Israel is the front line against radical Islam
Israel has stood alone and firm in its opposition to Iran’s terror network and radical Islamic proxies.
By Joseph Puder
JNS
Nov 1, 2024
Israel has been the West’s frontline against the forces of darkness almost from its inception.
During the height of the Cold War between the United States and the Communist Soviet Union, Israel’s utilization of U.S. arms defeated the Arab-nations’ Soviet arms. Israel’s victories garnered prestige and profits for American aircraft-producing industries. Israel’s battle experience and intelligence, which it shared with the United States, gave America a serious advantage over its Russian and Chinese adversaries. Israel has bolstered America’s “hard security” defense through counterterrorism cooperation, intelligence sharing, and the development of innovations, including unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and missile defense.
Israel also provided America with “soft security” through advances in the high-tech, medical and sustainability sectors, which have helped to maintain American economic competitiveness and promote sustainable development. Israel’s high-tech community, second only to Silicon Valley, and Israel’s cooperation with U.S. companies on information technology has been crucial to their success.
In the aftermath of the Soviet Union’s demise, the dark forces of radical Islam threatened the civilized world. The Europeans chose to appease the radical Shi’ite regime of the ayatollahs in Iran. In contrast, Israel has stood alone and firm in its opposition to Iran’s terror network and its Islamic proxies, including Hezbollah, Hamas, Yemen’s Houthis, and Iranian-controlled Iraqi and Syrian Shi’ite militias.
Early in his presidency, Barack Obama set the tone for the tolerance that he would repeatedly extend to authoritarian and undemocratic Mideast heads of state. The first phone call he made to a Middle East leader was to Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian Authority chief. His first visit to the Middle East was to Egypt in 2009, where he spoke at Cairo’s Al-Azhar University, the foremost Sunni-Muslim Institute. His speech was, in essence, an apology to the Muslim world for American and Western alleged misdeeds. Despite his proximity to Israel during that 2009 visit, Obama made no attempt to contact any Israeli leader or schedule a visit. He finally flew to Israel in 2013, four years into his presidency.
The recent elimination by the Israel Defense Forces of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah accomplished what neither the United States nor any other Western or Arab country was willing or able to do. Hezbollah has been murdering Lebanese citizens, Syrians (anti-Assad Syrian rebels), French troops and American Marines with impunity and yet, the Biden-Harris administration was quick to criticize Israel for its actions.
Ibrahim Aqil, the second-highest commander of Hezbollah, who was in charge of their elite force and a principal member of the Islamic Jihad Organization, which claimed responsibility for the 1983 bombing of the U.S. Embassy in Beirut that killed 63 people, was on Washington’s most-wanted list. Despite a $7 million bounty offered by the administration, Aqil eluded the Americans. It was Israel that succeeded in eliminating him. Once again, it was Israel and not the Biden-Harris team that settled the score with a bloody terrorist and his bloodier boss, Nasrallah.
The impoverished country of Yemen, whose Shi’ite Houthis have been operating under the direction of their paymaster Iran, has been supplied with sophisticated missiles that have damaged and sunk Western commercial ships in the Red Sea for more than a year now. The inconsequential retaliation raids by the United States and the United Kingdom against the Houthis have not induced any fear nor deterred the Houthis’s actions. Late last month, Israel alone displayed resolve and guts by inflicting a painful strike on the Houthis’s oil facilities and its main port of Hodeida on the Red Sea.
Pierre Poilievre, the Canadian Conservative Party leader, called for Israel to pre-emptively strike Iran’s nuclear facilities earlier this month, saying that such an act would be “a gift by the Jewish state to humanity.” He added, “I think the idea of allowing a genocidal, theocratic, unstable dictatorship that is desperate to avoid being overthrown by its own people to develop nuclear weapons is about the most dangerous and irresponsible thing that the world could ever allow.”
Poilievre’s strong and courageous endorsement of Israel was in sharp contrast to the appeasement of Iran displayed by the Biden-Harris administration. It seems that winning the state of Michigan for vice president ad Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris is more important than saving humanity from a nuclear Iran. Neither Harris nor President Joe Biden is willing to tackle the “nuclear threshold” Islamic Republic of Iran, but are, instead, restraining Israel from acting on its vital interests, which in this case is of an existential nature.
Getting rid of Iran’s nuclear arsenal is as much in the interest of America and the West as it is in Israel’s interest. In fact, a concerted attack on Iran by both the United States and Israel may have the added benefit of bringing down the hated and repressive regime of the ayatollahs to the relief of the Iranian people. But Biden and Harris subscribe to the Obama doctrine of maintaining the ayatollahs’ regime as a counterweight to Israel and Saudi Arabia.
The American administration continues to uphold the Palestinian cause as one grounded on land or soil when, in fact, it is all about Islam, its faith and its beliefs. This is the central ideological centerpiece for Hamas and encompasses the entire spectrum of radical Salafist Islam. Hamas is by far the most popular and dominant party in what is claimed to be the “Palestinian territories” and the Palestinian diaspora. If open and fair elections were held tomorrow in the P.A.-controlled areas of Judea and Samaria, Hamas would win hands down, just as it did in Gaza in 2007. Pressuring Israel to facilitate a “two-state solution” would be another gift to radical Islam. Hamas would be in control, and Israel would be in a perpetual war with it. But a scenario where Hamas gains control over the “Palestinian territories” would usher in a domino effect that would likely bring down the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan and enable the Islamic Republic of Iran to swallow another Arab capital, Amman, to the consternation of Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates.
Israel has proven to the world that it is capable of defending itself and, by extension, defending U.S. and Western interests. Instead of appeasing Israel’s enemies, who are America’s foes as well, the Biden-Harris administration must back Israel and enable it to spread the light of democracy, human rights, and religious freedom in a region of darkness led by Iran and its proxies. Israel’s victory will be a victory for the West.
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