As Americans recover from the shock of the San Bernardino terror attack, as the families mourn the tragic loss of loved ones, and as the Obama administration continues to obfuscate the enemy we face, I thought it important to cite two Islamic scholars who understand the war America now faces.
For a number of years, I’ve had the privilege to interview Professor Moshe Sharon of Hebrew University. He’s studied Islam for most of his life and has spent much of that time warning about the dangers of radical Islam, long before 9/11.
Here’s how he defines our struggle.
“One has got to understand, America is, with all its might, it is fighting against something… back into the Middle Ages, we are back into a situation, which [then] President [George W. Bush] might be very right by saying, we are talking about in many ways, some new kind of crusade. But this is not a one-sided crusade, it is crusade also on the other side. So in other ways we are talking about holy war,” he said.
Sharon says this holy war is without end.
“To make the whole world Islamic is the responsibility of every Muslim. [It should be noted some do not care about making the world Islamic and others go about it through proselytizing.] That’s why they are trying to Islamize Europe and the United States. Since the world must be all Muslim, this is a war that can never cease until the final goal is realized. Islamists cannot stop, they are accountable to God. The end of the war comes when the other side accepts Islamic rule. However, Islam is allowed to make peace with its enemy as long as the Muslims are weaker, but are obligated to fight when they become stronger,” he explained.
So world domination is the goal, just like Hitler’s goal was to take over the world. My dad fought Nazi Germany in World War II in North Africa, Sicily and Italy. During that war, generals plotted strategies based on armies facing each other on the battlefields of those countries and others like France, Belgium, and Holland. As Sharon points out, the war we face today is not my father’s war.
“Because it is not a normal story – you are not hitting at an enemy, you are not on a battlefield. If it was a battlefield between two armies, you’d finish the story. But the battlefield is the world [like San Bernardino], and the victims are not soldiers, the victims are housewives; the victims can be just clerks that go to their offices.[Like the 14 who died in San Bernardino.] As we have seen, the victims are people that board airplanes.[Like the recent Russian airliner blown up over the Sinai.] So you are in a different story altogether," he said. "Because almost every imam anywhere and the mosque is speaking in this language … this war is all over the Islamic world.”
Another scholar I’ve had the privilege to interview is Bernard Lewis of Princeton University. Many consider him the world’s leading expert on Islam, and he has a message he wants to communicate.
“I’m trying to communicate that we are engaged in a struggle comparable with the two great struggles of the twentieth century, against Nazism [Nazi Germany] and against Bolshevism [Soviet Union]. But it would improve our chances of winning if we understood who they are and who we are, and what it’s all about.”
Tragically, the Obama administration seems incapable understanding “who they are.” President Obama refuses to say – despite massive evidence to the contrary – that the attacks in Paris, San Bernardino, or any of the many terror attacks are inspired by Islam. It’s dangerous because as Lewis warns, we’re the final target.
“Now the only obstacle that remains for the worldwide triumph of Islam is the United States. So that is the next target and it is very clear … I think the main weakness from our side is the failure to appreciate the nature of the conflict in which we are engaged. I meant that was true for dealing with Nazis for a while. [Neville] Chamberlain really believed that by going to Munich [in 1938] and reaching an agreement with Hitler, he could establish peace in our time and so on. All that he succeeded in doing was to postpone the war for a few months and weaken our side … As I said before the struggle between Islam and Christendom has been going on for fourteen centuries,” he said.
During my interview with Lewis, the last question I asked was “What’s at stake in this war?”
His sobering answer: “The survival of our civilization.”