Watching the second tower of the World Trade Center crumble into dust on
Tuesday, I was able to imagine the horror of the survivors of the
Titanic as they witnessed their vessel sink into the Atlantic Ocean. A
symbol of human progress and ingenuity, a monument to economic strength and power, the Titanic was regarded as indestructible. So, too, the WorldTrade Center represented, more than any other edifice in the United States, America's sense of its own power and invulnerability. Rising 100 stories high, these towers once so effectively dominated the New York
skyline that in the air they could be seen from 150 miles away. When a
1993 car bomb failed to destroy them, the sense of invulnerability may
have also given way to a sense of complacency.
Yet fortune does not always smile on its most blessed sons. When terror
struck, with a magnitude never experienced before, there was not a
citizen in the country who was prepared for it. With thousands of
deaths, a shut down of cities and a halt to financial activity
throughout the country, it has delivered the kind of paralyzing blow
that we only read about in books or see in movies. Never has it been
internalized as such a genuine threat to the American way of life.
There are good reasons for this. For two centuries the United States
mainland has stood aloof from depredations in other parts of the world,
its stateside population certain in the knowledge that time, distance
and deterrence would save it from invasion or attack. The average
U.S. citizen has never reckoned on the reality of foreign suicide
bombers, who could hijack commercial airplanes and turn them into
missiles that target centers of American finance and defense.
Yet the world is changing and with the September 11 hijackings no one
should now doubt that the bombings represent a watershed in history. The
attack was correctly characterized by the American president as an
attack on freedom. But it is much more than even that. It is an attack
on our very concept of humanity and represents a clash of civilizations
and world views that cannot be bridged through peace talks, appeasement
or negotiation.
Just ask the Israelis. Over the past ten years they have absorbed
scores of suicide bombings. In Israel, a country of 6 million, the death
of 20 people is the equivalent of 3,500 in the United States. The recent
frequency of these attacks has pounded its way through the consciousness
of a people who no longer believe in Yasser Arafat's empty gestures of
peace, but see him as an aider and abetter of Islamic terror. That was
confirmed on Tuesday, when television footage showed Palestinians
celebrating in the streets of Nablus and Gaza City. The Israeli
assessment is identical in tone to what many analysts and commentators
on the right have said for years: the gravest peril to safety and
security in western civilization is represented by Moslem extremists and
the radical Arab regimes who harbor them.
That being the case, there is no time to waste in lengthy debates on the
failure of the intelligence agencies or setting limits on the level of
retaliation. The United States government must act immediately and
decisively to close down the offices of Islamic fundamentalist
organizations in the United States. It must move to block their
financial pipelines by freezing assets and it should identify the bankers
of these terrorists and force them to divest. It should make clear to
the international community that there is no sitting on the fence in the
war against terrorism. You are either a soldier in the war or you are
an enemy. That includes Switzerland, who often acts a conduit for
terrorist funding.
Moreover, those who harbor Islamic fundamentalists and perpetrators of
terror should be made to feel the full force of American economic and
military retaliation - Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, Syria and the
Palestinian Authority, to name just a few. It should not be forgotten
that even if arch-terrorists such as Osama Bin Laden, the most likely
culprit of the Tuesday bombings, are eliminated, there will be others to
take his place. Emasculating the ability of these terrorists to lord
over their global network is the first step in interfering with the kind
of intricate logistics that made Tuesday's bombings possible.
The New York landscape may well have changed, but so has the
psychological landscape of the United States. Much like the German
sinking of the Lusitania in 1915 and the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor
in 1941, the United States stands on the brink of decisive and historic
action. But failure to make clear to the rest of the world that this
American tragedy is in truth the entire civilized world's, may hamper
this action and give encouragement to the perpetrators of terror.
------------
Avi Davis is the senior fellow of the Freeman Center and a senior
editorial columnist for Jewsweek.com
Tuesday, I was able to imagine the horror of the survivors of the
Titanic as they witnessed their vessel sink into the Atlantic Ocean. A
symbol of human progress and ingenuity, a monument to economic strength and power, the Titanic was regarded as indestructible. So, too, the WorldTrade Center represented, more than any other edifice in the United States, America's sense of its own power and invulnerability. Rising 100 stories high, these towers once so effectively dominated the New York
skyline that in the air they could be seen from 150 miles away. When a
1993 car bomb failed to destroy them, the sense of invulnerability may
have also given way to a sense of complacency.
Yet fortune does not always smile on its most blessed sons. When terror
struck, with a magnitude never experienced before, there was not a
citizen in the country who was prepared for it. With thousands of
deaths, a shut down of cities and a halt to financial activity
throughout the country, it has delivered the kind of paralyzing blow
that we only read about in books or see in movies. Never has it been
internalized as such a genuine threat to the American way of life.
There are good reasons for this. For two centuries the United States
mainland has stood aloof from depredations in other parts of the world,
its stateside population certain in the knowledge that time, distance
and deterrence would save it from invasion or attack. The average
U.S. citizen has never reckoned on the reality of foreign suicide
bombers, who could hijack commercial airplanes and turn them into
missiles that target centers of American finance and defense.
Yet the world is changing and with the September 11 hijackings no one
should now doubt that the bombings represent a watershed in history. The
attack was correctly characterized by the American president as an
attack on freedom. But it is much more than even that. It is an attack
on our very concept of humanity and represents a clash of civilizations
and world views that cannot be bridged through peace talks, appeasement
or negotiation.
Just ask the Israelis. Over the past ten years they have absorbed
scores of suicide bombings. In Israel, a country of 6 million, the death
of 20 people is the equivalent of 3,500 in the United States. The recent
frequency of these attacks has pounded its way through the consciousness
of a people who no longer believe in Yasser Arafat's empty gestures of
peace, but see him as an aider and abetter of Islamic terror. That was
confirmed on Tuesday, when television footage showed Palestinians
celebrating in the streets of Nablus and Gaza City. The Israeli
assessment is identical in tone to what many analysts and commentators
on the right have said for years: the gravest peril to safety and
security in western civilization is represented by Moslem extremists and
the radical Arab regimes who harbor them.
That being the case, there is no time to waste in lengthy debates on the
failure of the intelligence agencies or setting limits on the level of
retaliation. The United States government must act immediately and
decisively to close down the offices of Islamic fundamentalist
organizations in the United States. It must move to block their
financial pipelines by freezing assets and it should identify the bankers
of these terrorists and force them to divest. It should make clear to
the international community that there is no sitting on the fence in the
war against terrorism. You are either a soldier in the war or you are
an enemy. That includes Switzerland, who often acts a conduit for
terrorist funding.
Moreover, those who harbor Islamic fundamentalists and perpetrators of
terror should be made to feel the full force of American economic and
military retaliation - Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, Syria and the
Palestinian Authority, to name just a few. It should not be forgotten
that even if arch-terrorists such as Osama Bin Laden, the most likely
culprit of the Tuesday bombings, are eliminated, there will be others to
take his place. Emasculating the ability of these terrorists to lord
over their global network is the first step in interfering with the kind
of intricate logistics that made Tuesday's bombings possible.
The New York landscape may well have changed, but so has the
psychological landscape of the United States. Much like the German
sinking of the Lusitania in 1915 and the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor
in 1941, the United States stands on the brink of decisive and historic
action. But failure to make clear to the rest of the world that this
American tragedy is in truth the entire civilized world's, may hamper
this action and give encouragement to the perpetrators of terror.
------------
Avi Davis is the senior fellow of the Freeman Center and a senior
editorial columnist for Jewsweek.com