Jihad Watch Board Vice President Hugh Fitzgerald surveys the prospects for Peace In Our Time in the Middle East:
Condoleeza Rice cannot possibly allow herself to believe that Arab Muslims do not wish to make peace, that Hamas and Islamic Jihad are not a rump group, and that Abbas himself is just one more in a long line. He worked loyally for Arafat for decades, obeying his every command, which tells you all you need to know about the intellectual and moral qualities of this Western-suited “slow” Jihadist. (Yes, like “Fast Food” and “Slow Food,” there are “fast Jihadists” — Al-Qaeda, Hezbollah, Hamas, Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, Islamic Jihad, Gemaa Islamiyya and a thousand others, too numerous to… — and “slow” Jihadists, the by-degrees Jihadists, who wish to avoid outright military confrontation but to engage in Al-Hudabiyya-like diplomacy. They thereby intend to obtain concession after hopeful concession from the other side while never ceasing for a minute to undercut, undermine, and weaken that “partner for peace,” and never once dropping any of the ultimate demands or goals. For how could a Muslim Arab ever really reconcile himself to a state, a sovereign state, a sovereign Infidel state, a sovereign Infidel state run by Jews, a state for so long despised, a state that stands as a permanent reproach to the failure of the Arabs and Muslims to dislodge them?)
But while the Lesser Jihad against Israel proceeds on two levels — the “Fast Jihad” and the “Slow Jihad,” Hamas and Abbas, take your pick — the Greater Jihad is having success all over Western Europe. This success may be attributed to appeasement, confusion and fear among many Infidels (not all, but almost all among the ruling elites), who have convinced themselves that large numbers of Muslims can be integrated and pose no permanent threat to Infidels. But they do. Their mere presence, and hence the power that comes from that presence, serves to inhibit free discussion and the adoption of measures to regulate and control, or diminish, what is — if understood rightly — a large group of people now settled rather comfortably behind enemy lines. Meanwhile, those enemies, the Infidels, are doing everything in their power to extend a welcome and make the malevolent intruders and squatters quite as much at home as they demand.
In Gaza, things are proceeding exactly as one would have expected, if one were not Condoleeza Rice, who perhaps is listening to Brent Scowcroft, her former protector and mentor, or perhaps feels that like her boss, she has no obligation to study what Islam is all about. Her studying days are over. Once you rise high, and the higher you rise, the less the need to actually keep learning.
“As for living, our servants will do that for us,” Villiers de l’Isle-Adam famously said.
“As for studying (Islam), our staff members will do that for us,” says with one voice Official Washington. And just how likely is it that those young, overworked, exploited, busy with their 2-page summaries of complicated matters, young staff members will themselves have enough time to study matters? And not merely study them, but take them home to live with them, familiarize themselves not just with what Islamic texts contain, but the reception of those texts, and the acting-out of those texts in time and space? And it is still more difficult to become thoroughly familiar with all the ways that Islam can be deceptively presented: the ignoring of texts in the Qur’an and of details of Muhammad’s life recorded in the Sira; selective quotation from the Qur’an; or misleading presentation of material from the Qur’an (where the words need to be glossed for the innocent Infidel to become aware of what Muslims take those words to mean. All of this takes time to sink in, to understand, and then to be able to convey it. And staff members do not have that chance. They cannot spend large amounts of time tutoring their employers and masters.
If Condoleeza Rice and Bush and company think that relying on the smooth words of the latest group of Islamic apologists will help them navigate the Middle East, they will continue to be subjected to rude awakenings. But they are very sound sleepers. They have gotten beyond the Espositos, but are stuck in the “moderate” Muslim rut and the “Light-Unto-the-Muslim-Nations” project. They don’t know how, and don’t know why, the project itself is a Fool’s Errand, and prevents intelligent exploitation of what Iraq offers the Infidels: two kinds of fissures within Islam that were not created yesterday and will not disappear tomorrow, and that need not be exaggerated by Infidels — but Infidels should stop squandering resources in an attempt to limit the width of those fissures.
Gaza is part of the Lesser Jihad. Mistakes are being made by Sharon, who fails to take into account Muslim morale and Muslim triumphalism. He also fails to take into sufficient account Israel’s own claims, which — like most Israeli leaders — he has never been good at articulating cleverly, memorably, and convincingly, though those claims are overwhelming.
Iraq, on the other hand, and the kinds of opportunities it presents — the false kind, on which our government is lavishing and squandering so much, and the true kind, which can best be taken advantage of, paradoxically, by not spending money, expending lives, and using up desert-degraded equipment — is part of the Greater Jihad. This is the one that takes in the entire world, and can be found wherever Muslims are in sufficient quantities to make impossible demands, harbor ridiculous resentments, and conduct merciless persecution or warfare against all Infidels: Buddhists in Thailand, because that’s what they have in Thailand; Hindus in Bangladesh and Pakistan and Kashmir, because that’s what they have in Kashmir and Pakistan and Bangladesh; Christians and Confucians and Hindus in Indonesia, because that’s what they have, by way of Infidels, in Indonesia; and so on, from the Sudan and Nigeria all the way up to the major cities of Western Europe, which are becoming increasingly unpleasant, expensive, and dangerous for the indigenous (or visiting) Infidels.
Watch Gaza and the Lesser Jihad. Don’t think to yourself: ah, well, sorry, but Israel must be thrown to the wolves. We can’t worry about Israel. Instead, realize this: as Israel goes, so goes everyone else. If the Muslims were to triumph there, either through the “Fast Jihad” of Hamas and company, or the “Slow Jihad” of cautious, thoughtful, corrupt, meretricious, and sweetly murderous Abbas and company, the sense of determination to then take Andaluz and to go on everywhere — for Allah clearly will be on their side — would be a fearful and possibly unstoppable thing.
The Western world has been intent on appeasement. The coin of that appeasement has until recently been paid with the security and the rights of the Israelis. But now it is being paid in other ways as well. If the appeasement is to stop, it cannot be permitted here, and here, and there, but must stop everywhere.