Conversation on the Beach (Two)

By Solly Ganor

A Texan tells of his twenty years of service in the oil fields of the Arab states, his view of the Middle East and his remarkable view of Israel and the Jewish people in general. Perhaps we are being too hard on ourselves and we need an outsider to tell us that ‘Am Israel Hai’ and will continue to do so long after our enemies will be buried.

Four years ago, at the end of 2002, I met a young Arab student near the mosque of Sidni Alli in Herzelia. I called our encounter, ‘Conversation on the Beach’.
I live in Israel since 1948, but I had never encountered someone who could in a short conversation lay out before me an elaborate plan, not only how to destroy Israel, but how to undermine the economy of the West, bringing it to a collapse and take over the world for Islam. It was all to be done by suicide bombers who would blow themselves up in the world’s major cities using dirty bombs. The result would be a major panic and the collapse of the stock markets and the banking system. This was not just idle rhetoric; 9/11 showed us that the West is vulnerable to these kinds of attacks. That they won’t have a shortage of suicide bombers is also a certainty proved by events not only in Israel but also around the world, and that there is enough cheap nuclear waste, chemicals, and biological weapons to build a bomb that would cause thousands of casualties when released in major cities is also a fact. (I recently saw an HBO movie on television which portrayed three such attacks on London.)

The events since our conversation didn’t prove him wrong. Iran became the centre for Islamic extremism and is now developing a nuclear weapon.
Such a weapon in the hands of Iran would be the end of the world the way we know it, not only because of the extreme danger it poses, but because a host of other Middle Arab countries would follow its example. Unless we do something about it, this scenario may become reality.
We are now backing to the situation the world faced in 1938. Will we get a Chamberlain ready to appease the Iranians or a Churchill who knows it is time to act?
World War two could have been stopped with a few casualties if the Western leaders would have acted decisively and stopped Hitler in 1936 when his army had nothing to fight with. Instead we had fifty million people killed, among them six million Jews. And all because of the cowardice of the Western leadership.
Who will stop the Iranians before it is too late? And this time we may have an atomic war with more dead than we can imagine

Iran has openly declared that its aim is the destruction of the State of Israel. Its president declared that Islam is the supreme religion and should replace all other religions in the world. Hamas won the Palestinian elections declaring as its aim the destruction of Israel. No, the Arab student was not wrong in his assessment of the situation. The Western populations are uneasily waiting for the next mega explosion. Most experts have no doubt that it will happen; it is only a question of where and when.
Once again, as before World War Two, the West is on the defensive unable to get their act together before it is too late.
Therefore, it was quite a relief to speak to someone who convinced me that the situation is not as hopeless as I thought.

’Conversation on the Beach Two’

About two miles North of Sidni Alli where I met the Arab student in 2002,
Lay the ruins of an old crusader castle called Appolonia. The authorities did a good job of restoring some of the ruins of the castle. From time to time there are various musical events taking place among the restored tower and
Many people are visiting the site including tourists. It has the same breathtaking view of the Mediterranean Sea as Sidni Alli.

During the festivities of our Independence Day a flotilla of Israeli navy vessels accompanied by private yachts, some of them from many foreign countries, left the Marina of Herzelia and sailed slowly to the point of Appolonia’s ancient Roman harbor where they turned around and sailed back to the Marina. Thousands of people were lined up on the coast to watch the sea parade.
I used my old binoculars to have a closer look at the flotilla when a man standing next to me asked me in English if he could borrow the binoculars. His Southern drawl, his fancy boots, hat and belt buckle which had ‘Texas printed on it, left no doubt where the man was from.
“Much obliged,” he said tipping his hat.
Somehow he looked familiar.

He was a tall man of about seventy with a rugged sun burnt face and silvery grey hair. He looked briefly at the boats and smiled.
“I hope that you have more than this flotilla in your navy”. “He said.
“I am sure we have.” I answered laughing.
He had a small canvass bag with him from which he took out two cans of beer and offered me one. Surprisingly it was cold.
“It is one of my patents” He grinned.
We sipped the beer and looked at the boats that were now making a 180 degrees turn on their way back to the Marina.
“I have been following the progress of your country for a long time now. Actually have been here before after 1973 October war when one of your hawk missiles hit a oil well on the Abu-Rodes oil field in the Sinai. I was part of a crew that helped put out the fire. At that time Israel owned the oil fields. You should never have given it up. There is more oil there than it is officially known.”
Suddenly I realized why he looked familiar.

“ You know we have met before.” I told him. An Israeli friend of mine who was a contractor at the Abu Rodes oil fields once brought you to ‘Kassit’ in Tel Aviv and we had some drinks together. Your name is Josh Carter, right?”
He gave me a surprised look. Then he shook my hand.
“yes, I remember now. You were the merchant marine officer who was a friend of Danny Cohen, who worked with us at putting out the fire at Abu-Rodes. It’s more than thirty years now and you still remembered me. That’s pretty good.
For a while we were reminiscing about the good old days. Then he began telling me about his activities since we last met.
“After returning to the States I got a job in the Saudi oil fields. It was quite a revelation.
It was like coming to another planet; a terrible planet. Still, the money was good.
When I first started to work in Saudi Arabia, I realized that the job offered tremendous opportunity. If I played my cards right I could retire a rich man. I did something which very few of my fellow co-workers bothered to do, I learned Arabic. It was the best thing I ever did. I soon found myself promoted to ever better paying jobs.

“I worked for the Arabs for many years. I was in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, and even Sadam’s Iraq.
During the years I learned to know them pretty well.
The British who ruled the area after the Turks, called them WOGS, which is short for ‘Wily Oriental Gentleman’.
I would call that a whopping British understatement. Personally, I find them contemptible.

Unless you knew how their mind works you could get entangled in situations that you never had to face in the West. I soon learned how to deal with their treachery, the duplicity, the lies. It was all part of the game they played with us “Infidels.” Not that they are much different when they deal with each other.

‘You know I must tell you outright that I have nothing but admiration for your small country and the Jewish people. It all started when I was a high school student in San Antonio, I was very avid reader. I was especially fascinated with the Russian writer Lev Tolstoy. His War and Peace was a favorite of mine. My English teacher encouraged me to write an essay about Tolstoy. In general most of the high school student at my school had a pretty low opinion of Jews. Some were outright anti-Semites, although there was not a single Jewish student in my class. While studying the material for my essay on Lev Tolstoy I came upon astonishing declaration that was written by Tolstoy. I asked my English teacher whether there wasn’t some mistake. “Surely, Tolstoy couldn’t have said that?”
I told my teacher. She looked at the passage and nodded:
“Yap, that was written by Tolstoy. I guess it doesn’t exactly fit to the image you boys have of Jews” She smiled.
What astonished me was the following paragraph:
“The Jew is that sacred being who has brought down from heaven the everlasting fire, and has illumined with it the entire world. He is the religious source, spring and fountain out of which all the rest of the peoples have drawn their beliefs and their religions.”

Considering how I adored Tolstoy, that sentence changed my whole outlook on the Jewish people. I began to research the history of the Jews and came upon even more astonishing information. The contribution of the Jews to the world in all fields of endeavour whether in literature, music, architecture, industry and so on; the numbers of Jews engaged in such productive activities way outweigh their numbers on this planet. Their achievements show clearly by the number of Nobel Prizes Jews received is staggering numbers considering you are such a small minority.

Concerning the State of Israel, the international military strategists predicted that in 1948 the combined Arab armies would squash Israel within a week and throw the Jews into the sea. The United Nations that gave birth to the state of Israel did absolutely nothing to save the country from another Auschwitz. It was up to you Jews to sink or swim.
Since then Israel won numerous wars against the Arabs and has grown strong enough to defeat the Arabs at any confrontation.

And what is amazing, is that you started out without funds, or natural resources, a community that barely counted six hundred thousand people. You then took in millions of impoverished immigrants, from all over the world, especially a large number of traumatized Holocaust survivors.
Despite the wars and animosity of your neighbors you managed to build a modern democratic state, great educational institutes, like the Weizman Institute and a flourishing high tech industry that is the envy of the modern world, and you did it all from scratch. It took a lot of guts, idealism and brains to achieve what you did. Quite honestly, I don’t know of any people in the world that could have achieved what you did under similar circumstances.
The same thing can not be said for your Arab neighbors. In the twenty years that I have known them the majority of them sank deeper and deeper in abysmal poverty, slavery, cruelty, and ignorance. The most productive element of their society, the women, are oppressed and are not allowed to contribute to society.
What amazes me is their sense of pride and honor. For the honor of the family a brother or father or the family will kill a female family member for a variety of reason which they would consider dishonoring the family.
After a few drinks, I once asked an educated Arab:
“Can you show me a single instant why we should honor the Arabs? For what? For their achievements, in the field of medicine, industry, education? And what have you got to be so proud about? Have a close look in the mirror and you will see that you have nothing to be proud about.” He looked at me in astonishment.
“You honestly believe what you just said?”
I just nodded. He got up and before he left he said:
“ There one thing we can be proud of, ‘The rising power of Islam’ and the believers who are willing to give their lives for it.”
Then he added: “Mark my words, it will sweep the world like a Tsunami’ and what will
Be left of the world will be ruled by Islam.

The problem is that they really believe it. But I think that in the fight against terror and Islam in general, there are great minds working of how to counteract that menace. As in world war two, the stress of the war and the desire to defeat the enemy produced some marvelous inventions. The present war, out of sheer necessity, new weapon systems are presently being invented that will revolutionize the concept of the conflict. Only three years ago you had to drop a one ton bomb on Gaza house in order to eliminate an important terrorist. 17 people were killed during the bombing. Today, Israel flies tiny drones surveying GAZA and the West bank. These drones are getting smaller and smaller. Soon they will be practically invisible. I think that Israel with the constant threat to it existing is making a tremendous effort to find solutions to that menace. It may sound like science fiction, but the answer may lie in Nanno technology. Soon this technology will come up with an answer to the Moslem threat.
I can see by the way you are looking at me, that you think that I am some kind of nut, but believe me, I know what I am talking about because I am presently working on Nanno technology and so are thousands around the world, including Israel.
They think they will conquer the world with the thousands of suicide bombers.
Our technology will soon have an answer to them. Think of the French writer Jules Verne, many of his fantasies are now realities. Give us some time and you will see that I was right.

My conversation with the Texan gave something to think about, but also something to hope for.

I survived the Holocaust because I had hoped to see the defeat of Nazism.
Sixty-one years ago I saw it happen. I also saw the fiend, Hitler shoot himself in the head. Had I died then, I would have died a happy man. But thank G-d I lived to see the rebirth of the State of Israel and was given a chance to participate in its War of Independence.
I saw in my life time two evil and rotten empires collapse, and I hope to see the collapse of third and equally evil empire, that of extreme Islam.

Solly Ganor

Herzelia Pituach,

June 12, 2006

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