[Israel take note]
Review: Nothing Less Than Victory
By Edward Cline
The last engaging book I read on the means and ends of warfare before John Lewis’s was a 2009 abridged version of Winston Churchill’s The River War, originally published in 1899. Its original, full title included An Historical Account of the Reconquest of the Soudan.
The term “reconquest” was misleading, because the Sudan had never before been “conquered” by the British, but was under the jurisdiction of Egypt, then a protectorate of Britain. Egypt was unable to deal militarily with the Dervish forces that meant to conquer it. It fell to Britain extinguish the Mahdist or Islamic threat, which, unchecked, could well have spread from Egypt to the rest of North Africa and the Middle East.
General Herbert Kitchener was tasked with that formidable project. Churchill describes the meticulous and determined campaign he waged, which was not just a matter of sending an army into the desert wastes to fight fanatical tribesmen. It meant reforming the corrupt and ineffectual Egyptian government, rebuilding the Egyptian army and its Sudanese levies, building a railroad into enemy territory, and mastering the stupendous logistics of supplies and men. The stated objective was to erase the Mahdist regime as a military and political threat in the whole region. The climax of the campaign was the Battle of Omdurman in September 1898, in which the Dervish army was utterly decimated and routed.
In the end, over a year later, the successor of Mahdi Muhammad Ahmed, Abdallah ibn Muhammad, was killed and the remnants of his forces routed at the Battle of Umm Diwaykarat.
The Sudan Campaign had clear military and political objectives. The British government then had the will to take the necessary actions to destroy an enemy and discredit the ideology that moved it.
Churchill noted in The River War that, ” The fact that in Mohammedan law every woman must belong to some man as his absolute property – either as a child, a wife, or a concubine – must delay the final extinction of slavery until the faith of Islam has ceased to be a great power among men.”
In short, Islam, like the Nazi, Fascist, and Shinto ideologies which compelled Germany, Italy, and Japan to invade other countries, must be repudiated by the aggressor and cease to be regarded by its adherents and converts as a feasible and desired ideology that fosters “peace.”
This comports with the main theme of John David Lewis’s seminal work on the efficacious “warfighting” policies of the past, Nothing Less Than Victory: Decisive Wars and the Lessons of History (Princeton University Press, 2010). That “great power” comes in many disguises. Lewis tackles some of them.
Lewis, however, does not immediately discuss 20th century conflicts, but wars of antiquity, using them as overtures to his discussions of the Civil War and World Wars One and Two, underscoring the need, in warfare, of a government to have the will to identify an enemy and his morality or ideology, and then the will to fight the war on its own terms, and not those of the enemy. What is more, the attacked nation must be willing to eviscerate the enemy’s will to fight on to foreshorten the conflict and possibly establish a peace beneficial to the former opponents.
In each of the conflicts that he illustrates, Lewis economically dwells on military strategies of opponents, but places far more importance on the moral force, or lack of it, that guides one side to victory and the other to defeat. In his Introduction to Nothing Less Than Victory, Lewis states:
Those who wage war to enslave a continent – or to impose their dictatorships over a neighboring state – are seeking an end that is deeply immoral and must not be judged morally equal to those defending against such attacks.
Further on he notes:
Certainly the tactics of Roman foot soldiers cannot be applied to tank divisions today, but the Romans might be able to tell us something about the motivations of a stateless enemy that is subverting a world power….The goal of war is the subjugation of the hostile will, which echoes Carl von Clausewitz’s identification that war is ‘an act of force to compel the enemy to do our will.’
This is Lewis’s only indirect reference to Islamic jihad. Today, Islam is the “stateless enemy” subverting a world power (the U.S.), but the U.S. lacks to will to identify that enemy and take the necessary steps to vanquish it. (Lewis does not discuss the Islamic jihad, but all the points he makes about other wars may be applied to that species of aggression.)
There is an eerie parallel between the current situation and Lewis’s Chapter Six, “The Balm of a Guilty Conscience,” which details the evasions, fallacious soul-searching, and moral disintegration of British diplomacy in the face of the evolving and maturing nemesis of Nazi Germany before the onset of World War Two. As Lewis demonstrates in that chapter, British and Allied concessions to Hitler abetted the maturation of Hitler’s régime to the point that Hitler could confidently plan and embark on his conquests. Lewis demonstrates novelist/philosopher Ayn Rand’s observation that
Do not confuse appeasement with tactfulness or generosity. Appeasement is not consideration for the feelings of others, it is consideration for and compliance with the unjust, irrational and evil feelings of others. It is a policy of exempting the emotions of others from moral judgment, and of willingness to sacrifice innocent, virtuous victims to the evil malice of such emotions.
In a brilliant dissection of the causes of the rise of Nazism, Lewis pinpoints those “feelings” stemming from the Versailles Treaty of 1919, in which the victors laid blame for World War One squarely on Germany’s aggresions, but which German politicians and moralists interpreted as an unjust victimization of Germany. It is in this chapter that Lewis best explicates the differences between an aggressor nation’s surrender and itsdefeat.
Germany, he writes, surrendered without admitting defeat. Over time, British and Allied governments were persuaded – or persuaded themselves – that German feelings and assertions of victimization and humiliation were justified, and incrementally, in a succession of concessions, allowed Hitler to cement his power over Germany, and later waived all moral judgment for his takeovers of Austria, the Sudetenland, and Czechoslovakia, not to mention his determined rearmament in violation of the Treaty’s terms.
Craven British diplomatic maneuvering and peace-hankering newspapers pressured France into making conciliations. France, devastated by the German invasion and depredations in the first war, and which stood the most to lose if Germany rearmed, initially took steps to enforce the Treaty’s terms, but was browbeaten into submission by “public opinion” and the Allies virtual abandonment of the Treaty. After the invasions of Poland, Belgium, and the Netherlands, France was the next country targeted by the wrath of Germany’s vengeful feelings.
I guarantee that anyone who reads Chapter Six will emerge with an enriched and refocused understanding of the causes of World War Two. Complementing that chapter is “Gifts from Heaven,” in which he discusses how and why the Shinto/Bushido culture of Imperial Japan had to be gutted from top to bottom, beginning with the Emperor clear down through Japanese politics to the schoolroom, as an integral element of the American defeat of Japan to ensure that it would never again formulate a design for conquest. It was necessary for Japan not only to surrender, but to admit to the world and to its citizens the ignominiousdefeat of its philosophy of existence, which was essentially a philosophy of death.
Grant Jones, in his 2010 review of Lewis’s book in Michigan War Studies Review, reprises Lewis’s comparison of the strategies adopted by Civil War Generals George McClellan and William T. Sherman in Chapter Five, “The Hard Hand of War.” McClellan, notes Lewis, was a superb administrator but a poor strategist, hamstrung by an ambivalent attitude towards his own troops and absent a clear goal.
Lewis shows that Sherman was cut from different cloth, not by focusing on his famous Marches, but by examining the moral force behind his ruthless strategy to destroy the Southern planter class. In looking at Sherman’s correspondence with John Bell Hood, Lewis discerns the elements that together made Sherman’s strategy so effective: properly assigning war guilt, developing an understanding of both one’s own society and the enemy’s, identifying the enemy’s vital center, and defining victory.
Lewis sums up Sherman’s famous “War is cruelty” response to Confederate entreaties that he moderate his policies: “These familiar passages cut to the heart of Sherman’s attitude toward an enemy that had started a war that his command now charged him to end: he accepted no guilt for a war that was not of his making. This sense of rightness allowed him to prosecute the war to its conclusion quickly, with his force directed at the true source of southern power rather than merely at military positions dependent upon that power.
Lewis briefly discusses the failed war policy of Vietnam, and further rebuts the many and varied arguments that the U.S. should not have used atomic bombs on Japan. He concludes his rebuttals with:
All weapons – from bowie knives to hydrogen bombs – are designed to kill, and there is a scale of destructiveness on which they fall….To break the Japanese leadership out of their ideological blunders and end the war, American leaders needed to kill a lot of Japanese in a visibly shocking way. The resulting shock led to an immediate end to the war.
The alternative, as described in detail by Lewis, was a massive invasion of Japan whose population was being exhorted to fight the Americans to the death with sticks and stones, thus prolonging the war and resulting in incalculable American casualties.
Compare America’s warfighting philosophy then with that which has governed our actions in Iraq and Afghanistan, governed by “just war theory” which deliberately, at the cost of American lives and treasure, spares enemy populations of the consequences of their active or passive support of their masters.
Lewis’s book is not a cobbled-together collection of arbitrary, hindsight anecdotes, but one that takes the rare examples of proper warfighting policy adopted by aggressed-upon nations, and drives home the principles behind his thesis. The logical progression of his examples is enlightening and indisputable.
Lewis, a classical studies scholar, is the author of two previous books on the politics and judicial thought of antiquity, Solon the Thinker: Political Thought in Archaic Athens (Duckworth Publishers, 2008), and Early Greek Lawgivers (Duckworth Publishers, 2007).
So it is not coincidence that he chose to illustrate his thesis in the first four chapters of Nothing Less Than Victory, covering the Greco-Persian Wars, the Theban war against Sparta, the Second Punic War, and Roman Emperor Aurelian’s campaigns to prevent the disintegration of the Roman Empire. In each of these chapters he illustrates the efficacy of the policy of taking the war to the aggressor enemy’s land for the sole purpose of deflating the aggressor’s moral motivation.
Lewis concludes his nonpareil survey with this advisement:
Sic vis pacem, para bellum. Or – If you want peace, prepare for war.
yamit82 Said:
sadddam, Noriega and even Morsi were considered allies and then unceremoniously deposed. the nature of their fates indicate welching on a deal, extorting on a deal, threatning exposure, getting too big and independent for brithches OR all of the above.
Right now I see the US and western interests “wroughting” to re-take control of Iraq(at least oil). Assads rejection of the saudi western pipeline gave russia and iran even more leverage over oil supply , especially euro oil supply. I beleive the effort is to re establish control over routes of supply. Libya is a major transhipment location for oil and other resources to europe. Ghaddafi got too big for his britches when seeking to sell europes oil to china. (I am aware of the gold dinar argument).
yamit82 Said:
russian proxies flex and send a message in Ukraine while western proxies flex and send a message in Iraq/Syria. The capture of Mosul etc was a result of withdrawal by Iraq troops as opposed to war.
Is this coincidence or Yalta?
yamit82 Said:
LOL,must start?????
to me this has obviously been planned for years. I am now convinced that ISIL is just another GCC controlled mercenary org completely in sync with western and US interests. The creation of separate Jihadi orgs is done to obfuscate, confuse and most importantly to provide plausible deniability: E.G. EVERYONE IS ABLE TO DENY CONNECTIONS TO ISIL. This includes Saudi(GCC), NATO, EU, US, Turkey, Jordan….all those connected with the funding and training of Jihadis in syria exposed at Benghazi. Note the Mosul hostage taking of Turkish diplomats in Mosul mimicking the Iran US hostages: this provides Turkey distance. Note the recent threats to slaughter Abdullah by ISIL, this provides Jordan distance.
They worked for the US and the Saudis before. The mix is not indicative of islamist but rather of pragmatist. the jihadis promote the terror and head chopping that make everyone flee in fear and the baathists provide the military organization. this is a political proxy and not a crazy islamist jihad terror group. they are organized pragmatically to provide the best results which everyone MUST DISOWN.
Furthermore, has anyone considered the real extent of the “terrorism”? videos are made and released to scare everyone but videos were made of al dura, benghazi, jenin. we only have the same press to go on that gave us the hundreds of thousands of “massacred” pals at Jenin.
the original invasion of Kuwait in 1990 was said to have commenced upon the whispering of the “OK” by the US ambassador in saddams ear. for all we know, all this “spontaneous and unexplainable” war is the result of some “whisperings” between leaders. The “wars” may simply be the drama of choice that firms up the “whispered” agreements. Actually even Russia and Iran are benefiting(Crimea, higher oil prices) from current events, plus everyone gets to keep their populations engrossed and enthralled with the unfolding drama.
There is no need for direct involvement by the US especially after the exposure of that involvement at bengahzi. Hence the false distancing of Obama from involvement in Syria. Another false distancing is that of Sisi which had to be engineered due to US law re coups. But no problem, saudi stepped in during the interval and Sisi was provided his best support for winning: a quarrel with the infidel US. I predict the return of the US to support of sisi at the appropriate time. If needed Sisi will provide the troops for any major GCC conventional war.
@ yamit82:
Thank you for your comment, I shall return to the nunnery where I belong. Does hiding from world make one safe from the tragedies of life. Thank you for the names of the missing boys, my cousin’s son is studying Torah in Israel. Believe it or not he is considered the “family’s disgrace”. One may be a Jew, but not religious,
Rebels down Ukraine military plane, killing 49
Separatists use large-caliber machine gun to hit Ilyushin-76 about to land at Lugansk airport
Read more: Rebels down Ukraine military plane, killing 49 | The Times of Israel http://www.timesofisrael.com/rebels-down-ukraine-military-plane-killing-troops/#ixzz34captorV
Oil prices spike as Islamists march on Baghdad
Escalation of violence in Iraq, OPEC’s second-largest producer of oil, could send crude skyrocketing and trigger another recession
Read more: Oil prices spike as Islamists march on Baghdad | The Times of Israel http://www.timesofisrael.com/oil-prices-spike-as-islamists-march-on-baghdad/#ixzz34caPLtk1
@ honeybee:
The real fallout from SHOCK AND AWE
____________________________________________________
Marginalized by Maliki, Iraq’s Sunnis turned violent
West must start viewing Iraq, Syria and Lebanon as one battlefield, says former adviser to the US military
Read more: Marginalized by Maliki, Iraq’s Sunnis turned violent | The Times of Israel http://www.timesofisrael.com/marginalized-by-maliki-iraqs-sunnis-turned-violent/#ixzz34cXUVVS6
Follow us: @timesofisrael on Twitter | timesofisrael on Facebook
Officials release identities of teens who disappeared near Hebron
The three are Gil-ad Shaar, Naftali Frenkel and Elad Yifrach; Ya’alon: Our working assumption is boys are still alive
@ honeybee:
@ honeybee:
Too late for that they will go to ground and hide with civilian populations. No they have all the weaponry we gave to Iraq which includes anti aircraft missiles like stingers etc. This is a mobile group not one in static positions and the local populations among most Sunni are probably supportive because they hate the Shia more.
One of the main reasons for the collapse of 2 divisions is that the Americans put a Shia government in power who disenfranchised the Sunni minority and they were not about to defend and die fro a Shia government, especially one who kept the Sunnis from any position of power and authority….
In this case most of the Blame goes to Bush and the neo-cons which was acerbated by Obama…
You friend Levin will never explain the real truth that if the major export of Iraq was Broccoli America would never have invaded Iraq. Saddam was Rumsfeld’s Golden boy for almost a decade. It was he who gave Saddam the green light to invade Kuwait as the oil fields of Kuwait historically belonged to Iraq.
Problem with Levin is that he is a right wing fanatic clothed in populist constitutional and conservative garb. Ever hear his defense of the Invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan?
Fact: Both Saddam and Afghanistan were Bulwarks against Iranian Expansion… No look what America has wrought!!!!
yamit82 Said:
We share the same instinct.
@ yamit82:
YOU !!!!! I watched Mark Levin on Fox this afternoon and he believe we must stop Isis with air power. I don’t know how much military experience he has, so again I must go to you for comment.
@ the phoenix:
I live in a treeless grassland: http://www.poemsbypost.com/?p=844
CuriousAmerican Said:
The True Clash of Civilizations
“The TRUE CONFLICT OF CIVILIZATIONS in which we suffer and the West dies is the conflict of its ruling elites and their fictions, the pathocracy that is the postmodern State. The pathocratic State, a cancerous growth from and image of its host culture, uses the bogie of jihad, enabling it with money, weapons, diplomatic apologetics and prestige, to undermine its host [the West] & to justify increasing ‘security measures’ that displace civil rights. This is the pathocratic means of making an impoverished world collective the sociopaths will rule for their own pleasure: the thrill of dominance trumps even the wealth they extract in managing the game.”
@ honeybee:
yamit82 Said:
@ the phoenix:
I am retiring to the garden!!!!!!!!!! Is that what Theroux would do??????
@ yamit82:
I have studying on the above comment. I painted to Led Zepplin and Etta James, but Sugar right now I am discourage with events, I just to dark. But saved your post. Thank you.
@ yamit82:
V’yimru…yimru amen!
@ yamit82:
Can air power slow them, remember I am a inercent little novice, In military affairs.
The purpose of war (imposed on us) is to win and destroy the enemy and their ideology. Not to perpetuate attrition. This is what the west has been imposing on Israel.
honeybee Said:
On the other hand Obama has kept America from additional wars that potemtially could be more painful and disasterous than either the Iraqi or Afghanistan wars…Remember, Russia, China and Iran are backing Assad…
When you look at the forces in favor of America initiating wars one should ask why are they so Gung Ho? Certainly the American people do not want more Americans in more wars.
Wall Street wants war, Bankers want war, American corp Industries want war, the oil companies want war and it seems key politicians on both sides of the Isle want war.
The American and world economies may just collapse if there is not perpetual war.
The world financial and corporations are sitting on some estimate quadrillions of $$$ worth of worthless derivatives and credit swaps and they can’t keep their printing press fingers in the dikes for long.
@ honeybee:
The YALKUT SHIM’ONI, which is a collection of Jewish ancient rabbis (HAZAL/RAZAL) brings in “clue 506” a commentary on the Haftarah that was read in synagogues on the exact week when the terrorist attack occurred. This is the commentary according to the old Midrash (“Pirkey Rabbi Elie’zer”):
Rabbi Ishmael says: The Ishmaelites shall make three wars of panic in the Latter Days, as it is written (Isiah 21,15): “For they fled from the swords, from the drawn sword”.
One in the sea (there): “from the bent bow”
One in land (there): “from the drawn sword”
One in a big city, which is heavier than both, as it is written: “from the distress of war”
And then [the Messiah] son of [King] David shall emerge, and will show us the destruction of those and those, and will come from there to the Land of Israel, as it is written (Isiah 63): “Who is it who comes from Edom” etc.
When HaShem (G-d) comes from Edom, the SHARET angels come before him and find his clothes red as scarlet. They say (there): “Why is your apparel red”. He says to them, I had a small winepress and I have trodden it, as it is said (there): “I have trodden the winepress alone”. At the same time, HaShem (G-d) takes all of the sins of Israel and puts them on the evil Esau, as it is written…
@ yamit82:
Listening to Obama on Fox, he’s wimping-out!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Now watch barrel prices climb.
yamit82 Said:
This is an armed struggle against Islam, and so far they succeeding.
CuriousAmerican Said:
@ the phoenix:
The Zohar: Before Redemption –
Moslems will fight against Christians
The holy Zohar (written some 2000 years ago by rabbi Shim’on Bar-Yoahi ZYA”A), prophesied the next passage (brought in the commentary on Exodus, VaEra parasha, page 32):
And the Ishmaelites shall rule the holy land, at the time when it is empty, for a long time, as their circumcision is empty, and not whole (Moslems only remove the prepuce (ORLA). Jews have another stage for the Brith called PRIAA), and they shall prevent the Israelites from returning to their homeland (Since the beginning of Jewish immigration to Israel, Arabs used violence against the Jews, wars and terror attacks. This still prevents the majority of Jews which is in the Diaspora to make Aliyah to Israel) until that privilege of the Ishmaelites will expire.
And the Ishamelites shall ignite big wars in the world, until they will make the Edomites (which are Christians by Jewish tradition) gather to a war against them.
And shall make wars: one on the sea, one in land and (one) near Jerusalem. And those shall rule over those. And the holy land will not be handed over to the Edomites (Christians).
At that time, one people will be awaken from the end of the world to the big sinful city, and there he will ignite a war that will last three months. And peoples will gather there, and will fall in his hands.
Until all the Edomites (Christians) will gather on him (from all the ends of the world). Then HaShem (G-d) will be awakened on them.
This is the meaning of the writing (Isiah 34,6): “For HaShem has a sacrifice in Bossrah” etc. and at the end of it, it says (Job 38,13): “to take hold of the ends of the earth”
And shall destroy the Ishamelites from us, and will break all the armies of Above, and there shall not remain any army Above for a people of the world, except for the army of Israel exclusively.
This is the meaning of the writing (Psalms 121,5): “HaShem (G-d) is your shadow on your right hand”, because the holy name is in the (spiritual) right side, and the Torah is also in the (spiritual) right side. Therefore all depends on the right side.
And we have learnt orally: He who come to pray, will put his right hand over his left hand, as it was established in Jewish Halacha.
At the Latter Days (Psalms 60): “Deliver your right and answer me”, and at that time it is written (Zefaniah 3): “For then I shall turn to peoples in a clear language, all to call the name of HaShem (G-d), to worship him together”. And it is written (Zechariah 14): “And HaShem (G-d) shall be the King of all the land, on that day HaShem (G-d) will be one, and his name will be one”.
@ yamit82:
Every ally of USA , under Obama, are on their own. The USA cannot even defend it’s own borders.
@ yamit82:
The Jihadist are only behaving for the rewards they been trained to expected.
The real face of our Peace(sic) Partner
Top Palestinian negotiator rips into ‘discredited, useless’ Abbas
In leaked recording, Saeb Erekat compares PA president to Saddam and Assad; says Netanyahu ‘a war criminal’ who’s ‘not worth a bullet’
honeybee Said:
LIKE THIS?
Rice: US supports Israel, but it’s a two-way street
Top Obama adviser says Israel must back US on Ukraine and other topics, talks up reform of UN Human Rights Council
Islamic Jihad: ‘Kidnappings the only way to release prisoners’
Senior official of terror organization calls on Palestinians to abduct Israeli citizens, target settlers in West Bank
Eight arrested for throwing rocks on Temple Mount
Dozens of masked Palestinian protesters attack security forces following prayer session at holy site
@ yamit82:
World events have empowered these vicious Islamist.
yamit82 Said:
Blown away: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XT7CtF5ljxY&list=PL1D74FA8A17A97556&feature=share
Yeshiva Students Missing, Suspected Kidnapped by Terrorists
Massive IDF manhunt underway in Hevron area after students reported kidnapped by terrorists in car.
I have 2 comments booted by spam filter??
Israel launches massive manhunt for three youths feared kidnapped in West Bank
Channel 2 is reporting that Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has been briefed on the latest developments of the search. According to the report, Netanyahu holds the newly formed Palestinian Authority unity government responsible for any possible foul play.
While they do strongly fear the boys were kidnapped, security forces have not yet been able to rule out all other possibilities police said.
Police were in touch with the families and said that they have no reason to believe that the teenagers decided to go missing on their own, or run away from home or their yeshiva.
A spokesman for the Talmon settlement in the Binyamin Region of the West Bank, said that one of the missing teens was 16 years old and was with a friend when he disappeared. The teen from Talmon was making his normal trek home for Shabbat from his high-school yeshiva, as he does every week.
He called his father around 7 p.m. and said he had already left school. Initially his father did not worry, because the teen often took his time coming home and sometimes did not arrive until late at night.
But after midnight, the father called his son’s phone. When he could not reach him by 2 a.m. he called the police. Until morning, the father held out hope, that his son had gone to a friend’s home in the settlement to sleep.
In the morning he checked with all his son’s friends. A larger check was made of the settlement, but the teen was no where to be found.
Palestinian media on Friday reported that a large number of Israeli forces had been deployed to the Hebron vicinity in search of the boys who went missing earlier in the morning.
Palestinian news agency Ma’an cited sources in the vicinity as saying Israeli forces had raided various home in the city of Dura, located southwest of Hebron, in search of the missing boys.
My gut tells me they are dead. Yamit
@ CuriousAmerican:
A new position for a wild eyed christian missionary has been left vacant in sunny Mosul as well as scenic Tikrit. The previous jeeeeezus preacher kind’a lost his head in the endeavor…
Surely, a devout believer, such as yourself, could try and win a few souls lost to Allah? (Instead of wasting your time with some stiff necked joooooooz on IP that just DON’T GET IT!!!!)
What say you, american?
🙂
I agree that Islam is a menace.
But did the British really win?
Is Sudan civilized or Islamic today? Hint: The Sudanese want to kill a woman for converting to Christianity.
Britain did not win hearts or minds. It merely won a battle. British culture left when the British left.
Islam is irrational at a deep level, which is why it does not buckle so easily to force.
If force ALONE were enough to change religious belief, the Jews would have died out a long time ago; but not even Roman devastation, expulsion and mass killing could change Jews. Nor did the Crusades, nor the Holocaust.
This is a spiritual stuggle against Islam.
Since Judaism is not by nature prosyletizing, there is a problem.
Christianity does prosyletize; and has less of a problem, but sadly is weak-willed at this moment.
The long term answer is to send in Christian missionaries to prosyletize them. However, few missionaries are willing to die, which is what it will take.
Since the Arab world will not take them, prosyletization may ultimately be the solution to the Arabs in Judea and Samaria.
However, people have died. The Baptist Church in Bethlehem has taken casualties.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jGBxOkmOV0o
The West will dither and do nothing.
The West is more concerned about Jews building apartments in Jerusalem than its concerned about the threat Islamic terrorists pose to the world.
We’re seeing the slow and steady demise of the West.