Stand Up America, Stand Up
There is a war taking place in the Middle East. Protective Edge. It isn’t in Syria or Iraq. It’s not in Jordan or Lebanon. It is war between light and dark and Israel is on the Edge, left alone to fight against the dark barbaric beliefs and behaviours running rampant throughout the area. Where is America: the superpower, the defender of freedom and democracy?
She is calling for restraint. “All parties must protect the innocent and act with reasonableness and restraint, not vengeance and retribution.”
Once again the Jewish people are being asked to sacrifice themselves in order for the West to continue to enjoy the benefits of Western Civilization, Western Culture that were brought into our collective conscious by these very people 3500 years ago. And Israel is being told by America to restrain herself against terrorists, who cowardly hide behind women and children. Real men do not hide behind women and children-only barbarians do that. An even then I think I am being unfair to barbarians.
While I write this Tel Aviv is under attack and I am listening to CNN tell us about the “root causes” of this war. “Root causes” is code for the Palestinian claim “I am the blameless victim. I want rights and no responsibilities.”
Israel must not restrain herself this time. And I know that this is easier for me to say than mothers and fathers, brothers and sisters of soldiers in Israel for I live in the diaspora. The enemy of Israel is the enemy of western life. If the Rest of the West refuses once again to help the Jews, then the Jewish people, now, with a nation state must.
It is time for Israel to take a page out of the book of warfare, The Prince, written 500 year ago, by Machiavelli, the first man to write about the psychology of war by following one of the most ruthless of warriors, César Borgia. It is not that he applauded this man. It is that he chronicled his every move and his words on war. And the lesson to be learned-react to facts on the ground, not false hopes like those expressed by President Obama, “In President Abbas, Israel has a counterpart committed to a two-state solution and security cooperation with Israel.”
I am quoting now from Paul Strathern author of The Artist, the Philosopher and the Warrior. I have written this before, but one cannot repeat this often enough when war is taking place between those who practice and live ethical monotheism-Western Culture-and those who don’t.
“Machiavelli was one of the first to grapple with the inherent hypocrisy that springs from the pluralism that lies at the heart of the Western worldview.” It’s a dichotomy between the teachings of the Judeo-Christian ethic that calls on us to “be governed by such qualities as compassion, meekness, humility, love of one’s neighbour” when “in the everyday secular world that we actually inhabit… In order to succeed here we need ambition, greed, self-assertion and so forth.”
Israel, the country that brought that ethic, the Judeo-Christian ethic, to the world is now forced to take that hard stand against evil: Hamas, Fatah, and now ISIS. And she is fighting this evil while doing more than any other country, ever, to keep civilian casualties to a minimum. To honour the ethic. What other country calls people to tell them to leave their home because a bomb is coming to destroy the hornet’s nest; a bomb is coming to stop the cowardly terrorists from killing Jewish civilians, not as the result of collateral damage- an accident-but with intent? Would America do this? Britain?
Israel has been abandoned by the West. Again. She is alone fighting against those who scream for her elimination. Again. Here is a people, too acutely aware of the effect of ignorantia affectata, the intentional turning away from truth, facts on the ground, threats to one’s existence, to ignore the threat ever again.
It is time for the West, for America, to Stand Up. Stand Up for Western culture. Stand Up for Western Civilization. Stand Up for democracy. Stand Up with your sister, Israel. Stand Up, America. Stand Up. Stand Up. Or someday you will hang your head in shame.