After telling the Iranians that he would help free them from the maniacal dictatorship that has misruled their unfortunate country for almost half a century, a couple of weeks ago Donald Trump suddenly came to the conclusion that it would be better to let it survive for a while longer. Given his notoriously short attention span, the US president’s willingness to make a “deal” with the ayatollahs and their brutal enforcers of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, because continuing the war he started was harming him among voters back home, did not come as much of a surprise. Neither, for that matter, did his determination to have the presentation of what he said was a truly epoch-making peace deal coincide with his 80th birthday – Trump thinks he can make the entire world dance to his tune and he is mightily pleased with what he sees as yet another signal achievement.
Though many people heaved a sigh of relief on being told that a war that was having unpleasant economic consequences by closing the Strait of Hormuz and interrupting the world’s energy supplies was over, others are less sanguine. They fear that the Islamic Republic will be able to recover from the onslaught to which it was subjected and, having seen off the United States, reassert itself as a regional power its neighbours would have to come to terms with. This, broadly speaking, is what representatives of the Iranian regime are saying.
The most worried by Trump’s change of heart are the Israelis. Unlike the US president and his business cronies, they have no illusions about the fanatical Iranian regime, which has made the annihilation of the “Zionist entity” and everyone associated with it an absolute priority. In comparison with that objective, others, such as improving their country’s economic outlook, are considered unimportant.
In his characteristically modest fashion, Trump has taken to telling Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that it is thanks entirely to him that Israel still exists, so he had better be suitably grateful and stop causing him problems by going after Hezbollah in Lebanon. Trump now accepts that Iran is fully entitled to protect the Jihadist forces it has funded in order to harass Israel and to get a “deal” he should help them. For evident reasons, the Israelis want to keep the campaign their country is waging against Hezbollah, Hamas and other equally murderous organisations completely separate from the war with Iran and have no desire to appease them, but it would seem that Trump has adopted the Islamist view according to which it is all part of the same struggle so peace depends on Israel declining to defend itself forcefully against those seeking to slaughter its inhabitants.
Needless to say, Trump is far from being the only Western leader who is coming round to the idea that, with Israel out of the way, it would be relatively easy for him to bring about a permanent peace with the restive Muslim world. It would appear that most “progressives” and an increasing number of conservatives share that particular view, which is why “Western opinion” is rapidly turning against the Jewish State.
Few really believe that the Islamists hate Israel not just for reasons that go back to the founding of their faith 14 centuries ago and because they think that once a piece of terrain has been ruled by Muslims it should remain in their hands forever, but also because they see it as an outpost of the West. When mobs in Iran chant “Death to America, the Great Satan,” they make it plain that they are fighting a holy war against the unbelievers and that, were they to overcome Israel – “the Little Satan” – they would intensify the offensive against Western civilisation.
All Western governments are worried by the challenges posed by Islamic militancy, a phenomenon they are reluctant to take seriously because it raises too many thorny questions. Among other things, they would have to ask themselves what they stand for and what, if anything, they believe is worth defending.
Most have taken it for granted that, despite the occasional misunderstandings, the rapidly growing Muslim communities would soon blend seamlessly into the host populations, but even in countries where this seemed to be happening, a minority of extremists refused to oblige. How many there are is a matter of dispute, but to judge by the information collected by the security services, there are tens of thousands of people living in the West who feel attracted by the idea of Jihad. This is why in Europe and North America, “terror-related” has long been the standard euphemism for Islamic aggression.
However, though European governments continue to do their best to downplay the significance of what is happening, their tolerant approach is not shared by the general public. Almost everywhere, hostility towards large-scale immigration from the Muslim world is approaching fever pitch, which is why in so many countries political movements that are habitually condemned as “far right” are winning majority support.
Israel is in bad odour among “progressives” the world over because – since the appalling events of October 7, 2023 when over 1,000 people were massacred in an extraordinarily sadistic fashion by Jihadists, who raped and mutilated women, killed infants and took hundreds of prisoners to use as hostages – its Armed Forces have been counter-attacking in an effort to eliminate its enemies.
The Israelis’ refusal to let themselves be butchered has not won them many friends in elite circles in economically developed countries. Throughout the West, influential people blame them for fighting back and, by doing so, reminding them that, the world being the place it has always been, those who are unable or unwilling to defend themselves against savages are unlikely to survive for very long. Hard as it may be for those raised to view physical violence as a relic of a terrible past that their societies left behind them several decades ago, medieval barbarism has not been consigned to history. It is still there, lurking on the fringes of our civilisation and – as the Israelis learned almost three years ago – it could irrupt at any moment. This is an ugly truth that most people would rather not have to think about.
Comments