Conventional Western wisdom versus Middle Eastern reality

by Ambassador (ret.) Yoram Ettinger

Prof. Bernard Lewiswho was a leading authority on Islam and the Middle East, sheds light on a cardinal aspect of the frustrating, complicated and uncomfortable reality of the Middle East: “When the fighters in the war for Islam fight for God , it follows that their opponents are fighting against God… In the classical Islamic view, the world is divided into two: the House of Islam… and the House of Disbelief, which is ultimately the duty of the Muslims to go to the To bring Islam… The struggle between these rival systems has been going on for some fourteen centuries now… America has become the archenemy, the incarnation of evil, the diabolical opponent of all that is good… of Islam….”

*Western conventional wisdom is based on the assumption that violence in the Middle East is driven by desperation; that radical Middle Eastern dictators can be induced to subordinate their radical ideologies to dramatic financial benefits (“money talks”); and that significant gestures and concessions could motivate rogue Middle Eastern leaders to embrace peaceful coexistence, honoring agreements, accepting human rights and democracy, departing from fanatical ideologies and joining the ‘multilateral/ cosmopolitan club’.

*To advance its well-intentioned assumptions, Western conventional wisdom has consistently overlooked the 1400 year old cunning, unpredictable, violent, totalitarian, intolerant, anti-“infidel” (Islam versus the West), anti-“apostate” . ” (Shia versus Sunni), fragmented, volcanic and frustrating nature of the reality in the Middle East (intra-Arab and intra-Muslim). It has also overlooked the supremacy of fanatical ideologies over financial benefits in shaping the policies of Iran’s ayatollahs, the Muslim Brotherhood, Hezbollah, Hamas and the Palestinian Authority, as reflected in their (primary) school curriculum, mosque sermons and constitutions /charters. .

*Western appeasement of Shia, Sunni and Palestinian terrorism has ignored the well-documented fact that terrorists bite the hands that feed them, as demonstrated by the Mujahideen (who were assisted by the US to kick the Soviet Union out of Afghanistan). and then after September 11), the Iranian ayatollahs (who were critically assisted by the US to overthrow the Shah of Iran and rose to become the leading anti-American terrorist and drug trafficker) and the Palestinian leaders (who were by Egypt, Syria, Jordan, Lebanon and Kuwait and proceeded to undermine and terrorize them).

*Defying Western conventional wisdom, the inherent hostility towards the ‘infidel’ West, and especially ‘the Great American Satan’, has been a dominant feature of basic Arab and Islamic education, culture and politics, creating epicenters of global anti-US movements emerged. terrorism.

*Despite Western, conventional, wisdom-based gestures, Islamic terrorism has haunted the US since the Barbary pirates of the early 19th century, regardless of US policy and regardless of the identity of the US president. For example, the US was hit during Presidents Trump (e.g., the Hudson River Park terrorist killing, 8), Obama (e.g., the Orlando terrorist killing, 49), GW Bush (September 11, in which 2,977 people were killed), Clinton (e.g. car bombing of the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania that killed 300 people), Reagan (e.g. the blowing up of PanAm-103 that killed 257 people), etc.

*September 11 underlined the determination of Islamic terrorist regimes to engage the US in their struggle to subjugate the “infidel” West, regardless of US intentions to withdraw from Afghanistan, Iraq and the Middle East. general. These rogue states view US withdrawal, isolationism and gestures as symptoms of Western battle fatigue and the erosion of an attitude of deterrence, which is intensifying terrorism and gradually shifting the fight to the US mainland (e.g. the sleeper cells of Iran and Hezbollah in The United States). US and cooperation with Latin American terrorist organizations and drug cartels).

*Islamic terrorism is not driven by desperation, but rather by the imperialist view of Islam as the only legitimate religion, ordained by God to bring “apostates” and “infidels” – especially the US – into submission, peacefully or militarily.

*The following examples demonstrate the unbridgeable gap between Western conventional wisdom (WCW) and Middle Eastern reality:

*The self-defeating nature of WCW (e.g. the 45 year old diplomatic option towards Iran, despite Iran’s poor track record) is exposed by the emergence of facts from the Middle East.

*The attempt to subordinate Middle Eastern reality to WCW was compared by Prof. Elie Kedourie – a leading historian of the Middle East – to try to keep the water flowing uphill.