Change comes from within and from without

Submitted by Michael Caplan (Canada), Feb 2, 2018 at 23:25

Mr. Kedar is obviously not a prophet or a fortune-teller, nor is he trying to be. As Mr. Pipes says, he ultimately agrees: Israel should survive and prosper, regardless of its worst neighbours' darkest desires. I'm very gratified to see this convergence of two thinkers I greatly admire. Of course, no one can determine when and if the movement pushing for Israel's destruction is finally rendered irrelevent and impotent; but should that moment arrive, it will come from the two places identified and contrasted by these two approaches: a military defeat from without, and a rejection of militarism from within.

In the West today, and in other parts of the world to greater or lesser degrees, the (in)glorious fantasy of Nazism is essentially discredited (whatever its ongoing vicissitudes). One must believe in the possibillity that Islamic supremacism, too, might be widely rejected as inhumane, self-undermining and suicidally destructive – and such would be the very *substance* of an Islamic reformation.

Unlike Nazism, that faux-pagan kitch religion, Islam is an authentic religion, and I do believe that most of its billions of people, given a true opportunity, would willingly relinquish ideological purity in exchange for realism and life. But such an "opportunity" can, I think, only come about in a lasting way through Israeli victory.

Even Christianity, despite its post-war attempts, is still permeated by anti-Jewish prejudice and structures of belief ... and it isn't the world's fastest growing religion. It's heyday has passed. Judaism and Jews must endure for their own sakes, but Muslims and Christians of good faith can only benefit: Israeli victory, as essential as it is for Jews and all Israelis, will ultimately be a key factor in helping to bring the other two monotheisms to a point of sustainable coexistence. However utopian or idealistic or pollyanna this may sound, there is – in reality, in pragmatic terms – no other way. The "long war," fueled by the "longest hatred," may not be ended by Israeli victory, but perhaps the corner will have been turned.

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