Of Course Violence helps a cause RABBI MEIR KAHANE in 1988 wrote the following article. As you read it simply change the names and it could have been written today. A dozen Israeli leaders, including Shamir, Peres and Rabin, solemnly advised the Arabs (for their own good, we must assume) that "violence and riots do not help." "Riots do not help? "Violence only hurts your cause?" our leaders said. Balderdash! Of course, violence helps, why else did Mr. Shamir decide to help form the Stern group (cruelly called "gang" by the British and Jewish Establishment types who warned that "violence would not help"…) And, if violence and rioting did not help the Arab cause, why is it that the "Palestine" question has been headline news almost every day. And what forced the Americans and West who, from the beginning were comfortably isolating themselves from the problem. Now they condemn Israel and demand that a political solution be found? Who said, "Violence does not help?" The "Palestinians" seeing that every political effort had failed, reasoned, why should violence be perceived as not helping? Knowing that television and news media thrive on "action." Why should the Arabs not attempt to give them that, knowing that hundreds of millions of people all over the world would be seeing it? Who said, "Violence does not help?" What put the Soviet Jewish issue on page on of The New York Times and as the major story on almost every television station, if not violence? And what made the British get out of Palestine? What led to the creation of a Jewish state, if not violence? How much good did non-violence do for the Jews of the Holocaust? Of course violence helps. It helps to force an issue onto the headlines and consciousness of the world. It makes people talk about the issue. And then, if the violence is accompanied by clever propaganda, it helps remarkably well and that the confused object of your violence does not know how to deal with you and your violence, why – of course – you continue and escalate that violence. The truth is violence has already succeeded in making Israel retreat. When Shamir and Rabin and Peres declare that as soon as order is restored, Israel will sit down to discuss "complete" autonomy and a political solution of the "Palestine" problem, that is exactly what the aim of the violence was. And had there been no violence, Shamir and the Likud would have been perfectly content to sit for another 20 years with the status quo. The Arabs understand an essential truth of world relations. They understand that the world cares little about any issue unless it is prodded. Nations and peoples, for the most part, are involved and preoccupied with their own problems. If one wants to be heard, he must not only shout, for the world has long been inured to shouts. The one who wishes to be heard must shock. And there is nothing more shocking than violence. This is true for all peoples whether their cause is right or wrong. And of course, the Arab case is wrong. But it does not remove the essential reality of the very great effectiveness of violence. On the day that the helpless and hapless Jewish "leaders" stop babbling about the ineffectiveness of violence and concentrate more on improving their own ineffectiveness by putting down of the violence, Israel will be in a much better position of security. Violence helps the Arabs. Crushing that violence in the most effective and the quickest way helps the Jews. | 
