In a few decades, radical Islam will ultimately dominate the European Union, and perhaps most of the world. It has already become a dominant force in the UN, which is reflected in the results of voting against Israel's anti-terrorist barrier. In this respect, we should note that the widespread usage of the word "wall" is itself a small victory of anti-Israeli propaganda, since 93 percent of the barrier consists of a fence that can be quickly removed once the Palestinian authorities manage to restrain the terrorists' activity.
The first reason extreme Islam will prevail is the intellectual advantage that al-Qaeda leaders have over western European politicians. The latter want to believe that there is no clash of civilizations; that terrorism is just a product of misery and lack of education; that the solution lies in a multicultural, tolerant society; and that the stubbornness of the Americans and Israelis is to blame for all the problems.
What naïveté. An editorial in the March issue of Mu'askar al-Battar (an al-Qaeda newsletter) sets these fantasies right: "The war of cultures had begun long before the 9/11 attacks, before Huntington and Fukuyama. This war has been going on since there first were the faithful and the unfaithful." We might cite dozens of similar statements. The European leaders who still doubt the validity of Huntington's "clash of civilizations" theory are kidding themselves. The leaders of Islamic radicals are fanatics, but they are intelligent fanatics. |