Why jihad is picking up steam now and fanatical Muslims are on the march

By Aussiegirl

Caroline Glick has been writing excellent articles about Israel that always go right to the heart of the problems. Here is her latest article, and a must-read. (As I am posting this, the UN has passed its "peace resolution" -- i.e. Olmert has surrendered and Hezbollah and Iran have won.)
As Churchill exclaimed: You were given the choice between war and dishonor. You chose dishonor and you will have war.

Why jihad is picking up steam now and fanatical Muslims are on the march By Caroline B. Glick

Why jihad is picking up steam now and fanatical Muslims are on the march
By Caroline B. Glick

As the Israeli people waited Thursday for Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to implement his cabinet's decision to widen the ground offensive in Lebanon, Britain found itself under siege. British security officials announced that the entire country was on a red alert for a terror attack. The night before, British security forces foiled a terrorist conspiracy to explode some ten US bound passenger jets.

As London's deputy police commissioner Paul Stephenson told reporters, ''This was intended to be mass murder on an unimaginable scale." By Thursday morning security forces had arrested some 21 suspects. All are British citizens. All are Muslims.

It is not a stretch of the imagination to assume that these British Muslims are jihadists. Indeed, it can probably be assumed that like their predecessors last July 7, they made their decision to commit an unspeakable atrocity against their countrymen to advance Islam's takeover of Britain.

The path of jihad is the path of terror. Using terror, the jihadists believe that they can destroy the confidence of citizens of free societies and so coerce them to bend to their will.

In his letter to US President George W. Bush last May, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad enunciated the coercive goal of jihad when he threatened the US with war unless Bush converts to Islam. Iran, which today leads the global jihad, has managed to make the language of jihad the lingua franca of the Muslim world.

Many have noted that Hizbullah's initial attack against Israel on July 12 was highly convenient for Teheran. Distracted by the war in Israel and Lebanon, the G-8 and the UN Security Council put off their discussions of Iran's nuclear weapons program, which were scheduled to take place that week.

While the actual date of the attack is easily explained, the question still arises, why is the jihad picking up steam now? Why are fanatical Muslims on the march this summer?

It would seem that the answer to this question is found in the increased cultural weakness of the two states leading the war against radical Islam: the US and Britain. In both countries, for the past two years the forces of leftist radicalism and appeasement have been on the rise. Both countries' leaders are hated by ever larger swathes of their countrymen for their stand on the war against jihad. And so they waver. [....]

While Bush and Blair's weakness is the result of political forces, Olmert's weakness is inherent. He is a dilettante and a dandy, not a leader. Yet, today, the ability of both Blair and Bush to convince their nations to support their war efforts against forces committed to the destruction of their nations' ways of life is dependent on Olmert's ability to lead Israel to victory in the war against Hizbullah.


With a quarter of our population under attack, our cities and forest in flames and our economy surging towards recession and debt, most Israelis agree that the war we face is a war for our national survival. In that sense, it is not all that different from previous wars.


Yet there is a qualitative difference between the current war and wars of previous generations. In the past, our enemies were states. They wished to conquer Israel and take our land for themselves. Today our enemies do not wish to conquer Israel. They wish to destroy Israel as a stepping stone on their path towards global domination. An Israeli victory or defeat in the current war will influence not only Israel's future. It will influence the future of the free world as a whole. If Israel is defeated, if we do not fight to victory over Hizbullah, the march of jihad will move forward with unprecedented force.

Not surprisingly, Olmert hesitates as he faces this challenge. His nation tells him to choose victory. His instincts tell him to seek the path of least resistance. [....]

If Olmert allows the IDF to fight, if he orders the implementation of the security cabinet's decision to widen the ground offensive to the Litani River and so enable us to vanquish Hizbullah, we will be able to change the face of the region and of the world as a whole. []....]

Since his ascension to power last year, Ahmadinejad has been on one long winning streak. US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's success in convincing Bush to open direct negotiations with Teheran regarding its nuclear weapons program was a huge victory for Ahmadinejad. And nothing breeds success like success. Because he has yet to fail, the Iranian leader enjoys an aura of invincibility that deters other leaders from challenging his power. An Israeli victory against the Iranian military's advance guard would shatter that aura and facilitate a much more robust Anglo-American stand against Teheran and its client Syria. [....]

Today Israel is gripped by dread. There is not a household in the country that is not directly impacted by this war. All of us have family and friends in the North and in the IDF. All of us are concerned about the future of our country.

It would be nice to think that there is some shortcut that we could take to secure our country and our freedom on the cheap. It is the natural tendency of men like Olmert to look for such a shortcut.

But there are no shortcuts in this war, this existential war that in many respects we brought on ourselves by attempting to disengage from the reality of our surroundings.

At the cabinet meeting on Wednesday, Olmert demanded that his ministers behave like grown-ups because "the whole nation is watching us now." This is true. We are watching. And at this time, it is up to our nation to force our leaders to lead us to victory.