A War America Can’t Win

By Prof. Paul Eidelberg

As is widely known, the Bible of Israel is the ultimate source of the values associated with Western civilization: suffice to mention the sanctity of human life, liberty and equality, the primacy of the individual, the rule of reason as opposed to the rule of force.  Alas, these values find no home in Islam.  This is why America and Israel are now threatened by Islamic terrorism.  Instead of facing this threat with moral clarity and courage, America and Israel have succumbed to inconsistency and timidity.

And so, nine days after that fateful September 11, 2001, I wrote the following essay: 

A War America Can’t Win 

PART I

America can’t win the war against international terrorism because the U.S. has obscured the identity of the enemy.  The enemy is nothing less than Islam, and democratic, multicultural America is conceptually incapable of conquering such an enemy.

We have here a “clash of civilizations” of world-historical significance.  The United States, including its most notable intellectuals, obscure this fact by defining the enemy as “Islamic fundamentalism,” supposedly an extremist aspect of Islam.  But as I shall now show, what is called “Islamic fundamentalism” is authentic, resurgent Islam.[1]

First, consider a booklet entitled Arab Theologians on Jews and Israel (1971) edited by D.F. Green.[2]  The booklet is a 76-page condensation of a 951-page volume containing papers presented at “The Fourth Conference of the Academy of Islamic Research” of Al Azhar University in Cairo (1968).  Al Azhar University, it should be emphasized, is the Harvard of the Islamic world.  Al Azhar is attached to the office of the President of Egypt and unofficially represents the theological-political position of that country, if not most of the Arab-Islamic world.

Delegates from 24 countries attended the conference:  Algeria, India, Indonesia, Iraq, Japan, Jordan, Kenya, Kuwait,Lebanon, Malaysia, Morocco, Nigeria, Philippines, Russia, Senegal, Sierra-Leone, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, Togoland, Turkey,Uganda, Yemen, and Yugoslavia.

Some 22 papers were presented by Islamic theologians and professors:  Egypt 10; Lebanon 3; Jordan 2; Syria 2;Indonesia 2; and one each from Morocco, Iraq, and “Palestine.”

The papers frequently denote Jews as the “Enemies of God” or the “Enemies of humanity.”  One paper refers to Jews as “the dogs of humanity.”  The Bible of Israel is referred to in pejorative terms and as a counterfeit work.   Jews are described as evil, as deserving the hatred and persecution of all the peoples with whom they have come into contact—and this was said in full awareness of the Nazi Holocaust!  Also, the State of Israel is described as a culmination of historical and cultural depravity.

Since the Conference portrays the evil of the Jews as immutable and permanent, the attending Muslim theologians and professors were prompting the Arab-Islamic world to annihilate Israel (politicide) and the Jews (genocide).  This was not a conference of “Islamic fundamentalists,” unless Islamic fundamentalism is the nature of Islam.

Second, the present writer has shown that the Israel-Egypt peace treaty of March 1979 did not diminish Egyptian hatred of Jews and Israel.  Indeed, as the eminent Islamic scholar Bernard Lewis has noted, Egypt’s anti-Jewish and anti-Israel propaganda increased after the signing of that treaty![3]

Third, consider Professor Y. Harkabi’s Arab Attitudes to Israel (1972).  This 500-page volume documents hundreds of statements made by Arab rulers, scholars, journalists, and writers throughout the Arab-Islamic world vilifying Jews and calling for Israel’s destruction.   Harkabi makes no distinction between Islam and “Islamic fundamentalism” when he describes Islam as a “militant,” “combative,” and “expansionist” creed.[4]

Fourth, recall the Teheran Conference of October 1991 (which, by the way, took place two weeks before the October 31Madrid “peace” conference sponsored by the U.S. and the USSR and attended by Israel, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, and PLO surrogates).   The Teheran Conference, attended by a score of Arab and Islamic states, including Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, and the PLO, unanimously signed various resolutions calling for Israel’s destruction.  Egypt, despite is peace treaty with Israel, signed those resolutions!  Again, this was not a conference of “Islamic fundamentalists” or of any single Islamic sect—Sunni, Shi’ite, or Wahhabi.

Now for some basic principles.  In his The Political Language of Islam, Professor Lewis notes that Islam divides the world in two:  “the House of Islam (dar al-Islam), where Muslims rule and the law of Islam prevails; and the House of War (dar al-Harb), comprising the rest of the world.  Between the two there is a morally necessary, legally and religiously obligatory state of war, until the inevitable and final triumph of Islam over unbelief.  According to the law books, this state of war could be interrupted, when expedient, by an armistice or truce of limited duration.  It could not be terminated by a peace, but only by a final victory.”[5]

The question arises:  How should Muslims behave in territories previously conquered by Islam—for example Portugal, Spain, and the Balkans—but which were subsequently re-conquered by Christians?  According to certain Islamic jurists, it was the duty of Muslims to leave such territories and not remain under non-Muslim rule.  Other jurists held that Muslims might remain under a non-Muslim ruler and were even obliged to obey his orders, provided only that Muslims were allowed to observe their religion.  This ruling, however, was based on practical necessity.  For as Lewis remarks, the territories conquered by Christians would then become part of the House of War, “subject, when circumstances permit, tojihad and re-conquest.”[6]   (This has obvious implications for Israel and its Muslim citizens.)

Finally, it should be noted that the destruction of the World Trade Center is the manifestation of a war between East and the West.  As we shall see in Part III, only Israel is conceptually capable of winning this war.

PART II

… Unbeknownst to the West, and unacknowledged by Israel’s ruling elites, the 1948 War of Independence was a civilizational war, one that has been going on to this day.  Thus, in a lecture sponsored by the Arab League in Cairo, ‘Abd al-Rahman al-Bazzaz, Professor of Law at the University of Baghdad, who later became Iraq’s Prime Minister, declared in 1962:  “The existence of Israel … is a flagrant challenge to our philosophy of life and the ideals for which we live, and a total barrier against the values and aims to which we aspire in the world.”[7]

Islam perceives Israel both as a Jewish and secular democratic state that threatens the religio-political power structure of the Islamic world.  Tyrannies do not like [even reputed] democracies on their borders.  But let us probe a little deeper into the conflict between the East (here limited to Islam) and the West, in which Israel finds itself precariously aligned with the latter.

The West exalts the individual, and the state exists to maximize his comfort.  Accordingly, the function of the state is not to cultivate virtue or morality but to promote freedom and material prosperity.  In the West, therefore, religion is a private matter.  Contrast the fatalistic world of Islam.  There personal and political freedom is unknown.  There the state is all-powerful.  Its primary function is to serve Allah by imbuing people with the moral and religious teachings of the Koran.   There poverty is the rule.

The World Trade Center represented the pinnacle wealth.  Like the Tower of Babel, it symbolized the exaltation of man.  The Twin Towers were monuments of scientific technology in stark contrast to pre-industrial, feudal Islam.

The destruction of the Twin Towers by suicide bombers reveals the unbridgeable gap between the West’s preoccupation with this world and Islam’s concern with the afterworld.  While America pursues a life of pleasure here and now, Islam is infatuated with death as the entry to eternal Paradise.  Can life defend itself against death?

The World Trade Center’s destruction was an act of revenge—revenge against centuries of Western domination of the East, something intolerable to Muslims.  The West is the home of Christianity, hated by Islam.  Also, America supports the Jewish State of Israel, which makes the United States the Great Satan.  Hence the Mufti of Jerusalem urges Muslims to kill Americans as well as Jews.

Multicultural, relativistic America is incapable of waging war against this totalitarian enemy.  It lacks the concepts, the understanding, required to wage such a war.  President Bush called the destruction of the World Trade Center … “senseless,” when in fact it was well calculated to humble America, to uplift Islamic pride, to glorify Allah.

Moreover, responsibility for that monstrous act was attributed to “Islamic fundamentalism,” or to a network of terrorists led by Osama bin Laden.  True, Islamic states were held responsible for harboring these terrorists.  But this tacitly indicates that the so-called war against international terrorism involves Islam as a whole:  there is hardly an Islamic state that does not provide a haven, to say nothing of financial support, for Arab terrorists.  Yet, to make a mockery of the WorldTrade Center disaster, the U.S. invited Islamic regimes and even arch-terrorist Yasser Arafat to join the war against international terrorism!  Nor is this all.

President Bush calls this a war between good and evil.  And so it is.  But the United States and the West have long been silent about evil, indeed, have [appeased the perpetrators of terrorism, the Palestinian Authority, Saudi Arabia, Syria, andIran].

Moreover, American cultural imperialism is vulgarizing much of the world, undermining moral and religious values.  We see this in the Americanization of Israel.  True, Israel is indebted to the United States and is itself to blame for the vices it has imported from America.

Some may [erroneously] blame Washington for the Oslo or Israel-PLO Agreement of 1993, which resulted [as of September 2001] in the murder of more than 700 Jews [by Arab terrorists]—an enormous number for a small country likeIsrael.[8]  But Oslo was initiated by Israelis, by secularized Jews.  The Israeli architects of Oslo were animated by one ultimate objective: to destroy Israel as a Jewish state and transform it into miniature, multicultural America![9]  But as we shall see, only an authentic Jewish polity can overcome the conflict between East and West.

PART III

If it is true, as I [and others] maintain, that “Islamic fundamentalism” is authentic Islam. and if international terrorism is merely [a tactical weapon] Muslim employ in their religious war against the Western civilization, then it should be obvious that multicultural America … is incapable of winning such a war.   Never mind the enormous economic interests of theUnited States in the Islamic Middle East.  There are 45 Muslim states and more than one billion Muslims on this planet; they are not going to be cowed by America.

To win this war, America would have to bring about a Protestant Reformation in Islam.   Muslims would have to renounce the principle of jihad.  Islam would then cease being a militant, expansionist, and proselytizing creed.   It would have to recognize, as one may see in the Bible of Israel, that God creates nations as well as individuals, and that the independence of diverse nations, above all Israel, is to be respected so long as they observe the Seven Noahide Laws of Universal Morality.

Moreover, Islamic autocracies, without becoming secular, would have to become authentic republics.  On the one hand, they would cease to be corporate states in which the individual has no unalienable rights.  On the other hand, the rights of individuals would be exalted as part of a religious based morality.  Accordingly, the state would introduce an ethical market economy.  This would promise an end to the poverty endemic in the Islamic world.  It would promote creativity and the development of a middle class [civil society] the precondition of a moderate and stable republic.[10]

From this it should be obvious that American democracy, to the extent that it has departed from the principles of the American founding fathers, does not offer a model for the Islamic world.  To mention present tendencies:  Its unrestrained freedom spawns licentiousness; its indiscriminate egalitarianism undermines deference and respect for parents and lawful authority; its form of capitalism promotes avarice and materialism; its pop culture fosters vulgarity; its university bred doctrine of moral relativism breeds atheism and cynicism.[11]

To the extent that Israel has imported some of these tendencies, the supposed-to-be Jewish state constitutes a provocation in the Islamic Middle East.  If, however, Israel were true to the Torah and became an authentic Jewish state, then Islam, I maintain, [would moderate and] undergo the transformation outlined above.  Let me explain.

Israel was created to be a light unto the nations, and it was placed in the Middle East to be the synthesis of East and West.   Unlike the East, which subordinates the individual to the state, and unlike the West, which reduces the community to an aggregation of individuals having no purpose transcending their own egos, Israel avoids both extremes.  This can be seen via the Torah concept of “malchus.” Here I rely on Rabbi Matis Weinberg.[12]

Malchus, which literally means kingship, involves an organizational structure that unites individuality and community and, at the same time, reconciles transience and permanence.   “Malchus is a structure, broad enough to allow each detail to be not only itself, but also an essential part of a totality.  It creates broader potential by opening the world for the individual and providing him expanded significance.”

Malchus is a concept, not a person.  A king has no separate existence of his own.  Rather, he comes to be the equivalent of the entire society of which he is an expression—its visions, its values, its lifestyles.  “He becomes the identification of an era; a reference point in history.”

“The power of malchus is a function of the individuality of the parts and the strength of the bonds between them.” Weinberg illustrates this individuality by referring to the manner in which the tribes of Israel were encamped in the desert:  “And Bil’am lifted his eyes and saw Yisrael according to its tribes… How goodly are your tents, Yaakov, your dwellings, Yisrael” (Numbers 24:2,5), to which Rashi comments:  “He saw each tribe dwelling individually without blurring [their differences] and saw how no doorway would face another, preserving privacy.”

Weinberg reinforces this commentary by referring to the unique character of Israel’s census in the desert:  “Being numbered is part of establishing the interrelatedness of individuals to the klal [the community].  But counting usually strips individuality; people want to be a ‘name, not a number.’  No other nation totals by names, assigning positions of importance at the very same moment that the individual is counted among the klal.  Our census is taken … [as] ‘the number of names.’”  This renders Israel, like no other nation, a “kingdom of noblemen,” “a malchus which is the expression of components of intense individual significance; components of nobility.”

When Israel again becomes a malchus, Islam will undergo a healthy and friendly transformation.  For apart from any other purpose, the hostility of Islam serves as an instrument of God to chastise Israel for its unfaithfulness to the Torah, given at Sinai not merely for the Jews, but ultimately for all mankind. ?

[1] For a more thorough analysis, see Paul Eidelberg, A Jewish Philosophy of History: Israel’s Degradation and Redemption (New York: iUniverse, 2004), ch. 12; Robert Spencer, The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (Washington, DC: Regnery, 2005).

[2] D. F. Green (ed.), Arab Theologians on Jews and Israel (Geneva: Editions de l’Avenir, 1976), 3^rd ed.

[3] Bernard Lewis, Semites and Anti-Semites (New York: W. W. Norton, 1999), p. 227.

[4] Y. Harkabi, Arab Attitudes to Israel (Jerusalem: Keter, 1972), p. 133.

[5] Bernard Lewis, The Political Language of Islam (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1988), p. 73.

[6] Lewis, The Political Language of Islam, p. 106.

[7] Cited in Harkabi, p. 97.

[8] The figure now stands at more than 1,600, and most were murdered under the premiership of Ariel Sharon.

[9] For elaboration, see Eidelberg, A Jewish Philosophy of History, ch. 1.

[10] See Paul Eidelberg, “Democratizing Islam,” (Israel: Ariel Center for Policy Research, 2002).

[11] See Paul Eidelberg, A Discourse on Statesmanship: The Design and Transformation of the American Polity (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1974), chs. 11 and 12.  For a refutation of relativism, see Eidelberg, A Jewish Philosophy of History, ch. 5.

[12] Matis Weinberg, Patterns In Time: Chanukah (New York: Feldheim, 1988), pp. 106-107.