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Eliminating Islamic Terror
In Israel, when prospects for peace are discussed, you sometimes hear the following appraisal of reality: “If the Arabs laid down their arms, there would be no more wars. If the Jews laid down their arms, there would be no more Jews.”
By extension, it is not a stretch to say that if the Western world retreated in its war against Islamic terror, the Western world would soon cease to exist.
Canaries in the Coal Mine
Israel has often been likened to the proverbial canary in the coal mine. There was a time when miners brought caged canaries into their mines in order to detect carbon monoxide and other poisonous gases. As long as the canaries chirped, the miners were safe. When the chirping stopped, it meant the miners’ lives were in danger.
Israelis are among the happiest people on earth but their chirping was interrupted from 2000-2003 when 1,200 Israelis were murdered by terrorists, a killing spree that made a shambles of the Oslo Accords, which were supposed to bring about peace in exchange for land surrendered by Israel. Instead, Oslo became synonymous with a wholesale slaughter of Jews that was only halted when a border wall was constructed that prevented terrorist infiltration. Since Israel’s disengagement from Gaza in 2005, thousands of missiles have been fired into Israel from that territory, leading to major conflicts with Hamas, the terrorist organization that rules Gaza, in 2012 and 2014.
Israel’s experience has proven that concessions to terrorists only embolden them.
What Happens in Israel Does not Stay in Israel
Long before terrorist bombs were detonating in Europe, long before the Twin Towers fell, Israelis had been subjected to terrorist attacks. In the midst of these attacks, the world often blamed the victim, as the primary preoccupation of the United Nations, over the years, has been to censure Israel. Now that much of the world is under constant terrorist threat, the realization is finally beginning to dawn that the problem Israel faces is the problem faced by the world at large.
The threat to wipe Israel off the map is ultimately a threat to wipe all non-Islamic peoples off the map, too.
What happens in Israel does not stay in Israel. What happens in Israel, sooner or later, happens everywhere else. Missiles like those that are fired into Israel today will be fired into Europe and America tomorrow, unless . . .
How to Eliminate Islamic Terror
Here are some suggestions which, if they were adopted altogether, would go a long way towards eliminating Islamic terror.
1) Acknowledge that “radical Islam” is a misnomer, that the religion of Islam is radical at its core. The idea of a more tolerant Islam, brought about by some sort of internal Reformation, is absurd. Islam is based on the subjugation of non-Moslems. Take away that principle, and Islam ceases to be Islam.
2) Acknowledge that the war against Islamic terrorists is a zero-sum game. Either they win or we win.
3) Since Islamic terrorist regimes are held in check solely by force, the West must be constantly prepared to utilize force, either to punish or to deter terrorist acts.
4) Create an international hit squad, a Captain America battalion of sorts, whose purpose is to topple dangerous Islamic regimes. We’re not talking about long term wars here. The idea is to conduct surgical missions that would last only a few hours but take out (capture or kill) the leaders. Even a joint American-Israeli force of sufficient size could probably achieve the desired result. Hit squad raids to remove the mullahs who rule Iran, as well as the Syrian dictator Assad and the chieftains of Hamas and Hezbollah, would be a good place to start. And while these special forces are at it, they may as well remove North Korea’s and Venezuela’s tyrants, too.
5) Institute surveillance of all mosques in Europe and the US.
6) Eliminate university Middle Eastern Studies departments. These departments are nothing but propaganda mills that whitewash Islam and inculcate animosity towards Israel.
7) Make no concessions where Islamic customs or Sharia are concerned. Each allowance granted, from hijab head wear to female genital mutilation (approved recently by an American judge), results in more demands. Immediately after the new Moslem member of Congress had her request to wear a hijab approved, she made it clear that “this is not the last ban I’m going to work to lift.”
8) Before being allowed a visa, as a prelude to eventual citizenship, potential immigrants from Moslem countries would be asked this question: What is your view of Israel and the Jews who live there? Based on the answer to this question, a visa would be granted (if response was positive) or denied (if response was negative).
9) Educate your children to believe in G-d and instruct them in the power of prayer to remove evil from the world. Yes, a willingness to go to war, since our survival is at stake, is necessary but heavenly assistance is needed in this struggle, too. Although Islam is a fake faith since it holds suicide bombers in high esteem and advocates for genocide, there is still the element of fighting fire with fire, of fighting their strongly held beliefs — although false — with our own. Those with a muddled sense of good and evil will not prevail in the war against Islamic terror.
Keep Those Canaries Singing
Any other suggestions? Eliminating Islamic terror is the major issue of our time even though nobody talks about it all that much. We are still more reactive than pro-active in this arena and, in my darker moments, I sometimes wonder how many more towers will have to fall before we finally do what needs to be done to make sure that the canaries keep on singing their happy tunes.
Published in General
No. It’s hard to top what you’ve posted . . .
On the substance of the OP:
I do not agree with the proposed immigration question about Israel. I do not think that we should make admission to our country dependent on a potential immigrant’s attitude toward another country. I am a strong supporter of Israel, but I think that this proposal goes too far. I’d be pretty happy if we simply required immigrants to accept American values, but this too is impractical, because we have no consensus about the content of American values.
I do not agree with the proposed hit-squad to take out Islamic dictators (and apparently other dictators, too). I don’t like the dictators, but I don’t think that we want to establish a precedent of assassination or kidnapping as a means of foreign policy, for two reasons. First, it seems likely to me that there would be retaliation by Muslim leaders and radicals. Second, it would put us in a difficult position if, say, Russia or China used the same policy.
My impression is that Muslim reformers are a tiny minority, and are heavily persecuted and threatened. Salman Rushdie, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, and Maajid Nawaz are examples.
iWe, I encourage you to look into Douglas Murray’s work in this area. There are several excellent interviews available on YouTube, and his new book The Strange Death of Europe is excellent. The problem is that, due to the content of the Koran, the violent radicals have the theological upper hand in the argument with the reformers. One of Murray’s helpful examples is to imagine that instead of “love your enemies,” the Sermon on the Mount exhorted Christians to behead their enemies.
My other impression is that huge numbers of nominal Muslims, like huge numbers of nominal Christians, do not really take their faith seriously and often do not even know what it really teaches. They are just going about their lives. Their allegiance to Islam is something that is partially the result of coercion and social pressure and partially the result of the tribal association instinct.
Sorry to take things right to the Nazis, but the analogy is sometimes instructive. What is someone said that they were a Nazi, but that they were a peaceful, reformed Nazi? I don’t think that you’d have any problem condemning them, because the philosophical core of Nazism is corrupt and evil. This is true even though there were, doubtless, millions of generally fine, caring, charming Germans who were Nazis in the 1930s and 1940s. Such people were generally driven by misguided patriotism, the fear of punishment for dissent, a desire to advance in the world despite the corruption in their social system, and willful blindness.
I would say if more bad guys come to power where we eliminated the previous ones, we would take care of the new bad guys, too, until their people get the message that the world is not a toy for terrorist amusement.
The judge didn’t approve of FGM; the judge struck down a Federal law that banned it, saying it was a matter for the states. Two different things, no?
Okay, I stand corrected, but it certainly sounds like an opening to approval and, in any case, how could a reasonable (sane?) judge strike down such a law? Isn’t female genital mutilation just plain evil?
If true, this won’t help:
According to Stephen Cohen at the Nation, Putin (with FM Lavrov) has skillfully positioned Russia as a major diplomatic player. This includes in Syria and in Afghanistan; Putin is hosting talks between the Taliban and the Afghan government in Russia.
Yes to the second, and the first is different. It wasn’t a Federal matter.
It might be hard to ban FGM without making it hard for parents or the State to provide lifesaving gender reassignment surgery for the minor children in their custody.