New York. London. Paris. Madrid. Over the past three decades, at various times, these cities have been yoked together under a pall of terror that has spread right across the West. It has set populations against each other, leaving everyone fearing for their lives. The specifics have varied. Sometimes assailants act alone, sometimes in cells. Often they strike at random, at other times after months of careful planning. Yet, taken together, the terror has a name. Not Islam but Islamism — political, messianic, totalitarian. And it struck again in Israel on October 7, 2023, when Hamas slaughtered hundreds of innocent Jews and kidnapped many more.
That isn’t the only parallel between the massacre last year and its precursors in New York and Paris. As with 9/11, the horrors of 7/10 were initially marked by shock, then calls for huge retaliation. As after 9/11, a backlash swiftly followed. Over the past 12 months, campuses and city streets have been swept by anti-Zionism, just as anti-Americanism became the rage on the Left in the early 2000s. Two decades ago, moreover, there were massive protests decrying America’s invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, and calls for the troops to stay home, much like today’s demands for a ceasefire in Gaza and Lebanon. And as after 9/11, the backlash proved impotent. The US hung on in Afghanistan until 2021. Today, Israel is busy expanding its war to Lebanon — and perhaps soon to Iran as well.
Yet surely the strongest parallel between those earlier atrocities and October 7 isn’t the bursts of violence, or the reaction, or the escalation. It’s that term I started with. It’s Islamism, and the way the West consistently refuses to name its true enemy. I mean the Muslim Brotherhood, which created Hamas, along with those other barbarians at the gates. On September 12, 2001, after all, we declared a war on “terror”. But terror is a tactic, not an ideology. In later years, as the enemy started to strike us at home in Western towns and cities, we called it “violent extremism” and lumped it together with fascism and other forms of homegrown zealotry.
This happened first, and most importantly, because the enemy told us it was fighting in the name of Islam, and we refused and still refuse, categorically, to wage war on one of the world’s great faiths. Second, we thought we could use our vast military and intelligence resources to weaken and destroy the enemy without being trapped into starting a war with a fifth of humanity. We failed to understand the difference between Islam and Islamism — between Muslims and the Muslim Brotherhood.
By failing to name Islamism as our enemy, we allowed it to prosper. Consider, for instance, what happened in Afghanistan. After 20 years of fighting that enemy without a name, spending trillions of dollars and wasting thousands of lives, we abandoned the country to the Islamist thugs of the Taliban. It was one of the most disgraceful retreats in American history, cloaked by shabby political expediency. We looked away as the Islamists catapulted Afghan women and minorities back to another Dark Age.
There have been other consequences too, often much closer to home. As we remained silent, the Muslim Brotherhood and its many offshoots quietly entrenched themselves across Western cities, from Australian universities to Manchester suburbs. Enabling them to build mosques and take over schools, moreover, our silence has allowed them to proclaim themselves as spokespeople for every Muslim in the West.
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SubscribeAnother great contribution from Ayaan Hirsi Ali. Getting quickly to the point about Islamism and its insidious attempts to overthrow Western civilisation – aided and abetted it would seem by many on the Left whose instincts may primarily be anti-capitalist – the article cuts through to the core in a way which other articles fail to do, including others published here today.
The problem is, that she’s been articulating this message for quite some time now. Whilst based upon her own experiences and courageous advocacy of Western values and in particular the removal of basic rights for women under Islamism, greater impact is needed. Where will it come from, and when, as we continue to struggle with vapid and craven political leadership?
Israel deserves our support because we are Israel.
You might be Tony, but I’m not
I don’t support Israel, and I don’t support their enemies
What do you support?
Excellent. Thank you.