Wars in region distract from "central confrontation" with "barbaric Israel"

The following is the op-ed by Fathi Al-Bis, regular columnist for the official PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida:

"The region around us is burning. The abhorrent sectarianism (i.e., wars in Iraq and Syria) is burning everything...

Israel - a product of myth, racism and war - believes that the conflagration in the region gives it a free hand and respite, and that the flames won't reach it. It therefore continues to kill, burn, destroy and attack, in all the forms inappropriate to human beings. Its leaders forget that these flames are burning because of it, and will be directed towards it in the end.

Israel's racist and extremist leadership has not learned its lesson. For over 60 years now, it has been killing, causing [people] to flee, expelling, taking prisoners, winning wars and annexing lands. But in reality, it is in crisis, because it has not succeeded in extinguishing the flames in the soul of the Palestinian Arab, and has not succeeded in obliterating the Palestinian national identity...

The Palestinian lives in tranquility regarding his future, for he lives the times, the reality and the truth, while the Israeli lives in the helmets of the soldiers of myth, who are killers and savages, and restless regarding their future. [They] cover themselves with weapons from head to foot, yet cannot close their eyes, out of fear and a lack of a sense of security. This is because security has not been achieved since Israel was born, despite the huge support it received from the West - especially from the US and European countries like Britain, who aided this distorted birth.

With the excuse of the disappearance of three settlers (i.e., On June 12, 2014, three Israeli teens Eyal Yifrach, 19, Gilad Shaar, 16, and Naftali Frenkel, 16, were kidnapped while hitchhiking in the West Bank.) who were on a land which did not belong to them, while robbing and challenging the owners of the land, Israel does as it pleases in the West Bank, and threatens Gaza... The Palestinian knows that at the moment, he lacks military capacity, but he [also] knows that the nations of the world are becoming disgusted by Israel's arrogance and racism, and that its isolation is now only a matter of time.

Therefore, he [the Palestinian] turns to the world, from the [UN] Security Council to all the UN institutions, asking for protection from the arrogance of power and savage racism, which it needs and deserves - without forfeiting its resistance using all available means, with its modest capabilities, first among which is resolve on the ground, patience and endurance...

The Palestinian, with [his] Arab loyalty and identity which knows no sectarianism, confronts Israel. He observes with sadness the flames that surround him and that divert the people of the Arab nation from the duty of the basic and central confrontation, which is with the barbaric Israel. He looks forward to the day when the flames of [this] abhorrent sectarianism will be extinguished, so that everyone will be free to bury the [Israeli] myth that is being lived by the bloodthirsty, helmet-clad and rifle-bearing soldier out of the self-deception that this is the way to protect his existence and security. But the soldier of the helmet will not win and will continue to live in fear."