Another Holocaust?

Pity the Jews. The world is about to abandon them—again. They are staring at another Holocaust. And the West, led by President Barack Obama, is willing to sacrifice them at the altar of appeasement.

This is the real meaning of Mr. Obama’s address to the Muslim world at Cairo University. In his speech, Mr. Obama called for a “new beginning” in relations between America and Islamic civilization. He praised the Muslim faith for its historic commitment to “tolerance” and “religious equality.” Moreover, he played to the Arab street, demanding Israel halt the construction of Jewish settlements in the West Bank. His Middle East foreign policy is based on the core illusion propounded by the Left for the past several decades: the root cause of the region’s turmoil is the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

In fact, the very opposite is the case. Arab autocracies have used—and manipulated—the Palestinian issue to divert their long-suffering populations from the real sources of regional instability, backwardness and extremism: the lack of democracy and political accountability, poor education, the denial of basic rights for women, the reluctance to embrace Enlightenment modernity and a virulent strain in Islam that glorifies jihadism and the imposition of Sharia law. Yet, instead of speaking out against these pathologies that afflict Muslim civilization, Mr. Obama turned on America’s only reliable, democratic ally: Israel.

Since the 1917 Balfour Declaration, the Zionist movement has sought to create a Middle East based on peaceful coexistence and mutual acceptance between Jews and Arabs. By calling for an independent Palestine, the so-called two-state solution, Mr. Obama’s speech should have thrilled Israelis. It didn’t. In fact, it has convinced many that Mr. Obama is another Neville Chamberlain: a cynical, amoral opportunist, who is willing to betray a small ally in the false pursuit of peace. Cairo has become the new Munich—a term that will be synonymous with moral cowardice. Blaming Israeli settlements is easy and politically correct; as is falsifying Islam’s dismal record on religious minorities. Yet, what has rightly angered many Israelis is that Mr. Obama never addressed Palestinian—or for that matter, Arab—incitement to anti-Semitic holy war. In schools, classrooms, madrassas and textbooks, Palestinian children are systematically indoctrinated to despise Jews, the state of Israel and the United States. Rather than being taught non-violence and peaceful coexistence, students are urged to hate Israel and call for its destruction. Without fundamental reform in education, no Israeli-Palestinian peace deal can be permanent. Even Israel’s doves recognize this.

Moreover, the creation of an independent Palestine will result in a terror state on Israel’s borders—one that will be a geopolitical dagger aimed at the heart of the Jewish state. Jerusalem’s 2005 withdrawal from Gaza did not lead to peace. The Palestinian authorities could have focused on economic development and nation building. Instead, Hamas was elected to power and the territorial strip was transformed into a giant Islamist terrorist base, from which Israeli towns are bombarded by rockets on an almost daily basis. Pulling out of the West Bank will not buy Israel security. Rather, it will only consolidate the Palestinian territories into Hamastan. In effect, Mr. Obama is demanding Israel commit national suicide.

Yet, the most revealing—and disturbing—aspect of Mr. Obama’s speech was his discussion of the basis of Israel’s legitimacy. For Mr. Obama, the rationale for the Jewish state lies in the Holocaust. It does not rest on the birthplace of Jewish civilization, reflected through the relentless struggle by the Jews over 2,000 years to reestablish their own homeland. “The aspiration for a Jewish homeland,” Mr. Obama said, “is rooted in a tragic history that cannot be denied.” This is also the argument of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (as well as most Arab regimes). Iran’s mullocracy stresses that Israel is a foreign entity in the region; an artificial creation erected after World War II to assuage the European powers’ guilt over the Holocaust. According to Ahmadinejad, Israel was erected upon the blood and real estate of Palestinians. It is a state founded upon mass ethnic cleansing. This view is shared by many academic leftists in America as well—of which Mr. Obama is a product.

Israel’s claim to existence goes much deeper than the Holocaust. It stems from its historical right to a sovereign state anchored in the cradle of Jewish civilization. This forms the very essence of Israel’s national identity. By not mentioning Israel’s historical right to exist, Mr. Obama not only slapped Israeli Jews in the face, but he played right into the ideological hands of Muslim rejectionists. No wonder so many Islamists loved his speech.      

The dirty little secret is that Mr. Obama is prepared to cut the Jews loose. Israeli intelligence officials have confirmed that Washington has privately told Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu Iran will soon have the bomb. Mr. Obama—backed by the liberal internationalists at the State Department—believes that nothing can or should be done to stop the mullahs from going nuclear. It is only a matter of time. Moreover, should Israel’s hawkish government strike Iran’s nuclear sites, the Obama administration will blame Jerusalem—not Tehran—for any ensuing military conflict.

Mr. Obama believes in the sheer force of his personality and charisma; that direct talks with Ahmadinejad will result in a new regional order. The president is the victim of his own hubris. Mr. Obama believes he can do the impossible: convince the mullahs to abandon their genocidal dreams, and make Iran a stable, respectable member of the international community. The administration is convinced that Israel’s nuclear arsenal will act as a strategic deterrent against any possible Iranian attack, compelling Tehran to become a rational state similar to Stalin’s Russia or Mao’s China. In Mr. Obama’s world, diplomacy trumps war; stability trumps democracy; and enemies trump allies.

Mr. Obama’s Mideast utopia, however, will turn into a nightmare—especially, for the Jews. Iran is not a modern-day Persian Empire with a Shiite scowl; rather, it is a messianic, apocalyptic theocracy bent on forging a global Islamic caliphate. Ahmadinejad, along with Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, is an Islamist fanatic. They are convinced their divinely ordained mission is to bring about the coming of the Muslim messiah—also known as the “Hidden Imam” or the Mahdi. They believe the end of the world, and the final victory of political Islam over its enemies, is at hand. This is why Ahmadinejad has called for Israel to be “wiped off the map.” Tehran’s Islamofascists want to eradicate both the Jewish state and its chief sponsor, America. For them, the nuclear bomb is not some defensive weapon to protect the regime from external threats. It is the means by which to achieve world revolutionary Shiitism.

Ahmadinejad has repeatedly said—in private and public—that Israel’s “days are numbered,” and the “stinking, rotten Zionist entity” is destined for the dustbin of history. He is seeking to finish what Adolf Hitler began: The Final Solution of the “Jewish Question.”

Ayatollah Hashemi Rafsanjani, a so-called “moderate” and a predecessor of Ahmadinejad, has vowed that Tehran will not be deterred by the fear of Israeli nuclear retaliation. “If the day comes when the world of Islam is duly equipped with the arms Israel has in its possession,” he said, ". . . application of an atomic bomb would not leave anything in Israel, but the same thing would just produce damages in the Muslim world.” In other words, the mullahs believe Iran can survive a nuclear exchange, while Israel can't.

History is repeating itself; another 6 million Jews are facing the very real prospect of annihilation. During the 1930s, Hitler’s odious, evil regime marched to power. Confused, war weary and preoccupied with the economic crisis, most Americans and Europeans turned a blind eye to the mortal danger of Nazism. Moreover, anti-Semitism spread across large parts of Europe and the Middle East (and to a lesser extent, America). Like a cancer eating away at the body politic, it laid the groundwork for Hitler’s Holocaust.

Today, there is a resurgence of anti-Semitism in Europe and the Arab world. From Liverpool to Paris to Hamburg, radicalized, seething Muslim youths routinely target Jewish businesses, cemeteries and synagogues. A global poll several years ago reported that 59 percent of Europeans regard Israel—not Iran, North Korea, Russia or China—as the greatest threat to world peace. In Germany, the figure was 65 percent; in Austria, it was nearly 70 percent; and in the Netherlands almost 75 percent. In supposedly “moderate” Muslim countries, such as Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Lebanon, the United Arab Emirates and Morocco, 79 percent of respondents believe Israel poses the greatest threat to international peace. Jew-baiting is back in fashion.

In other words, confronted by a determined, ruthless and fanatical enemy in Tehran, surrounded and besieged by hostile neighbors, facing a growing wave of animosity and hatred on the European continent and around the globe, and increasingly abandoned by the president of the United States, Israel is now living through the most perilous moment in its troubled history. Following the discovery of Auschwitz and other Nazi death camps, the world vowed to “never again” allow a Holocaust to take place. That was then; this is now. The Jews know more than anyone that fate is fickle, and the tide of destiny is against them.

As a Catholic traditionalist, my ultimate allegiance is not to Jerusalem (nor despite all of my love for America, to Washington), but to Rome. Still, as the late Pope John Paul II stressed, the Catholic Church’s covenant with the Jews is eternal. Both Christians and Jews are spiritual Semites; together—for all their historic tensions and animosities—they have built Western civilization. The destruction of Israel will not only be a death blow to the Jews. It will be a death blow to Christendom, fatally severing it from its Jewish roots. Only unity can save the Jews.

-Jeffrey T. Kuhner is president of the Edmund Burke Institute and a columnist at The Washington Times.