Editor’s note: Dr. Blumenfeld is the author of the lead article in the October issue of
Whistle Blower which examines the deliberate destruction of America’s education system.
The destruction of the twin World Trade Center towers in New York, with its enormous death toll, was more than just another terrorist attack like so many during the last 20 years. We tend to forget these other atrocities which now seem like pin pricks compared to the latest attack – they were annoying, but tolerable: The suicide truck bombing of the U.S. embassy and U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut in 1983; the truck bombing of U.S. military housing in Saudi Arabia; the bombing of the two U.S. embassies in Africa; the attack against the guided missile destroyer USS Cole in a Yemeni harbor; the terrorist attack on the Achille Lauro cruise ship in the Mediterranean; the bombings at the Rome and Vienna airports; the bomb that destroyed Pam Am 103 over Scotland; the bombing of the night club in Berlin which killed American servicemen; the killing of Israeli athletes in Munich in 1972; and the numerous other hijackings and bombings – not to mention the full-scale war against Iraq in Desert Storm.
But we are finally beginning to figure out what all of this is about. It’s not a war over Israel and it’s not a war over oil. It’s a war between civilizations, and the Arabs have understood it far better than we have. In fact, they are teaching it to their children in school. According to an article by Itamar Marcus and Ruthie Blum entitled “Western Civilization will become a pile of rubble,” Palestinian Authority textbooks describe this war of civilizations in very clear terms:
The Palestinian Authority has been teaching their people for years, that the PA sees the Palestinian conflict with Israel and the United States as two branches in the general total global war of Islam against the West and all other religions. An 11th grade PA textbook describes the inevitable victory of Islam over the West with words that become ever so chilling following the World Trade Center horror: “… We do not claim that the collapse of Western civilization, and the transfer of the center of civilization to us [Islam] will happen in the next decade. Nevertheless [Western civilization] has begun to collapse and to become a pile of rubble.”
In Palestinian Authority schoolbooks, Western society and values, especially those of the United States, are portrayed as corrupt, that will inevitably lead to their demise. At times this Western demise is seen as a natural process arising from the innate Western corruption. In other texts, the children are taught that the Jihad Muslim fighters will be victorious over the West through Jihad (Holy War for Allah).
And that explains why Arafat could not accept the incredibly generous offers made by Israeli Prime Minister Barak at Camp David. In the war of civilizations, Israel, a Western entity, could not be permitted to exist. A peace treaty with Israel would have granted Israel that right to exist.
It is obvious that terrorism and religious intolerance is as much a part of the Islamic world as openness and religious freedom is part of the Western world. Biblical religion is the basis of the West’s benevolent values. Despite the diversity of religious sects in the United States, there is that sense of tolerance and trust that permits us all to live together in a free society.
The holocaust in New York has made Americans affirm those benevolent values in the face of such fanatical Islamic hatred and destructiveness. Back in 1966, historian Samuel P. Huntington wrote a book, “The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order,” a title that seems to tell us why September 11th took place. He wrote:
World politics is being reconfigured along cultural and civilizational lines. In this world the most pervasive, important and dangerous conflicts will not be between social classes, rich and poor, or other economically defined groups, but between peoples belonging to different cultural entities. … The most dangerous cultural conflicts are those along the fault lines between civilizations. … It’s now the line separating the peoples of Western Christianity, on the one hand, from Muslim and Orthodox peoples on the other. … Islamic culture explains in large part the failure of democracy to emerge in much of the Muslim world.
In other words, we are not only fighting terrorism, which is the Islamic mode of waging war against us, but we are fighting a civilization based on evil. President Reagan called the Soviet Union the Evil Empire. As much as we tolerate Muslims who choose to live in Western countries, we cannot tolerate the Islamic regimes in the Middle East that want to destroy us. We must subdue them or bequeath our children and grandchildren a future of fear, terrorist destruction and the triumph of unlimited evil.
Next month’s issue (October edition) of WND’s popular Whistleblower magazine will be devoted entirely to public education. Titled “Dumbed down: The deliberate destruction of America’s government schools,” it will forever change the way you think about America’s education system. You may subscribe to Whistleblower at WND’s online store.
