It appears Israel is hell-bent on fulfilling Samuel Huntington’s “Clash of the Civilizations” theory in which he argued that a war between Islam and the West is inevitable. The worry for many now is the aftermath of the Gaza massacres.
No one has gained more than Israel since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the Twin Towers and the ensuing “war on terror.” Even now, as it kills and maims with impunity in Gaza, its leaders constantly refer to themselves as fighting in the front-line of the “war on terror.” To appear as if Israel is only doing the West’s work, Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni equates Hamas with “an axis of Islamist fundamentalist evil with Iran and Hezbollah.” According to her, Israel’s actions have nothing to do with the continued occupation of the West Bank, the food and medicine blockade of Gaza, or the fact that Israel has killed and incarcerated nearly all of Hamas’ leadership. Instead, she confidently states: “Israel is part of the free world and fights extremism and terrorism. Hamas is not.”
Israel’s claim that it is fighting in retaliation against Hamas’ rockets is running out of steam and the lies it has been feeding the media and Western governments have instead opened up the truth about Gaza. As horrific pictures of Palestinians dying and aid convoys being bombed as they make their way with food and medicines make headline news, everyone now realizes that Gaza in reality is a prison where over a million-and-a-half people are on the brink of starvation. A blockade by Israel of land and sea means no food and basic medicines. The problem is further compounded by the disruption of electricity and water supplies, unemployment and starvation, rocket attacks and deaths.
Israel’s latest war in Gaza has confirmed for many of its critics what had been apparent to many in the Middle East, that Israel has no interest in any negotiated peace, because peace means Israel would have to give back some occupied territory. After Sept. 11, Israel gained a carte blanche to further terrorize and humiliate the Palestinians. The 2006 Lebanon war affirmed for Israel that killing innocent Muslims would get them US backing. During the Lebanon war, the US and Western nations vetoed any cease-fire, allowing the Israelis to continue massacres as they are now doing in Gaza.
Israeli policy is one of expansion, and that is evident by its continued theft of land in the West Bank, together with the demolition of Palestinian homes, growth of settlements, stifling of the Palestinian economy and the apartheid wall. And if anyone is wondering what Ehud Olmert would gain by attacking Gaza, here is the answer: Apart from winning elections at home, Olmert has two aims: First to terrorize and kill Palestinians, breaking their will for resistance; secondly, and more importantly, shelve any plans to make a peace deal. Israel wants dominance, not peaceful coexistence.
Jonathan Cook, in his book “Blood and Religion,” argues that Israel is a pseudo-democracy whose systematic oppression of the Palestinian people was inherent in the Zionist program to establish a Greater Israel, an expanded military state where only Jewish blood and religion count. In his new book, “Israel and the Clash of Civilizations,” he argues “that the Iraq war was as much a Zionist as an American undertaking and that it was inspired in no small degree by the US/Zionist ambition to sow discord in the Arab and Muslim worlds.”
He also explains how in the 1980s, the Jewish state’s security establishment developed ideas about dissolving other Middle Eastern states through a policy of nurturing ethnic and religious conflict. “That such a policy was bound to promote Islamic radicalism was seen by Zionist strategists as positively desirable, and with the rise of Hamas in the occupied territories, Israel has succeeded in greatly increasing Western alarm about Islam as a global threat, in the process identifying the question of what to do with the Palestinians with the issue of what the West should do about Islamic extremism.”
As Israel continues its carnage in Gaza, it knows the effect it is having on Muslims around the world. It is fueling Muslim anger and hoping this anger would lead to violence against the West, and radicalize and encourage extremism among Muslims. “The injustices that Muslims are watching will be imprinted on their psyches and extremist ideologies will flourish, further feeding the theory that there will be a clash of civilizations since Muslims and Islam are violent.”
If history has anything to teach us, it is that it tends to repeat itself. Therefore, before Israel stokes the fires of radicalism any further, it should take note of a point highlighted by British journalist Alan Hart who, in his book “Zionism: The Real Enemy of the Jews,” warns: “Anti-Semitism is on the rise again. The irony and the tragedy is that this sleeping giant has been reawakened primarily by the Zionist state’s appalling self-righteousness, its arrogance of power and its contempt for international law and the human and political rights of others.”
— Shabana Syed is a British journalist. She is based in London.
