The seamless garment of terrorism
We believe that the upcoming election is, above all, a referendum on whether the war on terrorism is a deadly serious thing or an over-reaction to a law enforcement issue. President Bush, of course, repesents those who hold the former view. Yet, even the Bush administration frequently fails to understand the full global implications of Jihad, and that blind spot is most apparent when, as is so often the case, Israel is on the receiving end of terrorism.
Mackubin Owens has recently returned from Israel and he explains, on Ashbrook Center website, why "9/11 and terrorist attacks against Israel form a seamless garment." Owens draws heavily on the work of Saul Singer of the Jerusalem Post, whose book Confronting Jihad represents the definitive explication of the reality of Israel’s war against terrorism and its connection to our own struggle. As Owens explains:
The central recurring theme of Confronting Jihad is that Israel and the United States are fighting the same war, and that it doesn’t make sense for the latter to criticize the former when it takes steps to enhance its own security. Perspective is important. For instance, in response to four coordinated attacks that killed some 3,000 Americans, the U.S. has pursued terrorists, attacked them in their sanctuaries, and overthrown two regimes supported terror attacks against the West. So why does the U.S. insist that Israel show 'restraint' in response to the more than 100 attacks over a three-year period that have killed nearly a thousand Israelis, proportionately the equivalent of 20,000 Americans?Which brings us back to the November election. As Owens asks, "If the Bush administration does not see [the connection between terrorism in Israel and terrorism directed against us], who will? John Kerry and the Democrats who still treat the problem of terrorism as an issue of law enforcement? The United Nations and the European Union? The International Court of Justice in The Hague, which is seriously considering a Palestinian challenge to Israel’s security fence? 'If Israel disappeared, the U.S. withdrew all its troops from the [Middle East], and all Arab regimes were replaced by Taliban clones, the [Islamists’] conflict with the West would not end—it would just be getting rolling. The ’karffirs’ [infidels] would be ripe for the plucking.'"Singer argues that 9/11 made it clear that "Israel and America are both on the receiving end of what is essentially the same jihad: an expansionist war by militant Islamists who cannot tolerate any form of non-Islamic power." President Bush seemed to recognize this state of affairs in the wake of 9/11. As he stated in his speech of 20 September, 2001, "We must unite in opposing all terrorists, not just some of them. There is no such thing as a good terrorist."
But in practice, the U.S. all too often continues to distinguish between the terrorism that it faces and that confronting Israel. For instance, senior U.S. envoys recently told the Sharon government that Washington would back a unilateral Israeli pullout from Gaza only if it could be ensured that former Gaza security chief Muhammad Dahlan would take charge of the area. Dahlan is a terrorist. Why is he treated as a "good terrorist"? The same holds true with Israel’s security fence. Administration officials have criticized the fence for creating potential hardship for Palestinians. While there are many good reasons to oppose the fence, it is a step necessitated by the failure of the Palestinian Authority to curb terrorist attacks against Israel.
Finally, there is the latest State Department Human Rights Report. This "balanced" report finds both Israel and the Palestinian Authority guilty of countless human-rights abuses. But its evenhandedness smacks of moral equivalency: It counts as an human-rights abuse every action Israel has taken to combat terrorism, thereby equating actions aimed at protecting Israeli citizens with terrorist acts executed to kill them.
Such steps fly in the face of common sense. As Singer notes, "September 11 should have destroyed the supposed dichotomy between local and global terror. Before September 11, one might have argued, however cynically, that ’local’ terror would never spread, and would stay ’local’ if the West did not oppose it too vigorously. Now it should be clear that if ’local’ terror is a successful and quasi-legitimate way to address local grievances, there is nothing stopping the use of terror in the war for the ultimate grievance, that of Islamists against the West."
