The Foundation for Constitutional Democracy

Arab rulers, for example, Syrian dictator Bashir Assad, have learned from Anwar Sadat how to get territorial and other strategic resources from Israel for nothing. Thus, in an interview with The New York Times dated October 19, 1980, Sadat boasted: “Poor Menachem [Begin], he has his problems … After all, I got back … the Sinai and the Alma oil fields, and what has Menachem got? A piece of paper.”

Two years earlier, in November 1978 (hence four months before the signing of the March 1979 Israel-Egyptian peace treaty), I warned Israel’s government in these words:

The Arab rulers aren’t fools. They surely see the utility of Sadat’s strategy, which provides them with a model for regaining their own lost territory. One can go so far as to say that even if Sadat were assassinated, he would continue to be useful. Having served the Arab cause, he isn’t physically necessary any more. But his example is. (Sadat’s Strategy, p. 41, English edition.)

Arab leaders probably look at Israel’s ruling elites as “useful idiots,” to use Lenin’s cynicism. (more…)

This is a brilliant and urgently needed analysis—P.E.

Courtesy of The Claremont Institute For the Study of Statesmanship and Political Philosophy.

War in the Absence of Strategic Clarity

More than merely winning the war in Iraq, we needed to stun the Arab World.
By Mark Helprin
September 17, 2003

America has approached the war on terrorism as if from two dreamworlds. The liberal, in which an absurd understanding of cause and effect, the habit of capitulation to foreign influence, a mild and perpetual anti-Americanism, reflex allergies to military spending, and a theological aversion to self-defense all lead to policies that are hard to differentiate from surrender. And the conservative, in which everything must be all right as long as a self-declared conservative is in the White House—no matter how badly the war is run; no matter that a Republican administration in electoral fear leans left and breaks its promise to restore the military; and no matter that because the Secretary of Defense decided that he need not be able to fight two wars at once, an adequate reserve does not exist to deal with, for example, North Korea. And in between these dreamworlds of paralysis and incompetence lies the seam, in French military terminology la soudure, through which al-Qaeda, uninterested in our parochialisms, will make its next attack.

The war is waged as if accidentally, and no wonder. For domestic political reasons and to preserve its marginal relations with the Arab World, the United States has declined to identify the enemy precisely. (more…)

Since Israel is at war, Israel’s General Staff would do well to emulate General George S. Patton, the warrior most feared by Nazi Germany.

On the eve of battle, Patton would admonish his soldiers: “The object of war is not to die for your country. It is to make the other poor dumb bastard die for his.” This requires confronting and killing the enemy on the battlefield.

“Never let the enemy rest.” No cease fires or hudnas. Unconditional surrender should be Israel’s proclaimed war aim!

“We want the enemy to know that they are fighting the toughest fighting men in the world!” This precludes benevolence (which Arabs despise). Just as Hamas (or Hezbollah) warriors would show no mercy to you, so you should show no mercy to them. These warriors must be killed even if this results in civilian casualties. (more…)

After reading “Israel Insider” commentary (below) regarding Barack Obama, ponder the following speculations:

If Obama has Islamic inclinations and wins the 2008 presidential election:

1. It may multiply the number of mosques in the United States.
2. It may increase the number of Muslims immigrating to the United States.
3. It may increase the number of Muslims in key position in government, especially the State Department.
4. It may increase the number of Hezbollah and other Islamic “sleeper cells.”
5. It may diminished freedom of speech and press by suppressing criticism of Islam. (more…)

The following, apart from the three concluding paragraphs, is extracted from my book A Jewish Philosophy of History (lightcatcherbooks.com [2006]).

Muslims have never had any doubts about the conflict between Islam and the West. They have always divided the world into the territory of Dar al-Islam, where Islam reigns, and the territory of Dar al-Harb, where infidels reign, but which the Sharia requires Muslims to conquer in the name of Allah.

Islam’s division of humanity suggests to Lee Harris [Civilization and Its Enemies] that Islam is the enemy of civilization [per se]. By civilization he means a standard that can be applied across cultures and across history. He sees civilization as having four prerequisites: a stable social order, the co-operation of individuals pursuing their own interests, the ability to tolerate or socialize with one’s neighbors, and a hatred of violence. Clearly, Islam lacks three of the four prerequisites of Harris’ view of a civilization. What is remarkable is that Dr. Wafa Sultan, a Syrian-born psychiatrist living in America, arrived at the same conclusion. She denied there was clash between the West and Islamic civilization because, in her words, Islam is not a civilization! (more…)

Comment on the article “The Enemy Has a Name” by Daniel Pipes.

With all due respect to Daniel Pipes, and although I understand his reticence, it is not sufficient to classify the enemy as “Islamism.” Islamism is nothing less than Islam. The Quran, the Hadith, and Islam’s murderous history make this crystal clear. But consider the judgment of two astute scholar-statesmen of uncommon urbanity:

Alexis de Tocqueville:

I studied the Quran a great deal. I came away from that study with the conviction that by and large there have been few religions in the world as deadly to men as that of Muhammad. So far as I can see, it is the principal cause of the decadence so visible today in the Muslim world and, though less absurd than the polytheism of old, its social and political tendencies are in my opinion more to be feared, and I therefore regard it as a form of decadence rather than a form of progress in relation to paganism itself.

Winston Churchill said as much in 1899, but with chilling significance for Europe today: (more…)

This is a must read.
Terrorists’ Crossing (Paperback) by Rich Carroll

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Courtesy of Two Sisters from the Right.

The Jihad Candidate

by Rich Carroll

Conspiracy theories make for interesting novels when the storyline is not so absurd that it can grasp our attention. ‘The Manchurian Candidate’ and ‘Seven Days in May’ are examples of plausible chains of events that captures the reader’s imagination at best-seller level. ‘What if’ has always been the solid grist of fiction.

Get yourself something cool to drink, find a relaxing position, but before you continue, visualize the television photos of two jet airliners smashing into the Twin Towers in lower Manhattan and remind yourself this cowardly act of Muslim terror was planned for eight years.

How long did it take Islam and their oil money to find a candidate for President of the United States? (more…)

By Hugh Fitzgerald
Courtesy of Jihad Watch

What Obama Has to Do Now

The promise by Obama in his AIPAC speech to “personally” take part in a renewal of Israeli-”Palestinian” negotiations is worrisome. Very. It should fill everyone with anxiety. For everything about Obama until now—the people he has allowed to tell him all about “Palestine” (Rashid Khalidi), the people who were his early financial backers (Anton Rezko, who in turn is backed by an Iraqi billionaire), his early political backers (Rev. Wright, possibly Louis Farrakhan), his choice of foreign-policy advisers (Zbigniew Brezezinski, and Samantha Powers), his endorsement by Jimmy Carter, all point in one direction.

And his endorsement of one undivided capital is “just words,” until we see exactly what he means by this. And he should be asked. Does he mean Jerusalem as the Israelis now define it, and include the Old City? And what else does he mean? (more…)

What is the one grim fact that Israel has to overcome if it is to survive?

That the murder of Jews by Arab terrorists has become a banality.

First published in December, 1994; Postscript added 2008.

When reservist Shmuel Meiri was attacked by Arabs in Ramallah on December 14, 1994, the photographs taken of the faces of his assailants convey a hatred of visceral and demonic proportions. To appreciate how much Moslems hate Jews, consider first what Moslem Chechens think and feel about Russians.

Writing on the subject in The New York Times (December 18, 1994), Steven Erlanger quotes two celebrated Russian authors, Tolstoi and Lermontov. Tolstoi writes of the Russian destruction of a Chechen village: “The emotion felt by every Chechen, old and young, was stronger than hatred. It was not hatred, it was a refusal to recognize these Russian dogs as men at all, and a feeling of such disgust [and] revulsion … that the urge to destroy them, like the urge to destroy rats, venomous spiders, or wolves, ִwas an instinct as natural as self-preservation.”

Lermontov summarized the Chechen in the Russian imagination this way: “Their god is freedom, their law is war … Their hatred is as boundless as their love.” That this boundless hatred describes the feelings of Muslims toward Jews is evident in the faces of those Arabs who attacked Shmuel Meiri. (more…)

Stupidity is distinct from irrationality because stupidity denotes an incapability or unwillingness to properly consider the relevant information.

Those who support the policy of “land for peace” or a “two state” solution to the Israel-Palestinian conflict suffer from ethnocentrism—a polite term for stupidity. They do not see that offering Muslims land-for-peace is tantamount to expecting them to renounce their religion.

It probably does not occur to American commentators—including such intelligent commentators like Charles Krauthammer and Norman Podhoretz, who supported “unilateral disengagement” from Gaza—that Israel’s ruling elites are stupid. (more…)

Submitted by Prof. Paul Eidelberg, May 5, 2008 to the Daniel Pipes Blog.

The basic issue is not whether there are “Muslim Moderates” but whether Islamic texts—the Quran and the Hadith—foster the murder of non-Muslims. I therefore offer my article “Monotheistic Idolatry.”

View original article, “Responding to Joshua Muravchik about ‘Moderate Islamists’”, by Daniel Pipes.

On September 11, 2001, nineteen Muslim terrorists hijacked four American passenger planes and flew them into the Twin Towers, the Pentagon, and a field in Pennsylvania killing 3,000 innocent men, women, and children. This horrendous act of murder was cheered by Muslims throughout the world. What shall we say of the religion of these people? Is there no essential or inevitable connection between the teachings of Islam and the deeds of believers?

Perhaps the most profound and disturbing insights into the nature of Islam, or at least of what is called “Islamism,” appeared in an essay of Professor Kenneth Hart Green published earlier this year. The essay is entitled “Leo Strauss’ Challenge to Emil Fackenheim: Heidegger, Radical Historicism, and Diabolical Evil.” The essay is one of a collection edited by S. Portnoff, J.A. Diamond, and M.D. Yaffe, Emil L. Fackenheim: Philosopher, Theologian, Jew, (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 2008).

One of the problems of Green’s essay concerns Martin Heidegger, deemed by many as the greatest philosopher of the twentieth century. Heidegger not only joined the Nazi Party but never regretted it. How is one to explain such a monstrous thing: that a philosopher, especially of Heidegger’s rank, could associate himself with diabolical evil? Is there something in his philosophy that links him to such evil? (more…)

Edited transcript of the Eidelberg Report, Israel National Radio, April 28, 2008.

Since anti-Semitism is sweeping cross England and Europe, I want to read some passages from England’s greatest statesman, Winston Churchill, who, more than any other man, saved England Europe from Nazi tyranny.

I propose to read passages from Churchill’s official biographer Sir Martin Gilbert, whose recent book, Churchill & the Jews (2007) is fascinating.

Before I begin, I want to point out that Churchill was first and foremost a British statesman, and his duties as a British statesmen must be taken into account in any assessment one makes of his attitude toward Jews and Palestine.

Despite the anti-Zionist attitude of many of his Conservative Party colleagues, Churchill was steadfast in his support of the Jews, as Gilbert thoroughly documents. (more…)

For those of you who have received, either from me or another source, the video of Newt Gingrich on the failure of any public official to warn Americans of the existential threat Islam poses to their country, you may be interested in reading the updated version of Chapter 5 of Demophrenia: Israel and the Malaise of Democracy appended below. If you substitute “America” for “Israel” you will discover that both countries are suffering from the same mental and fatal disorder.

Unless I am mistaken, Mr. Gingrich will soon address the American Enterprise Institute on the subject he discusses in the aforementioned video. He is puzzled and dismayed by the intellectual and moral paralysis prevailing in America vis-à-vis the Islamic threat. That paralysis is a consequence of “demophrenia.”

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CHAPTER 5

DEMOPHRENIA: SYMPTOMATOLOGY

If in life we are surrounded by death, so too in the health of our intellect, we are surrounded by madness.

—Ludwig Wittgenstein, Notebook on Culture and Value, 1944

Introduction

From its inception in 1948, the government of Israel, regardless of which party or coalition was at the helm, has been afflicted by "demophrenia." (more…)