"The Israelis now living in the territories of the future Palestinian state should return to living within the borders of the state of Israel. No Jew in the world, now or in the future, as a result of this document, will have the right to return, to live, or to demand to live in Hebron, in East Jerusalem, or anywhere in the Palestinian state." --Sari Nusseibeh
What makes this outrageous but perfectly believable remark, by a so-called "Palestinian," of such note is that the utterer is one Sari Nusseibeh. Nusseibeh is supposedly the most "moderate" and "reasonable" of “Palestinians” -- because he is "Oxford-educated" (the epithet is Homeric, in Nusseibeh's case) and scion of one of those Arab families of Jerusalem. Left-wing Israelis, Peace-Nowists, and so on, have always loved Sari Nusseibeh.
His declaration that part of the original territory specifically allocated to Mandatory Palestine, which was specifically set up for the creation of the Jewish National Home, will someday soon be off-limits to Jews, is unacceptable. But will those Israelis and American Jews who fell all over themselves singing the praises of Sari Nusseibeh now see that all such hopes were false, that in the end (just as in Iraq) whenever Infidels put their hopes on this or that individual those hopes will be dashed? It is Islam that matters. Nusseibeh is simply being a good and dutiful Muslim. And thank god he has fully revealed himself right now, and not after the idiotic Israelis (surely there is a limit, even for Olmert, Livni, and the unbelievable Haim Ramon) give away more and more of what they have no right to give away.
The Nusseibehs are not as prominent as the Khalidis, the Nashashibis, and slightly lower down on the phylogenetic scale, the Husseinis, the leading Arab families of Jerusalem -- the ones whom many of the British in the Mandatory Authority found so attractive because they were so obsequious, in contradistinction to those noisy, un-obsequious East European Jews -- who were, in addition, devoid of the local color that those Arabs in their keffiyehs or burnooses offered in such abundance. Of course, there were a few who sided, correctly, with the Jews. There were a few who remained immune to antisemitism because they knew the history of the West. They knew what the Jews had meant to Western civilization -- and they knew their Bible.
These men included Colonel John Henry Patterson, who early on helped train the Palestine Legion, and Colonel Meinertzhagen, who was an intelligence officer on General Allenby's staff, and Captain Orde Wingate, who was forced to leave Mandatory Palestine because he had the poor taste to actually train Jews in the art of self-defense when they were being attacked constantly by marauding Arabs in the 1930s. And then back in London there was the inimitable Wyndham Deedes, and in Parliament there was Josiah Wedgewood, and Winston Churchill, who yelled to high heaven about the "betrayal" of the Jews by the British government, not least when the White Paper of 1939, limiting Jewish immigration to 15,000 a year for five years (at a time of the greatest peril) was proposed. These people were not the kind to be impressed by those Arab notables. Nor, if they were alive today, would they be taken in by the likes of "Oxford-educated" Sari Nusseibeh, or for that matter by Tariq Ramadan.
Even the most "moderate" and outwardly acceptable of Slow Jihadists, the kind who can smile, who can speak nearly-native English, turn out, in the end, to be loyal to Islam. They turn out to be loyal to the demand that, little by little, the Infidel nation-state must be destroyed. If the Israelis lose military control of the "West Bank," lose control, that is, of the traditional invasion route from the East, they will be unable to defend themselves. That's it. And if they lose control of the aquifers, the Muslims can interfere with, divert, or even poison the water on which Israelis depend. They must throw out the haim-ramons and the ehud-olmerts, and vote in those who know what the legal, historic, and moral claims of Israel are, and will state them firmly instead of fearfully worrying about offending the people who, in Egypt and among the "Palestinians," would gladly see them dead and their country destroyed, never to be rebuilt again. They will never repeat the mistake the Israeli government recently made in preventing the tapes showing the Egyptians helping Hamas from being shown to members of the American Congress.
And the big subject that no one will touch, the subject of Islam, and the Hate Whose Name We Dare Not Speak (that is, Islam’s general hatred for Infidels, as well as antisemitism), must be talked about -- to save Israel, and to save, as well, the rest of the threatened Infidel world. The first Israeli leader to talk about the Jihad against Israel, and about the attempt to disguise that Jihad, so far quite successful, as a "nationalist" struggle by the recently-invented "Palestinian people," is the one who will help save the people and state of Israel. And they deserve such a leader. They do not deserve what they currently have for "leaders" or, as they say so often in America today, "people taking a leadership role."
too bad Hugh did not have a single name to mention in the last para. too bad I dont know a single one either.
That sufficient-unto-the-day Israeli leader would have to be both capable of learning about the reasons for the Arab war on Israel and unafraid to do so. That means not only studying the texts and tenets, but coming to understand how those texts are received as the literal word of God by the masses of Muslims (and it is the masses, and not the de-rigueur "Palestinian friends in Jerusalem" that the amos-ozzes and edward-grossmans rely on for their view of geopolitical reality.
Two Israeli students of Islam at Hebrew University-- Moshe Sharon and Raphael Israeli -- have written keenly about Islam and the war on Israel. A curious and intelligent would-be Israeli leader would not only read what they have written, but make others in his entourage thorougly assimilate the same material. And then, on the basis of that understanding, such a would-be leader would force the issue: the issue of the Slow Jihadists and the Fast Jihadists, and of the folly of seeking, as the Americans seek, a "solution" to what is not a "problem" to be solved but a situation to be permanently managed. The same thing -- not a problem to be solved but a situation to be managed -- can now be seen in Infidel lands other than permanently-threatened Israel: in the countries of Western Europe, for example.
The more the Israelis understand the situation, the more they will be able to help other Infidels to grasp the meaning, and menace for themselves, of Islam.
All over the Western world the leaders have mostly proven inadequate to the task. Here and there, however, one finds glimmers of understanding. It's a race. Do enough of those in the Infidel lands figure out what Jihad is, and what the most effective instruments of Jihad are, in time to do what they need to do to most effecitvely counter the Jihad and weaken the Camp of Islam -- not by bringing toys and good things to eat to Muslim boys and girls on the other side of the mountain, in I-think-I-can-I-think-I-can fashion (as in Iraq today, with the squandering of American money, men, materiel, and morale both civilian and military)-- but by intelligently recognizing, and then exploiting, the pre-existing fissures within the Camp of Islam. In Iraq that means the sectarian (Shi'a and Sunni) and ethnic (Arab and Kurd) fissures; the best way for the Americans to exploit them is to stop doing so much to prevent them, but instead to withdraw, and allow Islamic nature to take its course, with what happens in Iraq making its slow-motion way through the Islamic world. The Kurdish example, especially if they hold off the Arabs and obtain full independence (and get to keep the northern oilfields) could conceivably inspire other non-Arabs, such as the Berbers. The transfer of power from the Sunnis (Ba'athism in Iraq was merely a cover for a Sunni despotism, as in Syria Ba'athism is a cover for an Alawite despotism)to the Shi'a in Iraq likely would cause difficulties between Shi'a and Sunnis in Bahrain, eastern (Al-Hasa) Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Yemen, Lebanon, Pakistan, and even between different groups of Muslims now in Infidel lands.
Israel's cause is not hopeless. But it will become hopeless, and so will that of the West, if those who presume to protect and instruct their peoples refuse to learn about Islam. That is the minimum demand that must be made. Whether they will then prove adequate to the task of dividing and demoralizing, and keeping constantly off-balance, the Camp of Islam, working to diminish its oil revenues, its campaigns of Da'wa, its presence in the West, its appeal to the psychically and economically marginal in that same West -- is another matter, and many "know about Islam" without having the wit or intelligence to figure out what can and should be done.
But if they read around in the Archives of this website, and know where else to look, they may find that much of that task has already been peformed. They need only take that stuff, rewrite the same contents and glossily reprint it as their own, as coming from some prestigiuous think-tank with such words as "strategic" and "international" in their self-description, and they'll be off like gangbusters. How many millions the Pentagon will pay them for such repackaging, how many column-inches will be solemnly devoted to their "recommendations as to how to defeat Jihadists" or "weaken Islam," how many admiring columns will be written about these well-paid consultants, these "tough-minded realists," is anyone's guess.
But just as long as they copy it all out correctly. I hate mental typos.
Moshe Feiglin.
"The Israelis now living in the territories of the future Palestinian state should return to living within the borders of the state of Israel."
Certainly the above sentence explicitly recognises a Jewish State. And hey if it means the price for peace is returning some Jewish settlers why not? Oh , I see - bloody old Islam!
Ahmadinejad also recognises a Jewish State - just not in the Middle East , I think he suggested Alaska. There's always Birobidzhan I guess , I sure Ahmadnejad thinks it "unlucky" that Stalin died when he did and therefore ending the Jewish Autonomous Oblast.
I don't think so.
Shy Guy:
(Oh , I see
Posted by: David Xavier at December 23, 2007 2:57 PM)
"I don't think so."
Yes you are right , I dont see things monchromatically like you guys do , I see white light - the full spectrum.
What we have here is a truncated transcript produced by a pro-zionist group that misrepresents and decontextualises the message of the speaker. The original transcript stated it was about the 'right of return' , when if you look at the video it was a discussion on the establishment of a Palestinian state , and the tradeoffs that would be made ...which would involve giving up the right of return of Palestinians to Israel. If that was the case the new Palestinian State shouldnt suffer Israeli settlements on its sovereign land ( now how is this controversial ? Wouldnt Americans object to Mexicans citizens squatting in Montana and calling it a latin settlement? This is a statement of the obvious.) Whats more if there is a Palestinian State then that implies recognition of the Jewish State ( This is a key Israeli demand) therefore as the Jews have there own State they forfiet their 'right of return' to this Palestinian State.( and all other Islamic countries they have fled) In other words its a "tit for tat" workable solution. Sari Nusseibeh should be made President of PA so peace can be realised. Hugh Fitzgerald's whole rant attacking the validity of the moderate palestinian voice is a 'castle made of sand' built on a dodgy biased transcript. The moderate voices are necessary for lasting peace , you are as bad as the Islamists in trying to sideline them. As for the poisoning of wells ... fixation turns to madness!
Shy Guy,
After reading your link about Moshe Feiglin, I called a Palestinian-Christian friend from Haifa. Because this friend, like many Christians in the Galil, is a strong supporter of Likud, I knew he would be familiar with him.
He agreed that Feiglin would be an ideal PM. He told me that when Ehud Barak sold out the Christians of the South Lebanon Army, Moshe Feiglin was one of the strongest voices opposing that betrayal. Sadly, however, he says that Netanyahu will be the Likud candidate and that there is too much bad blood between Netanyahu and Feiglin for the two to be reconciled.
My friend said he would still vote for Netanyahu if he's the best Israel can get, but he doesn't trust him. The reason is Hebron. How can the indigenous Christians trust Netanyahu not to betray them if he so easily betrayed his fellow-Jews in Hebron. On the other hand, if Olmert is not removed soon, there may be no Israel left for Jews or Christians.
David Xavier, who is almost certain not to be with us much longer, calls my reminding visitors that Israel is entitled, under the League of Nations Mandate for Palestine, to keep the entire "West Bank" a rant. But Israel is not required to give up its legal claim, under the terms of that Mandate (and the Mandates of the League of Nations still in force were taken over, without change, by the United Nations at its founding). It is not required to give up its moral claiim or its historic claim. It is not required to believe that the post-war settlements by which all kinds of territory has been transferred from one sovereignty to another, after every war, somehow are not to apply in the singular case of Israel. We all know how many border changes, throughout Europe, and population changes as well, occurred after World War II. But let's all recall how, after World War I, Italy was given Austria's Sudtirol region, which which became part of Italy, even though its population was 96% German-speaking and considered itself to be part of Deutschtum. Do you think Italy illegitimately possesses what is now called the Alto Adige? No? Yes? Why is this case different from that of Israel?
The analogy about a "Mexican" settlement in Montana is absurd. Did the civilized nations in conclave assmembled create a Mandate for Montana that specifically allotted that state's territory for the "estabalishment of the Mexican National home" through "close Mexican settlement on the land"? Did the Mexicans have some overwhelming claim, legal, moral, and historic, to Montana? Has the American government been waging non-stop war, diplomatic, economic, and military, against Mexico, as the Arabs have against Israel, and did the Mexicans, in a war of self-defense against an implacable foe, manage to capture the territory from the Rio Grande all the way to Montana (somewhat larger than the tiny area that constitutes the "West Bank")? The analogy doesn't hold, nor the purported argument which it accompanies.
I have reluctantly, even as a left winger, come to the decision that the only way in which Israel will gain secure borders will be to expel the Arabs of Gaza and the West Bank into the Arab states and settle the land to secure the Jewish State.
The alternative is too precarious in the face of increasing threats to the lives and viability of Israel's citizens. "Population exchanges" have been done in the past (notably after 1945) and can bring peace, or at least a more secure state of hostilities.
The Arabs of Gaza and the West Bank do not deserve their current rulers, but then continue supporting them.
If the Israelis lose military control of the "West Bank," lose control, that is, of the traditional invasion route from the East, they will be unable to defend themselves.
Exactly. We all know how the Israelis were unable to defend themselves in 1967. Oh, wait. . .
Seamus, STFU. You want to see how they defend themselves again? Do you really want to see that?
Seamus, are you, like I, a son of Ireland? Do you care that England still occupies 1/6th of our island? Or are you one of those "single international issue" activists?
Why SHOULD the Israelis "force themselves" to defend themselves, yet again? And the next time WOULD be different: the Arabs now have mobile-launchable rockets that will rain shells down all over Israel, remember what happened last year in Lebannon?
Before I show my self to the door:
I was going to slam Mr Fitzgerald's "straw man " response, but this has lead to a problem with my position - I, of course do not dispute Israel's legal "mandate" claims , it rights over lands it won , its historical rights , its moral rights in establishing a moral society and terraforming desert to green. BUT it is the Stated policy of Israel to trade these 'rights' for peace...which would lead to a Palestinian State. Sari Nusseibeh explained that the establishment of a Palestinian would require a trade-off of Palestinian rights..like the "right of return". Once , AFTER , the Palestinian State is formed ..Israeli citizens could not claim to live in Hebron for example( for they have traded this right) as have Palestinians for there "right of return".
Here is my problem:
If Israel has legal , historic , moral rights to its existance and to lands it has won in defense as I concede. What is the source of Sari Nusseibeh's 'right of return'? There is no right to return , it is a demand. It is a "Demand" masquraeding as "right" ( yes I can hear the intonation "and this is a characteristic of which religion ..mmmh"). So Sari Nusseibeh is willing to trade his "demand for return" - read: Demand for the disappearance of the Jewish State - for real rights , that Israel has over its post 1967 territory. It has a name its called extortion ... I can only concede this will obviously lead to more demands without promise of relief.
"it is the Stated policy of Israel to trade these 'rights' for peace..."
-- from a posting above
The policy makes no sense, and those who understand the texts, tenets, attitudes of Islam, and are willing to recognize rather than deny them, know that the policy makes no sense. Just because Israel has a political class far less capable than what the people of Israel need and deserve, and that political class has succumbed to pressure from outside and from within -- for it has failed to instruct its own population, and in failing to instruct, has made its own task of protecting that population more difficult -- doesn't mean that the government of Israel must stick with this ridiculous phrase, and ridiculous idea, of "trading land for peace." It is not the victor, but the vanquished who trade land for peace. Israel needs to be reminded that it won the war in 1948. And in 1967. And in 1973. It gave up, foolishly, the entire Sinai, to a country, Egypt, that had a claim to that entire Sinai that went back only to the 1920s (surprised at that? so many people are). It gave up Gaza, or at least destroyed Jewish villages, some of which long predated the founding of the state of Israel, and all of which had a perfect legal and moral right to remain therer. It now proposes to give up parts of the Arab-occupied "West Bank." These lands contain the aquifers, and lay athwart the historic invasion routes from the east, from Jordan. Such a further surrender is uncalled-for, unnecesary, suicidal. It must not take place. The government of Olmert and Haim Ramon must somehow be undone, or held in check until the next election. Israel deserves better. And so, if it knew what was good for it, does the rest of the Infidel world, whose fate is tied, but in a way that is the reverse of the way it has been led to believe, to Israel's ability to not yield to outside pressure, and not to feed Arab and Muslim triumphalism that will have obvious consequences for the Infidels of Western Europe.
So it is perpetual conflict? Of infinite hate ? Of forever manning the barricades... waiting for the miracle ... waiting for the oil to run out? I cannot accept that!
"So it is perpetual conflict? Of infinite hate ? Of forever manning the barricades... waiting for the miracle ... waiting for the oil to run out? I cannot accept that!"
-- from a highly revealing posting above
You "cannot accept that!" In other words, you simply refuse to "accept" the reality of what is contained in Qur'an, Hadith, and Sira. You refuse to "accept" the idea that Muslims are taught that they have a central duty to participate in the "struggle" or Jihad to spread Islam, to tear down all barriers to that spread, and then to the dominance, of Islam. You "cannot accept" the idea that Muslims might be inculcated with the notion that the main, the only real division that counts, in the world is that between Believer and Infidel. You simply won't "accept" the Muslim view of Dar al-Islam as necessarily expanding at the expense of Dar al-Harb. You won't "accept" the notion that the Muslim Arabs (aided, for reasons that should be obvious, by those local Arabs who can be considered islamochristians, that is those who while nominally "Christians" are also keenly aware of the need to try to win Muslim favor, or at last avoid Muslim disfavor, and have internalized the Muslim view and promote, especially among credulous Christians in the West, the Muslim agenda, the Muslim goals. You won't "accept" the idea that the Muslims will never, can never, agree to permit an Infidel nation-state to exist indefinitely in the middle of Dar al-islam, on land that the Muslims once controlled. You won't allow yourself to think that just possibly this is not the end of the world, requiring one to engage in avoidance of this unpleasnat reaality. You won't allow yourself to begin to think of ways that Israel, without surrendering what it has a legal, moral, and historic right to possess, can still survive -- not by further dangerous surrenders of land and control of invasion routes and aquifers and refusing to make its own claims known to the world, and refusing to publicly raise the matter of Islam and the goals of islam, but by intelligently refusing any more farcical "peace processing" and instead relying on the only thing that has ever kept the peace between Israel and the Arabs. And that is the Arab persecption that Israel was overwhelmingly more powerful. That poweer must not be whittled away by succumbing to salami-like tactics, pushed by the Slow Jihadists. It must not be whittled away by an Israeli political elite that consists, so often, of people who have over time been corrupted (often by rich American "supporters of Israel" who know nothing about Islam, but presume to know what concessions Israel should make, and presume further to know all about the "legitimate rights" of the "Palestinian people"), who are mentally and emotiionally exhausted, and who cannot see clearly what the real situation of Israel is, and always will be, and lack the intelligence and mental stamina to figure out what must be done, and can be done.
The Cold War lasted 70 years. It looked as if it would go on forever. Finally, the Soviet Union collapsed. It is now an unpleasant place, the Soviet Union. But it is not the threat that it once was. The Russians do not control eastern and central Europe. "World Communism" is no longer a menace. Communists exist, as do Nazis, but they do not possess the power to do damage. If Israel holds on, there are reasons to think that the Money Weapon will diminish, and many of those insisting on it may have not the slightest interest in Israel's survival, or in the menace of Islma, but will be prompted by alarm over anthropogenic climate change. There is reason to think that the entire Infidel world will have to come to its senses about Islam, and help to work to demoralize and divide the Camp of Islam, and even pick off by appealing to the sense of grievance of non-Arab Muslims, attempting to woo them away from Islam.
That appeal can be based on two things. It can be based on view of Islam as a vehicle for Arab imperialism, linguistic, cultural, and political and economic as well. It can be based on the fact that Infidels may grasp first, and then in showing that they grasp it, force Muslims to recognize it too, that the failures, political, economic, social, intellectual, and moral, of Muslim states and societies, in or out of Dar al-Islam, are directly connnected to Islam itself, with its discouragement of independent thought, its collectivism, its inculcating a habit of mental submission.
This can be done. But you can't think in those terms. It's just too upsetting to think about the reality, and then too difficult to think -- good god, I've done the thinking for you, in a thousand postings on this very subject -- about how the principle of "Darura" or "necessity" may be invoked by the rulers in the circumjacent Arab Muslim states to excuse their failure to attack Israel.
No. You just are going to stomp your foot and say, about the doctrine of permanent Jihad, that "I cannot accept that."
You remind me of Margaret Fuller, the Transcendentalist of Concord, who was reported to have said "I accept the universe!" Hearing this, Carlyle said (perhaps to Emerson, whom he met), "By gad, she'd better."
By gad, you'd better accept the reality of Islam, and the doctrine of Jihad. And so should those who presume to instruct and protect the people of Israel.
Nusseibeh talks out of both sides of his mouth, like most politicians, even Arabs, although he probably means what he says about NO JEWS in "East Jerusalem."
First a personal note on Nusseibeh, his family owned the "Jerusalem Electric Company" set up under Jordanian rule. Israel allowed this outfit to continue operating in Judea-Samaria and liberated parts of Jerusalem after 1967. My family too once got its electricity from this company and paid bills to them. There were quite a few blackouts, especially in the winter. The company had a coal-powered generating station in northeastern Jerusalem, between French Hill and `Anata [in the Shu`afat neighborhood, I recall]. The soot came down in nearby areas, Jewish and Arab alike, depending on wind direction.
More recently, my wife was a patient in the Hadassah Hospital on Mount Scopus. In a room not far from hers was Sari Nusseibeh's wife. So Nusseibeh didn't mind letting his wife be treated and hospitalized in that Jewish hospital, although there is an Arab hospital in the city, too, not so far from Mt Scopus. This is the Al-Mukasad Hospital on the Mount of Olives, which is a fairly big hospital. Maybe Nusseibeh is considered a "moderate" because he lets his wife be treated in a Jewish hospital.
As to rights to "east Jerusalem," the Jews have been the absolute majority of the population in Jerusalem since about 1850, more than 150 years ago. This is attested in a book by French historian and diplomat, Cesar Famin, L'Histoire de la rivalite et du protectorat des eglises chretiennes en Orient, published in 1853. At that time, the Old City --which is in the eastern part of the city today-- was the whole city. There was no "East Jerusalem" until 1948 when the Arabs drove Jews out of their homes in the Old City and in the eastern parts of the New City [that is, outside the walls of the Old City]. In 1920, before the first Arab pogrom against Jews in Jerusalem, instigated by certain British officials of the military government of that time [Col. Waters-Taylor, Ernest Richmond, etc], Jews lived in the Jewish, Muslim, and Christian quarters of the Old City, as well as in several neighborhoods of the New City from which Jews were driven out in the series of pogroms starting in 1920, and in the attacks by Arabs using firearms starting in December 1947. This Arab-perpetrated "ethnic cleansing" produced what the Arabs now call "east Jerusalem." Mount Scopus, where Nusseibeh's wife was hospitalized and treated, was an Israeli-held enclave [surrounded by Arab-held areas] throughout the 19 years of Jordanian occupation, as agreed in the armistice accords signed at Rhodes in 1949.
Having personally met and spoken with Shmuel Sackett, Feiglin's partner in Zo Artzeinu (This is Our Land), I do agree that Moshe Feiglin is the real deal. He is so completely different from the typical Israeli politician that he might succeed where others have failed. Unapologetically faithful, Zionist and Nationalist, he seeks to unite the silent majority of Israel - those who declare themselves either religious or traditional.
Although he, too, might buckle under State Dept. pressure, as nearly every Israeli PM has done in the past, I would like to see him have a chance to prove himself. When asked what Feiglin would do in the face of American threats to cut financial aid unless Israel complied with U.S. demands, Sackett claims he would stand firm. The money? God would provide the money (or eliminate the need for it) if Israel's leaders did the right thing. The web site linked above to Moshe Feiglin should be a required bookmark for any supporter of the Jewish State of Israel.
One other, albeit somewhat less promising, candidate, is Aryeh Eldad. His approach is to galvanize Israel's Nationalist-Zionist youth, in the hope that, once they become voters, things would change. His Knesset seat from a very small party does present a challenge, however.
Oh, I almost forgot - In the Israeli system, Feiglin's Jewish Leadership faction would actually wield significant power in a Likud/Netanyahu-lead government. Feiglin has enough support within Likud to at least push back against more land-for-peace deals and other such nonsense.
Feiglin has done better in each of three successive Likud primary elections, most recently winning about 21% of the vote. Between party membership drives and the old guard fading away, Feiglin could one day lead Likud. (I only pray that Israel has that much time left.)
So, Nationalist-Zionist Israelis should absolutely register with and vote for Likud. IMHO, it's the best option available, and the one avenue that might eventually put a guy like Feiglin in office.
David,
Difference of viewpoint aside, I did think I owed you an apology for questioning your motives (which are, after all, beside the point) and for expressing misgivings or suspicions towards you in your absence, not directly; for anything unkind or disrespectful--you should track my recent posts left in your wake.
John C
It is Christmas break and I have just come back from the beach ...I didnt even know Benazir Bhutto had been assassinated till an hour ago ..so I am playing catchup.
OK after leaping over the 'boilerplate' we come to the "There are reasons to believe..." part of Mr Fitzgerald's narrative. In this he suggests that , like the 70 year old Cold War , the Islamic threat will too will pass - it will " not possess the power to do damage". There are reasons to believe....that the oil "money weapon" will dry up (aided by Climate change) , the West will have a revelation about Islam and proactively engage it. And this western engagement would be to wedge Arab and Non- Arab Muslims via the Arab centricity of Islam . Also the 'Infidels' will force Muslims into the recognition of the connection of Islam to the 'developmental gap' of Islamic communities ( compared with non-Islamic culturally similar peoples and indeed the west.)
I once read on Ali Sina's site , his telling of a Pakistani Intellectual who expressed disgust that the West and ( especially) Israel produced many, many more Noble prize winners per capita that the Islamic world. His solution was that Muslims must embrace Islam more and follow the Koran more closely. ( Sort of like going to sleep in the snow isnt it ) . The more light , the more the pupils contract - and any excuse will do if the ideology is strong , and the well 'suffused' and 'inculcated' Islam is particularily tough. Someone once wrote: ideology functions as a machine to destroy information even at the price of making assertions in clear contradiction of evidence ( sounds like the 'Duranty Times'), hence conspiracy theories while common place everywhere, are especially believed in Islamic countries - testimony to the grip Islam has. As to wedging the Arabness of Islam , some of the Non Arab countries, at least according this site seem to be more ' Islam' than the Arab countries, one of which has nukes and another is intently trying to get them ( though Intelligence reports seem to discount this..mmmh).And while there may be antipathy between each other it doesnt actually decrease 'Islamic' urges toward the unbelievers.
Of course all this depends on the West coming to its senses about Islam and then doing something about it , again another ideological barrier , that is White Western trait of liberalism and multiculturalism especially as expressed by the 'forth estate' ( or is that fifth column) as well as by politicians of all persausions to various degrees. ( think of Olmert and Edwards or Obama as a perfect storm). Climate change and peak oil are long term propositions and the Cold war comparison is just plain old wrong . For one thing the Soviets were rational, MAD worked because of it - the Islamic jihadists are apparently irrational ( this is a point of some distinction). Another thing is that there was an empire to defeat - when the USSR collapsed , the Cold war ended. What if the equivalent has already happened to Islam ( that the dissolved Turkish Caliphate is equivalent to the former USSR) ..and Islam is like the "Mummy" , it keeps on getting resurrected by evil minions. Whats more , these evil minions exist in a world that have WMD's and they will always seek ways to 'possess the power to do damage'.
My point is that none of the solutions are going to be quick or rapid . When Mr Fitzgerald talks about "reasons to believe .." he is really expressing a hope , and all of his ' solutions' are at least 'medium' term hopes. So that manning the barricades is the necessary action for the short term. You cant help forgive the Israeli political class of seeking a shorter term solution. That they feel they havent the time or the strength or support to outlast Islam... and in the age of WMDs. they are probably right. That they/me say we 'can not accept' forever manning the barricades ...is an expression of hope , no less than that of Mr Fitzgeralds.