||In its sixtieth year, Israel is a nation in retreat.
Since anniversaries beget nostalgia and retrospection, there will be invocations of the epic rescue of the wretched survivors of the Holocaust and the oppressed Jews from Arab countries; of the almost impossible victory of David against an Arab Goliath in 1948; of the lightning victory of 1967; of the come from behind victory in Yom Kippur 1973; of the rescue of the hostages in Entebbe; of the incredible destruction of Iraqâ€™s nuclear reactor at Osirak, all of which were the source of pride and renewed confidence for Jews in every corner of the world.
There will be also be obloquy from the international Left, including too many in Israel, who see the so-called â€œoccupationâ€ of Judea and Samaria as the â€œroot causeâ€ of the entire conflict. What makes this so risible is that Israel has conceded to every Arab demand in its suicidal quest for accommodation with its enemies, but the drumbeat of attacks from the Left escalates in lockstep with the increase in terrorism and destruction.
And from the Right (count me in), there will be well-deserved criticism of Israelâ€™s government and its serial appeasements, which only whet the bloodlust of its enemies.
The fact is that all Israelâ€™s achievements are imperiled because its government and elites live in a delusional world. They deny the past, persuading themselves of the existence of an earlier idyllic era of comity between Jews and Arabs to which they can return. They deny the present, refusing to recognize that Arab opposition is not based on reasserting control of â€œoccupied territoriesâ€ but is rooted in an unwillingness to accept a Jewish state in any boundaries.
Israel has averted its eye from the reality of Jihad; from the long and bitter history of Arab oppression starting with the Arab conquest of 600 A.D.; from the Muslim and Arab complicity in the Holocaust and the blood libels which even now permeate Arab/Muslim media, sermons, textbooks and rhetoric in every Arab country including those which have signed peace treaties with Israel.
Why is a foreign Hashemite ruler accepted in 82% of Palestine while a Jewish presence in 10,000 square miles (including Judea and Samaria) is called a â€œcancerâ€ that must be annihilated? If the territory of Israel were occupied by Arab Muslims who called it â€œIslama,â€ would there be hair-raising calls for their extermination? Would four generations of children be taught to hate and kill them? Would mosques resound with sermons preaching their destruction? Would they be called descendents of pigs and apes? Of course not. â€œIslamaâ€ would simply take its place as the 23rd nation in the all Moslem Arab League.
The Arabs, wealthy or poor, adjoining Israel or at a distance, all are determined to destroy Israel and Islam fuels their fanatic hatred.
Listen to what is said in the mosques and in the Arab street by Israelâ€™s proposed â€œpeace partners.â€ Just a few weeks ago, on February 29th, a Saudi cleric intoned: â€œWhat compensation will satisfy us? By Allah, we will not be satisfied even if all the Jews are killed.â€ Here is the Hamas Charter, article 7:"The Day of Judgment will not come about until Muslims fight the Jews (killing the Jews), when the Jew will hide behind stones and trees. The stones and trees will say O Muslims, O Abdulla, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him.â€ And here is the Hamas charter, article 15: â€œThe day that enemies usurp part of Muslim land, Jihad becomes the individual duty of every Muslim. In face of the Jews' usurpation of Palestine, it is compulsory that the banner of Jihad be raised.â€
What is lost in translation here? The short and simple answer is Islam and Jihad, holy war, and Palestine restored to the Caliphate.
The scholar Bat Ye'or understood that the Arab war against the Jews of Palestine was always a jihad. She warned:
Israel represents the successful national liberation of a dhimmi civilization. On a territory formerly Arabized by the jihad and the dhimma, a pre-Islamic language, culture, topographical geography, and national institutions have been restored to life. This reversed the process of centuries in which the cultural, social and political structures of the indigenous population of Palestine were destroyed. In 1974, Abu Iyad, second-in-command to Arafat in the Fatah hierarchy, announced: â€˜We intend to struggle so that our Palestinian homeland does not become a new Andalusia.â€™ The comparison of Andalusia to Palestine was not fortuitous since both countries were Arabized, and then de-Arabized by a pre-Arabic culture.
For decades Israel and its Western allies concentrated on the Cold War, with Israel seen as a bulwark to thwart Soviet ambitions. That role vanished with the fall of the Berlin Wall. The West ignored the growing aggressiveness of Islam, fueled by the wealth of oil producing Arab states, preparing a Jihad against the West. And it failed to see that Israel is a bulwark in the existential battle of the centuryâ€”Islam against the infidel world.
Bat Ye'or who coined the term "Eurabia" also predicted the subjugation of Western culture.
Like Israel, Western democracies have also lost national pride, a sense of their historic narrative and legacy, and a will to defend themselves. Look at England, where the Archbishop declares that Sharia Law is inevitable; at France, overrun by Muslim hoodlums who burn and loot and plunder and torture far from the reach of law enforcement; at Holland where a threat of Arab gutter rage makes the entire government cave; at the EU which succumbs to the Muslim Albanians and strips democratic Serbia of its territory and patrimony in Kosovo. Look in Scandinavia where an increasingly strident Muslim population is outgrowing, outbirthing, and overtaking the descendants of Vikings; at Spain whose response to Islamic terrorism was to boot the only government that understood jihad and Islam.
And, letâ€™s look in our own turf at the United States where academia, the stock markets, oil prices and a sordid array of former legislators are in the thrall and payroll of the Muslim oil kingdoms; where so called environmentalists derail every single effort to find alternative energy; where multiculturalism trumps all debate on national security, homeland defense and immigration policy. Listen to the political debates and call me if you hear the word Jihad.
But geography has dictated that Israel lives in the belly of the Muslim Arab beast and because of its large and potentially seditious Arab population, the beast also lives in Israelâ€™s belly. The failure to understand Jihad is Israelâ€™s most colossal (and it may well be fatal) blunder.
FamilySecurityMatters.org Contributing Editor Ruth King is a freelance writer. She has written a book and articles on gardening, and also writes a monthly column in OUTPOST, the publication of Americans for a Safe Israel.