The Middle East that was once a powder keg has now become a powder keg with a lit fuse, and Israel is ground zero.
June 11, 2010
- by AWR Hawkins
PAJAMAS MEDIA
Israel is under attack, and has been for some time. Although the attack has often been in the form of words instead of bullets (or missiles), even the verbal jabs have hinted total war and the stated goal of seeing Israel “wiped off the map.”
And in the wake of the Gaza flotilla incident, the rhetoric from unsteady men like Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Britain’s George Galloway portends a cessation of talking altogether.
In other words, the Middle East that was once a powder keg has now become a powder keg with a lit fuse, and Israel is ground zero.
To force war with greater effectiveness, Iran is warning “it could send Revolutionary Guard naval units to escort humanitarian aid convoys seeking to break the Israeli blockade of Gaza.” And Turkey has also pledged to escort convoys.
Of course, neither Turkey nor Iran would dare do either of these things if they knew the United States was going to stand with her ally, Israel. But from Obama’s initial silence following the flotilla seizure to the more recent statements from Vice President Joe Biden indicating the administration is “consulting … partners” to figure out what to do, it’s evident we will not be doing much fighting for the Jewish nation.
And this brings us to the central point — namely, the explicit rift in the very Judeo-Christian underpinnings of our nation.
In a real sense, our unwillingness to fight for Israel is a de facto abandonment of the nation that has served as the depository of some of Western Civilization’s greatest ideals.
What do I mean?
What I mean is that Israel is the country to which God directly gave his law and commands. Even non-Jews, like myself, know that it was to Israel that the God of heaven communicated his law. Among these laws were ceremonial and moral precepts, containing guidelines for purification and behavior.
The moral precepts are better known as the Ten Commandments. They and the many expositions on them contained in Moses’ writings were (and are) absolutely foundational to the development of jurisprudence and common law in Western nations like ours. On these dictates and the ideals they communicate rest many “rights” we take for granted every day.
No wonder Israel is “the lone country in the Middle East that stands for freedom, [and] individual rights” like the “freedom of religion and the right to private property.” And it is in Israel that we also find “freedom of speech and of the press.”
(FYI – Freedom of speech, in particular, is a right which many Muslim nations view as “a Western concept that completely contradicts Islam.”)
Israel puts the “Judeo” in the Judeo-Christian heritage that undergirds our nation. To them we own our gratitude and fidelity, especially at a time when the enemies they face are militant Islamists bent not simply on starting a war with Israel, but in using that war as a means to their greater goal of destroying Western civilization.
It’s been said that “we cannot defend Western civilization without defending its Jewish component,” because apart from that Jewish component “modern Western culture would have been unthinkable.”
So I ask you once more: if we won’t fight for Israel, for whom shall we fight?
PAJAMAS MEDIA
Israel is under attack, and has been for some time. Although the attack has often been in the form of words instead of bullets (or missiles), even the verbal jabs have hinted total war and the stated goal of seeing Israel “wiped off the map.”
And in the wake of the Gaza flotilla incident, the rhetoric from unsteady men like Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Britain’s George Galloway portends a cessation of talking altogether.
In other words, the Middle East that was once a powder keg has now become a powder keg with a lit fuse, and Israel is ground zero.
To force war with greater effectiveness, Iran is warning “it could send Revolutionary Guard naval units to escort humanitarian aid convoys seeking to break the Israeli blockade of Gaza.” And Turkey has also pledged to escort convoys.
Of course, neither Turkey nor Iran would dare do either of these things if they knew the United States was going to stand with her ally, Israel. But from Obama’s initial silence following the flotilla seizure to the more recent statements from Vice President Joe Biden indicating the administration is “consulting … partners” to figure out what to do, it’s evident we will not be doing much fighting for the Jewish nation.
And this brings us to the central point — namely, the explicit rift in the very Judeo-Christian underpinnings of our nation.
In a real sense, our unwillingness to fight for Israel is a de facto abandonment of the nation that has served as the depository of some of Western Civilization’s greatest ideals.
What do I mean?
What I mean is that Israel is the country to which God directly gave his law and commands. Even non-Jews, like myself, know that it was to Israel that the God of heaven communicated his law. Among these laws were ceremonial and moral precepts, containing guidelines for purification and behavior.
The moral precepts are better known as the Ten Commandments. They and the many expositions on them contained in Moses’ writings were (and are) absolutely foundational to the development of jurisprudence and common law in Western nations like ours. On these dictates and the ideals they communicate rest many “rights” we take for granted every day.
No wonder Israel is “the lone country in the Middle East that stands for freedom, [and] individual rights” like the “freedom of religion and the right to private property.” And it is in Israel that we also find “freedom of speech and of the press.”
(FYI – Freedom of speech, in particular, is a right which many Muslim nations view as “a Western concept that completely contradicts Islam.”)
Israel puts the “Judeo” in the Judeo-Christian heritage that undergirds our nation. To them we own our gratitude and fidelity, especially at a time when the enemies they face are militant Islamists bent not simply on starting a war with Israel, but in using that war as a means to their greater goal of destroying Western civilization.
It’s been said that “we cannot defend Western civilization without defending its Jewish component,” because apart from that Jewish component “modern Western culture would have been unthinkable.”
AWR Hawkins is a conservative writer who holds a Ph.D. in military history from Texas Tech University.
