EVENTS in the Middle East this summer demonstrated onceagain, five years after the attacks on our country, just how flawed the West's understanding of the world actually is. Without any provocation whatsoever, Hezbollah terrorists from Lebanon kidnapped Israeli soldiers and bombarded Israeli cities with rockets. Western leaders were outraged, not at Hezbollah's attacks, but at Israel's attempts to defend itself. At the same time, Iran, a country led by jihad-promoting clerics and a president who denies Israel's very right to exist, is well on its way to developing a nuclear arsenal. The United Nations, which claims to seek "international peace and security," is unable to punish Iran's threatening activities, not even with mild economic sanctions. All over the Middle East, it seems, radical Islam is flexing its muscles while the rest of the world yawns.
History may not be repeating itself, but it provides a basis for understanding. Like World War II and the Cold War, our fight against radical Islam is a fight for our very existence. Just like those wars, ultimately there are only two options for the West: victory or surrender. Bargaining and appeasement cannot persuade these jihadists to coexist peacefully. Those who think that Iran and Hezbollah can be negotiated with forget a most basic fact: To reach actual peace, both sides must desire it. Negotiation failed to satisfy leaders like Hitler and Stalin, and they were atheists motivated only by lust for power. If appeasement could not deal with secular dictators, it certainly will not work against terrorists who believe they are obeying direct commands from God.
Nevertheless, most Western elites do not truly comprehend the mindset of the radical Islamists. They certainly had no shortage of sympathy for the Lebanese "civilians," many of whom were Hezbollah members in civilian clothing, killed by Israeli air strikes. While sympathy for innocents killed in war is appropriate, it is crucial to remember, as most media figures and European leaders do not, the fact that Hezbollah put the Lebanese people at risk in the first place. Unlike Palestinian organizations, which have territorial disputes with Israel and theoretically could be open to negotiation, Hezbollah has no logical reason to be opposed to Israel, besides a fanatical anti-Semitism. Rather than pressuring Israel to end its campaign against the Hezbollah terrorists, world leaders should have wholeheartedly supported it.
Why was Western public opinion so hostile towards Israel, a country that was unquestionably the victim of unprovoked attacks? Over the past few decades world opinion has always been more suspicious of the military actions of Israel and the United States than those of other countries. Russia, for example, has been waging a brutal war in Chechenya since 1999, which has included missile strikes on hospitals and over a thousand civilians taken into Russian custody who simply disappeared. It is not difficult to imagine how the media would react if a thousand prisoners held by Israel or the United States had "disappeared." It takes little evidence for the world elite to brand Israel and the United States as the villains in any conflict, because, deep down, their worldview sees them as the agents for evil in the world. According to this view, the West is fundamentally an oppressive, racist culture that has always preyed on the rest of the world. It regards Western colonialism as the greatest evil in modern history and believes that Israel and the United States continue that legacy in the Middle East today.
One of the greatest strengths of Western society, and America in particular, is its ability to engage in honest self-criticism. At some point, though, much of the Western media moved beyond that, to something closer to self-loathing. That is a view dangerous both to ourselves and to the rest of the world. America and Israel certainly are not perfect countries, but the world of the jihadists is an infinitely worse one. The West would be wise to remember that while self-examination and negotiation have their functions, they are useless when dealing with a murderous ideology like radical Islam.
Stephen Parsley is a Cavalier Daily Opinion columnist. He can be reached at sparsley@cavalierdaily.com.
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