By Fred Delkin, Editor, Oregon Magazine

July, 2006 -- Anyone with access to an objective history of the 20th century has an easy reference to what is happening on our planet at the opening of the 21st go-round. The Middle East conflict has all the trappings of the fascism vs.democracy battles that arose at the end of the last century.

Try equating President Ahmadijenihad of Iran with Adolf Hitler, Assad of
Syria with Adolf’s blowhard pal Mussolini...Kofi Anan and UN peaceniks
with "peace in our time" Neville Chamberlain, or go back a little further and
match the League of Nations’ ineffectiveness with that of the United 
Nations. Match dreams of global conquest by Nazis and Japan with today’s Islamic radicalism.

Our news channels are overrun with Israel’s current military reaction to the
madness imposed by Hamas and Hezbollah. Contrary to the bleatings by those of liberal bent that Israel is overreacting, that Muslim aggression is justified, there is no mystery to what has just exploded anew. This is a very simple demonstration that Muslim and Arab enemies of Israel want the
Jewish state wiped off the map. No "cease fire" will change that goal. 

In 1947-48 the states surrounding a newly formed Israel made an aborted attempt to destroy it.  In 1967, Egypt, Jordan and Syria combined forces in a new effort to erase Israel, known as The Six-Day War. These events took place before Israel occupied any Palestinian territory or settled the West Bank. In 1973, Egypt staged a surprise attack on the Israeli-held Sinai Peninsula and in 1978 Israel and Egypt signed a peace treaty after Israel returned the Sinai to Egypt. In 1981, Egyptian president Anwar Sadat was asassinated by Egyptian Muslims for doing the unthinkable...recognizing Israel sovereignty and making peace. 

Clinton diplomacy fails

U.S. President Bill Clinton offered, on behalf of Israel, to present Palestinian Liberation Organization Chairman Yasser Arafat with 97% of the West Bank territory in exchange for peace. Arafat refused, and his followers stepped up suicide attacks on Israeli citizens. This offer of land for a Palestinian state was turned down because, as stated by followers of Hamas, Israel must cease to exist. Arafat slipped off his long and slimy path with his death, whereupon Hamas took over Palestinian affairs. 

Israeli leader Ariel Sharon forcibly removed Jewish settlers from the Gaza Strip in a vain attempt to appease his neighboring Palestinians. Yet, though Israel’s vibrant economy is a source of income for tens of thousands of Palestinians, Hamas soon began lofting rockets into Jewish land.

And now both Hamas and Hezbollah have incited military self defense from an Israel that demonstrated its wont for peace and has finally recognized that diplomacy will never satisfy the maddened mobs of Islam. As has been bloodily demonstrated in New York, in Madrid, in Spain and Indonesia, radical Muslims seek the demise of democracies and of capitalism. They see the "infidels" as blocking their way to religious world domination. This has underlined the fact that these violent rag heads still live in a world unchanged for a thousand years, except by the Western development of, and demand for, the ocean of oil stretching across the Mideast. Israel is a beacon of culture, education and economic development shining amidst medieval darkness.

Our Bush administration thankfully recognizes this light. Europe dithers, as do most members of our Democratic party, yet it should be obvious to all that Western Civilization faces a challenge for its very existence...a challenge mounted by suicidal maniacs that supplant learning and logic with insane religious devotion.

(OMED:  Liberals will read the apellation "rag heads," two paragraphs above, as a form of racist insult.  It is clearly a violation of their blacklist of disapproved terms. But, Fred is angry here at people who belong to a class of humans which hijack airliners with children passengers and fly them into buildings full of people who merely wish to worship (or not) as they, not some mullah, see fit.  Fred gets a free "rag head.") 

© 2006 Oregon Magazine