Mohammad's Passion: By Moshe Feiglin

24 Adar, 5764
March 17, 2004

Editor's note: Moshe Feiglin wrote this article over five years ago, but his prescient analysis of the global forces shaping Israel's reality today are still a must-read.

In its first week in the movie theaters, Mel Gibson's new movie, "The Passion," is already a tremendous box office success. Millions of Americans and Europeans wait in long lines to watch an arid movie in Aramaic that revolves around the nails thrust into the body of their deity. Gibson had the guts to take a chance on this movie, which forces Americans to read subtitles translating Aramaic and to view, more or less, a two hour documentary of a slaughterhouse - even when nobody else gave it a chance. But Gibson understood something that most of us want to repress: The world is becoming less and less stable and its occupants are looking for something to hang onto - something more eternal than the transient physical world. In other words, the world is looking for religion.

The two religions that encompass most of humanity - Christianity and Islam - are both based on Judaism. That is why they hate it. Both wage a constant struggle for world hegemony. Christianity rules with its hug; Islam rules with the plunge of its dagger. The stock broker at the Twin Towers did not understand what the suicide pilot wanted from him. But, in truth, economic and cultural conquest (McDonald's, Coca Cola, Hollywood) are no less effective than a suicide bomber. The poor broker who found himself covered with soot and broken glass hadn't understood that he was playing on a global arena.

When the Twin Towers collapsed, the Jews mistakenly thought that it would increase Western sympathy for their position. "Now they understand what Israel is fighting for," friends told me at they watched, hypnotized, as the Twin Towers burned. "They," of course, is the entire Western Christian world that found itself so cruelly attacked by Islam. It made a lot of sense: After all, "My enemy's enemy is my friend."

But what actually took place was the complete opposite. Huge waves of anti-Semitism and anti-Israel rhetoric surfaced at U.S. universities. These waves do not stop at the gates of the campus. Europe has become openly anti-Semitic. Instead of enjoying its new found allies in the Christian world, Israel finds itself on the defendant's stand in the International Court in The Hague.

The Christian world has two options. The first: to fight terror, or more accurately, Islam, which nurtures terror. The second: to surrender to it and to be slowly but surely overpowered by the waves of the modern Islamic jihad. London's ladies are presumably not interested in wearing veils and floor-length coats all year round. New York is not interested in turning into Cairo, which would be the final result of the Moslem conquest. Westerners know that everywhere the Arabs will reach, growth will stop and a harsh Eastern wind will sweep away all hints of civilized living. Consequently, surrender to Islam is not an alternative for the West. But it is not interested in fighting a war, either.

Look at the poor Americans. They defined their enemy as a state and a terror organization. They did not want to understand that they are in a religious battle against Islam. They may have turned Iraq upside down, but against Islam - they are losing big-time. The Western politicians refuse to admit it, but the millions waiting patiently in line for Gibson's movie are searching for an answer in the dimension in which they are being attacked.

But there is a third solution for the seemingly dead end situation: the Jews.

Christianity and Islam have one common denominator: hatred of Israel. Judaism, the mother of the two major religions, refuses to disappear. With its very existence, Judaism highlights the falsehood at the foundation of its two daughter religions.

"If you can't beat them, join them," the adage recommends. Christianity will join Islam, but against whom? The answer is clear: Anti-Semitism has always existed in the West, even when the memories of Auschwitz sent it underground.

In America, the process is slow. Christianity in America is not as all-encompassing as its European counterpart. But as the Western defeat at the hands of Islam becomes more obvious, hatred of Jews and Israel increases. In Europe the process is much quicker. The Spanish changed their leadership overnight, rewarding the murderers of the 200 railway passengers with a speedy retreat from Iraq. Toward what will all the energies seeking revenge be channeled? Toward the common enemy, of course.

And what about Israel?

Israel's victory in 1967 sparked an interesting worldwide phenomenon. Its resounding triumph and the fact that it conquered its Biblical heartland actually lowered the flames of world anti-Semitism. Western Jews who previously hid the fact that they were Jewish suddenly discovered their identity and took pride in it. To put it simply, when Israel is strong and defeats its enemies, Anti-Semitism runs for cover. And vice versa. When Israel strikes at the Moslem world, the Christian world suppresses its inherent anti-Semitism and lets the Israelis do the work for them. When Israel is strong in its struggle against Islam, it is not the West's punching bag. It is its commando force.

But today Israel leads the worldwide retreat from the Islamic offensive. It suffers terror attacks and the blood of its children has become increasingly cheap. This type of Israel revives worldwide anti-Semitism. And justifiably so! Were there suicide bombers before the Jews surrendered their sense of justice at Oslo?

There is no such thing as a moral vacuum. When we declared that we are not right and that the Holy Land belongs to the Moslems, we let the suicide genie out of the bottle. If the Oslo Accords had never been signed, the Twin Towers would still be standing today.

Identification of this process leads us to a difficult conclusion: Israel's defeatism will feed the flames of both Christian and Islamic Jew hatred. The more that Israel retreats, the more the West will surrender to Islam and will attack Israel instead. Islam, encouraged by its successes, will continue to attack both the West and Israel.

How will this madness be stopped? We can't really know. But one thing is clear. It is not only Jewish history that is being written today in Israel. It is the history of the entire world.
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