Ken Spiro

The winds of change are again blowing in the Middle East, possibly building to a storm with Israel at the center. Mid-term U. S. Elections, mounting casualties in Iraq, fighting in Gaza, instability in Lebanon....Much of the world is fed up with the Middle East. Especially in Europe they just want it to go away so Europe can get back to the business of comfortable living as usual.

The problem is rather than take the pain of dealing with the real issues that are fanning the flames of instability in the Middle East, the West wants an aspirin-a quick fix- that requires little effort so that the headache will go away and they can all go back to sleep.

The problem is there is no miracle drug, or quick fix for the Middle East and dealing with the symptoms rather than the cause will only enable to the disease to spread and ultimately do much, much more damage.

The disease is clear to anyone who bothers to take a serious look: Radical Islam:

-Radical Islam with its ideology of global Jihad and open confrontation with the West.
-Radical Islam with is goal of creating a global Dhar al Islam, a world-community governed by Islam and sharia-Islamic law.
-Radical Islam which has been waging and ever-intensifying war on the West since the Iranian Revolution in 1979 and has been responsible for such "events" as 9/11 and bombings in Madrid, London and Bali to name but a few.
-Radical Islam which has brought together a toxic combination of: Al Queida, Saudi Wahabi-ism, Iranian Shiite fundamentalism, Hezbollah, Hamas and others.

As with earlier totalitarian ideologies such as Nazism and Soviet communism-the goal of Radical Islam is the collapse of the West and world domination. The question the West must deal with is will it confront radical Islam or appease it?

The best parallel to the current situation is Europe in the early 1930's. When Hitler came to power, at first he wasn't taken seriously. Next, out of an intense desire to avoid really dealing with the disease of Nazism, the West tried to appease him. The world gave him Austria and the Sudetenland in Czechoslovakia. In 1938 British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain even signed the Munich Pact which guaranteed peace between Britain and Germany. We all know the results. Appeasing dictators and tyrants is always a huge mistake and agreements signed by them are never worth the paper they are written on. In the end the cure for Nazism was very painful and cost the lives of over 50,000,000 people-6,000,000 of them Jews.

George Santayana said it best: "Those who don't remember the past are destined to repeat it." No statement about history was ever more correct yet the ONE lesson we DO learn from history is that we DON'T learn from history. The world seems poised to make the same gigantic mistake yet again with possible horrendous consequences looming on the horizon.

It has now been over 13 years since the Oslo Peace Accords between Israel and Palestinians. Has anything gotten better? The exact opposite has occurred! Despite Israel's withdrawal from Gaza there is no peace, missiles fall daily on Sderot in southern Israel, there are constant terrorism warnings and a radical rejectionist Hamas-led government now rules the Palestinian Authority. There have been so many different agreements in the last 13 years that we have lost count of them: Oslo, Madrid, Camp David II, The Wye River Agreement, Taba and the Road Map....Successive Israeli governments offered to negotiate and made painful concessions such as expelling settlers from their homes in Gaza, dismantling outpost and even offering to withdraw to the pre-June '67 (pre Six Day War) cease fire lines, yet nothing seems to work. Peace seems further away then ever. Why?

The answer is clear and simple: The issue has never been about creating a Palestinian state but rather it has always been about destroying the Jewish State. But if we pull back further we see the REAL issue. The very existence of a Jewish State of any size, sandwiched between 22 Arab- Islamic states, is a thorn in the side of the Muslim world-especially the Radical Muslim world. As in the "Domino Theory" during the Cold War, Radical Islam views the destruction of Israel ("The Little Satan" as the Iranians call Israel) as the first stepping stone in their global Jihad that will ultimately lead to fall of the West and especially the U.S. ( "The Great Satan"). The logical conclusion SHOULD be: Radical Islam must be contained or crushed and Israel, the front line ally of the West, must be supported at all costs. But the exact opposite is happening!

The spin that is now now being put on the current situation in the Middle East by the U.S. State Department, Tony Blair and Koffi Anan and others is the root of all problems in the Middle East is the Israel-Palestinian conflict: If Palestinians only had a state their dignity and national rights would be restored and they would live in peace with Israel. If this happened moderate Arab-Muslims regimes would be strengthened. The radical regimes and movements would be weakened, contained or destroyed. Iraq would stabilize, Iran would stop trying to build the bomb and peace, prosperity and democracy would begin to take root in the most troubled region of the world.

It sounds great. The only problem is it's a fantasy that is extremely dangerous to both the survival of Israel and the West. I already stated what the real problem is: radical Islam. And as with Nazism and Communism the solution is clear. But such a solution is costly, painful and politically incorrect so the West prefers the placebo: Israel is the problem. Worst of all, rather than trying to clarify what the issues really are, the Israeli government is doing the opposite-keeping this fantasy alive. Prime Minister Olmert is once again talking about more territorial concessions on Israel part in the hopes that this will produce the peace so longed for by all Israelis and the world.

Put it all together and a very scary scenario is now looming on the horizon. My prediction is that we will see the following:
-Israel will be forced to make further painful, dangerous concessions which will further incite the Palestinians to more violence out of their belief that their attacks on Israel are pushing Israel to retreat.
-Iran will bluff and stall while Europe sleeps thus allowing it to go nuclear.
-With the Democrats now in power in the House and Senate; Bush a lame duck president and the war in Iraq becoming increasingly unpopular-there will be ever mounting pressure for the U.S. to cut its losses and pull out. This would be viewed as a huge victory for radical Islam.

A major disaster could well be looming on the horizon with Israel paying the heaviest price. But it's not too late to avoid this scenario.

The world has tot wake up and see the situation for what it REALLY is: WWIII with Radical Islam is just a few years away. Public opinion must be used to pressure world leaders to both think clearly and act decisively. And most importantly of all the "spin" that Israel is the root of all the problems in the Middle East must never be allowed to take hold in the collective consciousness of the world. If G-d forbid that happens the whole free world will pay a price far higher than that paid by humanity between 1939 and 1945 and as in WWII the lives of 6 million Jews (living in Israel today) are once again at stake.