Israel and the Clash of Civilizations

The State of Israel may have created a focus for Islamism but Islamic colonial aspirations have been murderously successful since the foundation of the Muslim faith in the 7th Century CE. The Muslim Brotherhood no more than imitates the Hashishim (it is where the word ‘hashish’ originates) or Order of Assassins, founded in the late 11th Century CE and which enjoyed a dubious reputation for bloodthirsty and thuggish brutality in the pursuit of Islamic purity.  Perhaps because of Christianity’s similarly intolerant history we now display an inexplicable tolerance for this resurgent primitivist Islamic Crusader ideology.

How else can we explain uncritical acceptance by the global political Left and their liberal allies of this destructive imperialist pan-Islamic ideology?  Why is it that Israeli nationalism is anathema to all but the politically incorrect? Why is Zionism almost universally reviled while the malevolent force of Islamism (Muslim fundamentalism) erupts in a thousand localities around the world to threaten peace in every corner of the planet but without a single UN resolution or word of anger from the political order?

In his seminal book “The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order” Samuel Huntington referred to “cleft” and “torn” countries.  In a cleft country major groups from 2 or more civilizations can cohabit the same space but want separation and to self-identify to the exclusion of the other. In a torn country there is one predominant civilisation but its leaders want to shift towards another civilisation.  Examples of torn countries include Turkey (since Kemal Attaturk) and Russia (since Peter the Great), both are Eurasian and Orthodox rather than Western-Modern; interestingly, Australia since the 1990’s is looking to Asia as a bridge between the West and the East; and Mexico (in fact much of South America) since the 1980’s (Latin America verses the USA).  Divided loyalties define the torn country.

Local nationalism barely existed at the time of WW1.  In Israel, populations were split between Arab Bedouin and a section of the urban and effendi classes; the fellaheen (rural mass of the population), Jews, Christians and other smaller immigrant groups.  Only the Bedouin usually considered themselves to be Arabs. Arab names could almost always be identified as rooted in biblical, Israelite Hebrew names.  Many village customs were localized and Judaic.  Displacement of the indigenous Jewish population was never sufficient to suppress or destroy the local traditions of Israel.

There are villages in Israel which within the last couple of hundred years were still predominantly Christian or Jewish.  Many ‘Arabs’ were either Jewish or Christian and only in the last few centuries has nationalist Muslim exclusivity succeeded in driving them out or forcing them to assimilate into the Islamic mass.

If we fail to address the hypocrisy that singles out Israel for criticism at every turn while ignoring the intolerance and the terror that is central to the expansionist global Islamic nation we are creating a dystopian future for ourselves and our children.

Richard Holbrooke argued that an ‘arc of crisis’ stretches from Turkey through Iraq, Iran through Pakistan (which includes Afghanistan).  A regional approach views Israel and Palestine as part of a wider Syria – Lebanon - Iran axis.

How far do we have to fall before we recognise that it is also our problem? Islamism is the old-new geopolitical game of dominoes. We lost sight during a different game of dominoes, the Communist era, but it is essential that our newly re-acquired focus is not lost.   We are fighting this war the wrong way.  Tens of billions of dollars have gone to Islamist nations that support terror, Pakistan and Egypt being but two of the most obvious examples of this failed policy.

Anti-Israel activists ceaselessly complain that Israel has received far too much money from the USA for its national defence, and yet in comparison, it is clear that the US strategy of propping up the corrupt Karzai administration in Kabul has done nothing to help win the war against the Taliban in Afghanistan. Since 2002 Washington has appropriated almost $120 billion of non-military funds (most of it spent) for Afghanistan reconstruction.  The US will have wasted all those precious lives (and the money) in a futile effort if it does not begin to address the issues that nourish the Taliban and their like.    Afghanistan will fall back into the savage swamp its Islamists desire if the US fails to forcefully confront ongoing Pakistani complicity in this colonial war.

India is a target. It could likewise be swallowed up by this threatened Islamic front.  Islamists refer to all of India as being stolen Muslim land. Contempt for Indian sovereignty by Muslim Pakistan is amply demonstrated by the November 26, 2008 and subsequent Mumbai atrocities.  It was alleged to have been orchestrated and carried out by Lashkar-e-Taiba (see below) while under the control of Pakistan’s Intelligence Service.  To quote Yossi Melman, (a journalist for Israeli newspaper Haaretz, writing on 30th November 2008):

“Lashkar-e-Taiba, which was outlawed in Pakistan in 2003, was created by Pakistan's spy service, the Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence, or ISI, which over the years continued to support it and other Islamic groups. The ISI and the Pakistani Army used the Islamic groups as a whip to weaken India as part of its strategy to return (my italics) Kashmir to Pakistani sovereignty. The fact that the ISI essentially created the Taliban in Afghanistan indicates that the use of radical Islamist groups and violence as a means to an end is not foreign to Islamabad.”

The ISI was later revealed to be “deeply involved in planning the 2008 terror attack on Mumbai, going so far as to fund reconnaissance missions to the Indian city…. The spy agency provided handlers for all the top members of the group” (Haaretz 19th October 2010).  Why? The attack “killed 166 people, paralyzed India's business capital and froze peace efforts between Pakistan and India”.  For the ISI the financial and human cost was simply the icing on the cake.

And while we may assume that this is someone else’s problem, it is in fact a reminder that Islamism is everyone’s problem, everywhere. Islamists view the conquest of Europe as ‘unfinished business.’

Turkey’s foreign minister, Ahmet Davutoglu publicly reminded his Austrian compatriots that they must not integrate into their host Austrian society; that their loyalty and identity remains Muslim and Turkish.  Professor Ahmet Davutoglu is no political hack. He is a former political scientist and academic; a Muslim fundamentalist who truly believes in the concept of Turkish neo-Ottomanism, the latest incarnation of Islamic colonialism.

Major Islamic terrorist incidents in New York, London, Madrid and Bali are not indicative of an aberrant attitude to Western society; they are symptomatic of the disease that eased the germination of an idea, which in turn grew, one that mainstreamed the suggestion that ‘we got what we deserved’

Twenty million Muslims live in Europe and their population is expected to double or treble over the next few decades. This is an issue that we, the infidel majority, fail to deal with, first at the cost of our identity and then at the cost of our future.