Foxfyre wrote:Do we have any other choice? Can we abandon Israel to an inevitable fate knowing full well the implications of that and how that will embolden radical fundamentalist Islam to expland its influence elsewhere? Militant Wahhabism as been brewing since the mid 19th century, long before Israel was established as a nation. These people are committed to destroying 'infidels' wherever they can and we should be wise enough to know by now that, given the opportunity, they will. They use Israel as a convenient excuse for their hatred of course, but they don't need Israel for that purpose.
From the most practical and mercenary point of view, Israel now diverts much of the focus of those who would do their worst to all who do not submit to fundamentalist Islamic law. I'm guessing the fundamentalists will feel invincible if they could both drive the Americans from Iraq AND destroy Israel.
I believe you are seriously oversimplifying a much more complex reality.
In the first place our present policy, in effect, abandons Israel to the policies of her most aggressive and intransigent political elements, and removes any incentive for Israel to find a just and practical accomodation with the non Jewish population of the territory it occupies, or for that matter with her neighbors. It is my opinion (others may differ) that this present policy will ultimately lead to the destruction of Israel. It will also increasingly injure the vital interests of the United States and lead us deeper into these contradictions with our basic political principles -- processes that are already undermining American popular support for Israel, which I believe will continue.
The fundamentalist Wahhabi movement of Islam arose in northern Yemen and was associated with the establishment of Saudi rule in what had been previously a rather loosely governed Arabia. The character of Islam in Syria and Palestine was quite different, more internally varied and less radical. The intransigence and injustice practiced by Israel has significantly enhanced the appeal of Wahhabi and other forms of Islamic fundamentalism in ateas of the Moslem world that previously rejected it.
The resolution of the conflict between the Islamic world and the West must come from either the complete destruction of one ot the other parties, or synthesis and reform from within the Islamic world. My support for our Iraqi intervention was based on the latter and the hope that we could transform Iraq from a secular tyranny into a secular modern state that could positively influence the future political trajectiories of Iran and Saudi Arabia. I believe the "neo con" theory was based more on a conception of a strategic conflict with Islam, similar to the view of Israel. Indeed, enhancing Israel's security under this strategic concept was one of their motivations. In either case the enterprise has been a failure.
There can be no long-term peace and security for Israel without equal justice for Jews, Moslems and others in its territory and among its neighbors. Attempts to find it, based on the assumption that the Moslems will be forever intreansigent and dedicated to the destruction of Israel are themselves equivalent to the proposition that the Moslems themselves must be utterly destroyed -- a principle hardly compatable with sympathetic views of the injustice previously inflicted on Jews in Europe, and instead like the one that animated their Nazi oppressors.
Israel must begin to adapt to principles of equal justice for all, and thereby hope to influence changes in the behavior and viewpoints of the moslems who live under israeli rule (or, as is the fact today, misrule). This is certainly a risky prospect - but it is far less risky than the present course.
