The Crisis of Our Times: Islam vs. Israel and the West

Submitted by Prof. Paul Eidelberg (Israel), Jul 26, 2010 at 02:06

Referring to the Palestinian Authority and its conflict with Israel, Dr. Pipes has elsewhere pointed out that it would take at least two generations to civilize a society that has educated a generation of children to hate Jews and emulate homicide bombers. Yet he maintains that democracy is compatible with Islam. Even if this is not paradoxical, isn't it irrelevant in view of the conflict between Islam—or, as Dr. Pipes prefers to put it, between "Islamism"— and the West?

With all due respect, it seems to me obscurantism and morally disarming to speak of Islamic "moderates" or of periods of peace in Islamic history. What is most distinctive and strategically significant about Islam—as can be gleaned from the assessments of Alexis de Tocqueville and Winston Churchill—is that it is culture of hate and of war. The overwhelming fact is that murder, pillage, rape, and more murder are in the Quran and in the Traditions. "Kill, kill the unbelievers wherever you find them." This is an unending formula for war. It underlies a report of the Center for the Study of Political Islam, according to which Muslims have slaughtered some 270 million people since Muhammad! (See FrontPageMagazine, February 21, 2007,)

Hence, although there are be Muslim moderates, the issue is the nature of Islam who adherents are gaining control of Europe and making significant inroads in America.

Finally, it needs to be emphasized that the conflict between Islam or "Islamism" and the West is fundamentally a theological conflict, a conflict involving the essence of man and the meaning of history. This conflict goes beyond the political and economic and territorial parameters or puerilities of America's and Israel's ruling elites. These predominantly secular elites—politicians and judges, academics and journalists—should read former Director of Voice of America Robert R. Reilly, Closing of the Muslim Mind to open their own minds to the true nature of the conflict between Judea-Christian civilization and Islam.

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