Fatah and Hamas are at each other’s throats. The rival Palestinian parties have
taken up arms in the
Gaza Strip and initiated a full scale civil war. This is the flashover from the Lebanese conflict of less than a year ago. Hamas, an Islamic, militant group, infuriated with the position taken by the PLO and Fatah towards Israel, is seeking the complete rout of the government of Mahmoud Abbas.
Holy crap. Somewhere someone will bemoan the fact that we haven’t engaged with these groups or dialogued with their leadership. The Islamists have proven time and time again their unwillingness to enter diplomatic discussions, their disregard for non-Muslims and their utter lack of concern for their own people. The people who are being shot and killed are not IDF soldiers but helpless Palestinians!
Let’s review.
1) All recent terrorist attacks have come largely (<90%) from Islamic militants.
2) All present instability in the world is due to Islamic extremists
3) Islamic extremists have publicly voiced their desire to eliminate Western thought and establish Sharia as global law.
Questions
1) Are we at war?
2) Does a negotiated settlement seem likely?
3) If so, who (precisely) do we negotiate with?
4) What are our options?
5) Are any short term?
In my opinion, short of deploying troops across the globe to clamp down on these actions, there is no short term fix. The Islamic problem is rooted in the restrictive and oppressive nature of its own philosophy. It has not undergone any reformation – akin to
Judaism or
Christianity – and it did not start out as a benign philosophy – as
Buddhist or
Hinduism.
It seeks conflict with those who differ in belief.
It seeks subjugation over the females of its faith.
In order for the world to resolve this crisis, the change must come from within Islam and from without. The change from without would be for the West to demand adherence to some basic principles of human dignity. It would require us to aggressively confront separatism in all its forms – thought, gender, race, etc.
It would require us to acknowledge that while someone may have a faith based upon certain values – that faith does not trump the rights if individuals to freedom of thought, belief and life.
