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Islam's Coming Crusade

(Jerusalem Report/Washington Institute for Near East Policy) Martin Kramer - Khaled Mashal, the leader of Hamas abroad, has demanded that Europe repent for the Danish cartoons. "Tomorrow, our nation will sit on the throne of the world....Apologize today, before remorse will do you no good....Since God is greater, and He supports us, we will be victorious." The secular West had flattered itself, believing it had pulled the Muslim world into modernity. Yes, Islam has sent forth suicide bombers and terrorist insurgents. But they and their sympathizers were in the minority - so the pollsters and analysts told us: "Don't judge Islam by the acts of a misguided few." This faith in the pragmatic Muslim majority has underpinned every Western policy, from the Israeli-Palestinian "peace process" to the Bush administration's democracy promotion. The Muslim masses, the assumption goes, will choose peace and freedom, if given the chance. But they haven't. 9/11 could be attributed to a fanatic minority. Not so the Danish cartoon protests: Millions have taken part. Hundreds of millions of Muslims who live alongside us and among us inhabit another mental world. Our elites have spent a decade denying the truth at the core of Samuel Huntington's thesis: that the Islamic world and the West are bound to collide. There is a clash of civilizations, but there isn't yet a war of the worlds. They lack power, resources and weapons. Today they burn flags; a united West can still deny them the means to burn more if it acts swiftly and resolutely, to keep nuclear fire out of Iran's hands, and to assure that Hamas fails.
2006-03-08 00:00:00
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