By EARL COX, JPOST—
US President Barack Obama recently threatened to add to the widespread Middle East combustion by bombing Syria, because they had allegedly used chemical weapons on their own civilian people. Meanwhile, Israel is still standing by, holding its breath, and watching with keen special interest. In fact, as Israel looks to the north, south, east, and west they see nothing but trouble and turmoil among all their neighboring Arab and Muslim nations.
You have to ask, what is the common denominator beneath all the trouble and turmoil throughout so much of the Middle East? There has to be some basis for it all, doesn’t there? In reality, the answer is not hard to find. It is nothing other than Islam. Since its inception in the seventh century, Islam has been authoritative, oppressive and coercive, demanding total submission, and violently intolerant of criticism. Isn’t that exactly what we are seeing today?
Somehow in the midst of all this Middle East chaos, Israel is the only stable and peaceful nation in the entire region. Yet U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry has made six or seven trips to the region recently to try to pressure Israel to surrender half of the land of the tiny Jewish state as a gift to the Muslim Palestinian Arabs for a “two-state solution,” so they can have their own independent Arab state on Israeli land. This is supposed to resolve the millennia-old conflict between the Arabs and the Jews, eliminate the centuries-old hatred of the Arabs toward the Jews, and bring peace to the region. Western leaders welcomed the 2011 riots in the Arab streets as an “Arab Spring,” a people’s revolution and a transition toward democracy. However, Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Yemen and Syria have demonstrated that these Arab nations are experiencing an “Arab Tsunami” and a transition toward intense internal chaos totally unrelated to democracy. Interestingly, the mass uprisings have also been totally unrelated to Israel, though Arab and world leaders have long claimed that Israel is responsible for all the unrest and conflict in the Middle East.
Many analysts have now described the “Arab Spring” as giving way to an unbearable “Arab Winter.” The initial wave of hope for democracies quickly evaporated. With regime changes in Tunisia, Libya, Egypt and Yemen, and with a brutal civil war in Syria, as well as with volatile conditions in Bahrain, Sudan, Jordan, and Iraq, the region has already witnessed serious disintegration. And since Islam is obviously the root cause of all the turmoil, this “Arab Winter” has simply uncovered the true and evil nature of Islam.
Islamic regimes have always regarded freedoms of expression, religion, association and the press – the pillars of democracy – as lethal threats. Moreover, Islam has always considered itself to be divinely ordained to dominate the Christian and Jewish “infidels,” either through peaceful surrender or by way of the so-called holy war of jihad. Islam has never tolerated infidel sovereignty on what they consider to be Islamic land.
Mahmoud Abbas, the current Palestinian Arab leader, has been running a strong campaign of hatred for Israel, even teaching it to young children in all the Palestinian schools. He has referred to the Jewish state as “an inhumane entity that must be uprooted from the Middle East.” It is clear that Islam and peaceful co-existence with the Jewish “infidels” constitutes an oxymoron.
Today’s Middle East is increasingly dominated by the centuries-old style of intra-Muslim chaos, which includes authoritarian policies and horrific intolerance. There is absolutely no room for any co-existence with Israel, as is being espoused by the United States administration. It’s as though the leaders of the free world refuse to understand the true nature of Islam even when it is plainly stated by the Muslims themselves. Last week on one of America’s popular evening television news magazines called 20/20, host Diane Sawyer interviewed a group of radical Islamic women who were covered from head to toe in their hideous black garb with only a small opening for their eyes reminiscent of the costumes worn by the hate-filled Klu Klux Klan. The woman who served as the spokesperson for this group stated in very clear and precise English that, “Freedom and democracy cannot co-exist. You are either Muslim or you are not.” That about sums it up except for a few words which should have been inserted at the end of her sentence … ‘and if you are not (Muslim) you must die.’
Nevertheless, Israel is still being pressured to ignore its chaotic Middle East neighborhood and to retreat from the historic mountains of Judea and Samaria, which constitute the four thousand year-old cradle of Jewish history. Israel is being pressured to accept another intangible and tenuous agreement with the Palestinians. It seems that everyone has forgotten the five or six previously signed agreements by these same people which proved to be nothing but deceitful Muslim Arab lies, and which were worth nothing more than the paper on which they were written (and even that is valuing them too highly).
Acquaintance with the chaotic Muslim dominated Middle East has vital implications for the United States security interests, according to the U.S. administration. Yet the U.S. is now in the process of withdrawing its military presence from many places in the region to cut its defense budget. All this warrants a stronger Israel, which is hardly something desired by the chaotic Arab Muslim nations in the region. One thing appears to be true; Islam is the Root Cause of Middle East Turmoil. The Arab Spring has turned into an Arab Winter with no thaw in sight.