Like the Klan, Palestinian terrorists—all terrorists-- specialize in creating fear. Their masks are ominous looking and their actions are designed to put entire populations into the vise of despair and foreboding. The only time terrorists are not wearing masks is when they charade as “rabbis” and “students” on Israeli buses and restaurants intent on blowing up innocent civilians or when they wear a suit and tie in the White House or on CNN or the BBC.
While I have experienced nothing of the magnitude of what the Jewish people have lived through, I do know the intimidation and evil these Klannish and terrorist masks attempt to promote. In the mid to late sixties, I was among many southerners who had been liberated from our own culture of segregation, and wanted to make things right for our black neighbors and friends. In one instance, in my own small way, I took a stand against racism by inviting a black friend to talk to a youth group in the church where I served as a paid summer youth leader. The year was 1970.
Ten minutes after my friend George arrived, a church deacon whisked me out of the youth meeting and into the office where I was confronted by the entire deacon board to grill me on why such a “nice southern girl” would do such a thing. It didn’t take long for me to discover that many of those deacons were members of the Ku Klux Klan although they were prominent businessmen in the town. I was about to experience their wrath.
For the next few weeks rumors circulated all over the county that I was a communist. That I was romantically involved with my black friend—a dental student. Our phone frequently rang with threatening calls and I found myself looking over my shoulder and not wanting to drive at night. My mother and I sat up many evenings peering through the curtains looking for the robed Klansmen who had made many threats promising to burn a cross in our front yard. Thankfully, that never happened but I well recall those nights wondering when a quick cross might be erected at two o’clock in the morning and a torch thrown into our front yard. God bless my mother. She was an example to me of defying a culture gone wrong when, in her own small way too, she insisted that black friends ride in the front of her car rather than the usual back seat. Eventually, our lives returned to normal. Our house wasn’t fire-bombed, the rumors died down and the young people in that church rose to the occasion and stood against the racism and even their own parents to do what was right. I did not, though, venture into that South Carolina county again for a long time.
When Klansmen wore their robes and masks, it meant they could go to their churches on Sunday and their offices on Monday after their cross burnings or lynchings on Saturday night. They carried out in the dark what they didn’t want to reveal in the day. The Klan operated on the assumption that they were completely right and justified in terrorizing and killing blacks using the cross as a terror tool. Jews were always in the Klan’s cross-hairs as well. Remnants of that thinking remain today although Klan membership has drastically declined since its heyday in the early 1920’s when it boasted a membership of around 4 million.
I wish I could say that Palestinian terror was on the decline as well but if we heed the public words of Hamas and other terrorist organizations, they are vowing to continue using terror as a tool. They assume that their terrorism drove the Israelis out of Gaza and that terror will drive them out of Judea, Samaria, and Jerusalem. Read the recent quote about Israel’s Disengagement from Mahmoud Zahar, Gaza’s Hamas leader: "It is a defeat for Israel, which did not find an answer to the Kassam rockets or the war of the tunnels or to suicide attacks. The disengagement will lift the morale of the Arab and Islamic world and affect the battle for Afghanistan and Iraq. We are part of the great world plan whose name is the world Islamic movement. We do not recognize the State of Israel nor its right to control any of the land of Palestine."
The Ku Klux Klan did not overwhelm the Reconstruction after the Civil War in the 19th century or the Civil Rights movement in the 20th century. Nor do I think terrorism will win out over the Israelis or any freedom loving people in the 21st century as long as we hold fast to our courage and do what is right.
In the meantime, the terrorists will march with masks on, waving red and green Palestinian flags, and shoot AK 47’s into the air. And hopefully, one day, the masks will be meaningless because brave people who stood against it in small and large ways will marginalize terror.
Take Off Your Masks!
By Arlene Bridges-Samuels, media liason, Front Page Jerusalem
Watching television images of Palestinian terrorists wearing their masks reminds me of the Ku Klux Klan and my personal encounter with them in the summer of 1970 when civil rights was still a hot issue in the United States. Both groups--although the Klan is marginal now—seem proud of their masks although I consider it the mark of a coward. Klansmen chose white pointed hats and long robes. Palestinians favor checkered keffeyahs or black. Like the Klansmen, populated by many politicians and “upright” businessmen, the terrorists hide their faces so they can maintain their façade of respectability to the world while carrying out their violent racist acts. I often wonder if Palestinian President Abu Mazen is behind one of the Fatah masks as they march through Gaza waving their guns and chanting “death to Israel and the Jews?” Don’t laugh. In the 1920’s a Supreme Court justice, Hugo Black, was a card-carrying member of the Ku Klux Klan. And most Americans know the name of Robert Byrd. He’s a US Senator from West Virginia who was an active Klansman in his younger days.
Like the Klan, Palestinian terrorists—all terrorists-- specialize in creating fear. Their masks are ominous looking and their actions are designed to put entire populations into the vise of despair and foreboding. The only time terrorists are not wearing masks is when they charade as “rabbis” and “students” on Israeli buses and restaurants intent on blowing up innocent civilians or when they wear a suit and tie in the White House or on CNN or the BBC.
While I have experienced nothing of the magnitude of what the Jewish people have lived through, I do know the intimidation and evil these Klannish and terrorist masks attempt to promote. In the mid to late sixties, I was among many southerners who had been liberated from our own culture of segregation, and wanted to make things right for our black neighbors and friends. In one instance, in my own small way, I took a stand against racism by inviting a black friend to talk to a youth group in the church where I served as a paid summer youth leader. The year was 1970.
Ten minutes after my friend George arrived, a church deacon whisked me out of the youth meeting and into the office where I was confronted by the entire deacon board to grill me on why such a “nice southern girl” would do such a thing. It didn’t take long for me to discover that many of those deacons were members of the Ku Klux Klan although they were prominent businessmen in the town. I was about to experience their wrath.
For the next few weeks rumors circulated all over the county that I was a communist. That I was romantically involved with my black friend—a dental student. Our phone frequently rang with threatening calls and I found myself looking over my shoulder and not wanting to drive at night. My mother and I sat up many evenings peering through the curtains looking for the robed Klansmen who had made many threats promising to burn a cross in our front yard. Thankfully, that never happened but I well recall those nights wondering when a quick cross might be erected at two o’clock in the morning and a torch thrown into our front yard. God bless my mother. She was an example to me of defying a culture gone wrong when, in her own small way too, she insisted that black friends ride in the front of her car rather than the usual back seat. Eventually, our lives returned to normal. Our house wasn’t fire-bombed, the rumors died down and the young people in that church rose to the occasion and stood against the racism and even their own parents to do what was right. I did not, though, venture into that South Carolina county again for a long time.
When Klansmen wore their robes and masks, it meant they could go to their churches on Sunday and their offices on Monday after their cross burnings or lynchings on Saturday night. They carried out in the dark what they didn’t want to reveal in the day. The Klan operated on the assumption that they were completely right and justified in terrorizing and killing blacks using the cross as a terror tool. Jews were always in the Klan’s cross-hairs as well. Remnants of that thinking remain today although Klan membership has drastically declined since its heyday in the early 1920’s when it boasted a membership of around 4 million.
I wish I could say that Palestinian terror was on the decline as well but if we heed the public words of Hamas and other terrorist organizations, they are vowing to continue using terror as a tool. They assume that their terrorism drove the Israelis out of Gaza and that terror will drive them out of Judea, Samaria, and Jerusalem. Read the recent quote about Israel’s Disengagement from Mahmoud Zahar, Gaza’s Hamas leader: "It is a defeat for Israel, which did not find an answer to the Kassam rockets or the war of the tunnels or to suicide attacks. The disengagement will lift the morale of the Arab and Islamic world and affect the battle for Afghanistan and Iraq. We are part of the great world plan whose name is the world Islamic movement. We do not recognize the State of Israel nor its right to control any of the land of Palestine."
The Ku Klux Klan did not overwhelm the Reconstruction after the Civil War in the 19th century or the Civil Rights movement in the 20th century. Nor do I think terrorism will win out over the Israelis or any freedom loving people in the 21st century as long as we hold fast to our courage and do what is right.
In the meantime, the terrorists will march with masks on, waving red and green Palestinian flags, and shoot AK 47’s into the air. And hopefully, one day, the masks will be meaningless because brave people who stood against it in small and large ways will marginalize terror.
Posted by Arlene Bridges-Samuels at August 21, 2005 10:33 PM