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Is Europe Helpless?
(Wall Street Journal) Bret Stephens - At last count, members of the EU spent more than $200 billion a year on defense and employed 1.4 million military personnel. More than a million police officers also walk Europe's streets. Yet in the face of an Islamist menace the Continent seems helpless. The best guide to how Europe can find its way to safety is the country it has spent the best part of the last 50 years lecturing and vilifying: Israel. For now, it's the only country in the West that refuses to risk the safety of its citizens on someone else's notion of human rights or altar of peace. Europeans will no doubt look to Israel for tactical tips in the battle against terrorism - crowd management techniques and so on - but what they really need to learn from the Jewish state is the moral lesson. Namely, that identity can be a great preserver of liberty, and that free societies cannot survive through progressive accommodations to barbarians.