam and ruling the entire world as described in the Koran, is for today. Each victory of Bin Laden convinces 20 million moderate Muslims to become extremists. Q - Describe the culture that manufactures suicide bombers. A - Oppression, lack of freedom, brain washing, organized poverty, placing God in charge of daily life, total separation between men and women, forbidding sex, giving women no power whatsoever, and placing men in charge of family honor, which is mainly connected to their women's behavior. Q - What socio-economic forces support the perpetuation of suicide bombings? A - Muslim charity is usually a cover for supporting terrorist organizations. But one has also to look at countries like Pakistan , Saudi Arabia and Iran , which are also supporting the same organizations through different networks. The ironic thing in the case of Palestinian suicide bombers is that most of the money comes through financial support from the Occidental world, donated to a culture that utterly hates and rejects the West (mainly symbolized by Israel ). Q - Is there a financial support network for the families of the suicide bombers? If so, who is paying them and how does that affect the decision? A - There used to be a financial incentive in the days of Saddam Hussein ($25,000 per family) and Yasser Arafat (smaller amounts), but these days are gone. It is a mistake to believe that these families would sacrifice their children for money. Although, the children themselves who are very attached to their families, might find in this financial support another reason to become suicide bombers. It is like buying a life insurance policy and then committing suicide. Q - Why are so many suicide bombers young men? A - As discussed above, libido is paramount. Also ego, because this is a sure way to become a hero. The shaheeds are the cowboys or the firemen of Islam. Shaheed is a positively reinforced value in this culture. And what kid has never dreamed of becoming a cowboy or a fireman? Q - What role does the U.N. play in the terrorist equation? A - The U.N. is in the hands of Arab countries and third world or ex-communist countries. Their hands are tied. The U.N. has condemned Israel more than any other country in the world, including the regime of Castro, Idi Amin or Kaddahfi. By behaving this way, the U.N. leaves a door open by not openly condemning terrorist organizations. In addition, through UNRWA, the U.N. is directly tied to terror organizations such as Hamas, representing 65 percent of their apparatus in the so-called Palestinian refugee camps. As a support to Arab countries, the U.N. has maintained Palestinians in camps with the hope to "return" into Israel for more than 50 years, therefore making it impossible to settle those populations, which still live in deplorable conditions. Four hundred million dollars are spent every year, mainly financed by U.S. taxes, to support 23,000 employees of UNRWA, many of whom belong to terrorist organizations (see Congressman Eric Cantor on this subject, and in my film "Hostages of Hatred"). Q - You say that a suicide bomber is a 'stupid bomb and a smart bomb' simultaneously. Explain what you mean. A - Unlike an electronic device, a suicide killer has until the last second the capacity to change his mind. In reality, he is nothing but a platform representing interests which are not his, but he doesn't know it. Q - How can we put an end to the madness of suicide bombings and terrorism in general? A - Stop being politically correct and stop believing that this culture is a victim of ours. Radical Islamism today is nothing but a new form of Naziism. Nobody was trying to justify or excuse Hitler in the 1930s. We had to defeat him in order to make peace one day with the German people. Q - Are these men traveling outside their native areas in large numbers? Based on your research, would you predict that we are beginning to see a new wave of suicide bombings outside the Middle East ? A - Every successful terror attack is considered a victory by the radical Islamists. Everywhere Islam expands there is regional conflict. Right now, there are thousands of candidates for martyrdom lining up in training camps in Bosnia , Afghanistan and Pakistan . Inside Europe , hundreds of illegal mosques are preparing the next step of brainwashing to lost young men who cannot find a satisfying identity in the Occidental world. Israel is much more prepared for this than the rest of the world will ever be. Yes, there will be more suicide killings in Europe and the U.S. Sadly, this is only the beginning. ****= Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Texsox Posted September 12, 2006 Share Posted September 12, 2006 Side note: I really dislike the phrase suicide bomber. Murders, murder bombers, bombers, etc work better. While they are committing suicide that isn't their intent. It gives a bad name to those who end their own lives for their own reasons without murdering anyone in the process. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jenksismyhero Posted September 12, 2006 Share Posted September 12, 2006 Very good read. I liked this the best: Q - How can we put an end to the madness of suicide bombings and terrorism in general? A - Stop being politically correct and stop believing that this culture is a victim of ours. Radical Islamism today is nothing but a new form of Naziism. Nobody was trying to justify or excuse Hitler in the 1930s. We had to defeat him in order to make peace one day with the German people. Have we ever thought about substituting bombs for porn? Maybe that'll solve the problem? We'll let the region 'release' their frustration. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
juddling Posted September 12, 2006 Share Posted September 12, 2006 QUOTE(Texsox @ Sep 12, 2006 -> 03:42 PM) It gives a bad name to those who end their own lives for their own reasons without murdering anyone in the process. Somehow i think that the successful ones dont really care what you call them Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KansasSoxFan Posted September 12, 2006 Share Posted September 12, 2006 QUOTE(Texsox @ Sep 12, 2006 -> 10:42 AM) Side note: I really dislike the phrase suicide bomber. Murders, murder bombers, bombers, etc work better. While they are committing suicide that isn't their intent. It gives a bad name to those who end their own lives for their own reasons without murdering anyone in the process. Fox News likes to use the term "homicide bomber." I don't like this term (or ones like it) because it's confusing to me. In my mind, a homicide bomber would be someone like the Unabomber -- he plants a bomb and then runs away before it explodes. At least "suicide bomber" tells me how the dirty deed was done. Still, I see what you are saying. Maybe "kamikaze bomber" would be better? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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