This is no time for ecumenical pleasantries

This is no time for ecumenical pleasantries

By Gil Troy
Canadian Jewish News
December 15, 2005

After yet another recent Hezbollah attack on Israel’s northern border, I wrote a Montreal Gazette opinion piece called “Terrorists in suits and ties.” Worried that Western politicians are ignoring the exterminationist agenda and brutality of Hezbollah in Lebanon and of Palestinian terrorists such as Hamas, I pleaded: don’t be swayed by Hezbollah’s seemingly civilized presence in Lebanon’s Parliament or Hamas’ social service arm and electoral goals. Terrorism is always political. “Terrorism is violence with a political agenda. Without the political context, bombing, kidnapping, and shooting are simply crimes.”

Predictably, pouncing on Israel’s pre-1948 struggles, some Zionist friends on the left echoed anti-Zionist critics, saying: “What about Likud, Menachem Begin, Yitzhak Shamir?”

Rather than giving the usual Irgun Alumni Association answer justifying the Jews’ tactics, which indeed mostly sought military targets, I would label the comparison obscene. It reflects an outrageous absence of proportionality. The violence that some Palestinian Jews resorted to was limited, and wrapped in ambiguity, ambivalence, and apologetics. Meanwhile, Hezbollah and Palestinian terrorists for decades have launched multiple, vicious attacks targeting innocents – all rationalized by a dehumanizing ideology that demonizes their enemies and calls for the annihilation of Israel, and often, the Jews, the United States and the West, too. And in running for office, these terrorist politicians remain committed to their ideology, feeling vindicated if they win.

Let the metaphysicians and psycho-pathologists explain why so many of Israel’s critics, and particularly, so many Jews, have this broken barometer, this inability to distinguish the minor from the major, the incidental from the purposeful, the occasional from the systematic, as long as it indicts Israel, America or the West. What mystifies me is this blindness despite a sustained, bloodthirsty attack on Israel, the Jewish people, liberalism, and the West.

“Our struggle against the Jews is very great and very serious,” the Hamas charter states. After quoting the Qur’an saying Muslims must “fight the Jews,” the charter proclaims: “There is no solution for the Palestine question except through jihad [holy war]. Initiatives, proposals and international conferences are all a waste of time and vain endeavours.” The “Party of God,” Hezbollah, makes equally sweeping, sadistic charter claims that target Israel and America.

For those who have somehow overlooked jihadism’s lethal nature, Dr. Andrew Bostom, an associate professor of medicine at Rhode Island Hospital, has a lengthy prescription. Bostom’s 759-page volume, The Legacy of Jihad: Islamic Holy War and the Fate of Non-Muslims (Prometheus Books, 2005), could be called Everything Westerners Need to Know about Jihad – But are Afraid to Ask.

Often letting the jihadists’ ferocious words speak for themselves, the book chronicles 13 centuries’ worth of Islamic attempts to conquer and slaughter non-Muslims. The scholarly articles and original documents – some published in English for the first time – debunk the popular ahistorical, superficial explanations for the current Islamicist terror wave. Labelling this phenomenon new, or a response to anything Israel has done, or a reaction to indignities that modern Muslims endure, makes as much sense as attributing modern American democracy to contemporary prosperity without mentioning the American Revolution.

No, not all Muslims are jihadists, but all jihadists are Muslim. And not all jihadists are similar or unified – making connections should not entail ignoring distinctions. Still, this deep-rooted Muslim phenomenon cannot be wished away with ecumenical pleasantries. Viewing jihadism through some politically correct rose-coloured lens is as sloppy and condescending as considering all Muslims terrorists. All religions have their extremists. Fanaticism ebbs and flows. The question is how mainstream and mobilized are the zealots. These days, Islamic jihadist fanaticism is at a high, lethal tide, menacing Muslim moderates and jihadist targets alike.

Recognizing jihad’s centrality should not lead to demonizing Muslims or Islam. Rather, it recognizes the daunting challenge facing the Western world – as well as the gutsy Muslims committed to liberalism, enlightenment, and progress.

One such hero, forced to use the pseudonym Ibn Warraq, introduces Bostom’s invaluable volume. He wonders “why did it take a nonspecialist such as Dr. Bostom, a scholar from another discipline – clinical epidemiology… to discover,” translate and publish some of “this primary and secondary source material?”

Clearly, this problem of the broken barometer, of cockeyed analysts unable to assess good and evil in proportion, is not simply a Jewish phenomenon but a Western one.

Gil Troy is Professor of History at McGill University and the author, most recently, of Morning in America: How Ronald Reagan Invented the 1980s and Why I Am A Zionist: Israel, Jewish Identity and the Challenges of Today.