Shouldn't those who share a common enemy and a common cause be able to find common ground?
This is particularly so when we remember that the same scourge of radical Islam that has been visited on Israel, has been felt among many Christian communities around the world.
Today 36 of the 39 of the world's conflagrations are related to the incursions of radical Islam.
Christian churches were almost wiped out in a single weekend in Indonesia.
In Lebanon, the Christians are under relentless pressure and every day there are killings of Maronite Christian soldiers, political figures and judicial appointees.
In the Middle East, the heartland of Christianity itself, towns such as Bethlehem, Nazareth and Beit Jala are being progressively emptied of Christians through Palestinian intimidation, rape and murder - some 40,000 having fled Bethlehem since 1993. Former Bethlehem mayor Elias Freij's prediction "that if Arafat is ever allowed to return, Bethlehem will end up becoming a Christian town without any Christians," is proving surprisingly accurate.
In the meantime, the Catholic Church is silent. The Pope, cowed by intimidation, embroiled in issues related to the misconduct of his own clergy, could barely utter a word of protest when, last April, several dozen Palestinian terrorists commandeered his institutions's holiest site and used it to hold dozens of Christians hostage.
It should therefore be obvious to us that Jews and Christians are facing a common enemy - an enemy that rejects democracy, Western cultural values and the Judeo-Christian ethics we have striven valiantly to instill in our own societies. We are faced, in Samuel P. Huntington's inimitable words, with a genuine clash of civilizations that has nothing to do with borders or territory, but a great deal to do with the very survival of our own way of life.
Who else can the Jewish people rely upon in this struggle? The Europeans have been frozen into paralysis, frightened by the rapid, uncontrollable growth of their own Muslim communities. In France, there are neighborhoods where the French police fear to enter, because they are controlled by militant Muslims. Holland ten years ago had 10 mosques. Today it has 1,000. When the prime minister of Hungary recently met with Jewish leaders, he warned that both Poland and Hungary will soon become the next frontier in radical Islam's inexorable encroachment
All over Europe this mobile, expansionist culture is advancing on a weakened Western culture that has lost its own moral bearings and its will to resist coercion.
In the United States, we also have reason for intense concern. The FBI reports that powerful Muslim criminal networks, specializing in illegal cigarette importation, credit card fraud and drug running, are actually bigger and stronger than the Mafia.
Unfortunately, our own intelligence services are still unequipped to deal with all the information they receive because of a lack of translators. Among the 47 boxes of documents removed from the apartment of El Sayyid Nosair, the killer of Rabbi Meir Kahane, were complete details of the planned attack on the World Trade Center in 1993. The FBI overlooked the documents, designating them simply as 'insignificant religious materials'.
In the end ,we have a common cause and a common enemy and, together, we can make a difference. Why then hang back from embracing those whose welfare is our own?
Have we forgotten that among the hundreds of delegates at the first Zionist Congresses at the turn of the 20th century were dozens of evangelical Christians, including major philanthropists and well known politicians? Have we forgotten how British protestant evangelicalism combined with the intense 19th Century activism of men such as Lord Shaftesbury and Sir Laurence Oliphant drove the eventual promulgation of Britain's Balfour Declaration ?
Those who argue against aligning ourselves with the Christian community should also remember the dual attitudes of Harry Truman. Here was a man whose decision to support Partition in 1947 and then immediately recognize the fledgling Jewish state in 1948 transformed him into a Jewish folk hero. But he was not always a lover of the Jews. According to a recent book by the Presidential biographer Michael Benschloss, he would often refer to New York as ?kike town? and once, when the expression ?Chosen People? was uttered, snapped, ?I think G-d has better judgment.?
We can therefore never forget that men and women who once were suspected as enemies can transform into allies and even into trusted partners. We are too few in number and have too many enemies to reject a hand offered in friendship. When we recognize that the owner of that hand must also endure the same struggles and ordeals as ourselves, there should no longer be any doubt in our minds.
[Part 2 of 2]
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Rabbi Steven A. Weil is the senior rabbi of Beth Jacob Congregation in Beverly Hills, the largest Orthodox congregation on the West Coast.
Avi Davis is the senior fellow of the Freeman Center for Strategic Studies in Los Angeles.
This is particularly so when we remember that the same scourge of radical Islam that has been visited on Israel, has been felt among many Christian communities around the world.
Today 36 of the 39 of the world's conflagrations are related to the incursions of radical Islam.
Christian churches were almost wiped out in a single weekend in Indonesia.
In Lebanon, the Christians are under relentless pressure and every day there are killings of Maronite Christian soldiers, political figures and judicial appointees.
In the Middle East, the heartland of Christianity itself, towns such as Bethlehem, Nazareth and Beit Jala are being progressively emptied of Christians through Palestinian intimidation, rape and murder - some 40,000 having fled Bethlehem since 1993. Former Bethlehem mayor Elias Freij's prediction "that if Arafat is ever allowed to return, Bethlehem will end up becoming a Christian town without any Christians," is proving surprisingly accurate.
In the meantime, the Catholic Church is silent. The Pope, cowed by intimidation, embroiled in issues related to the misconduct of his own clergy, could barely utter a word of protest when, last April, several dozen Palestinian terrorists commandeered his institutions's holiest site and used it to hold dozens of Christians hostage.
It should therefore be obvious to us that Jews and Christians are facing a common enemy - an enemy that rejects democracy, Western cultural values and the Judeo-Christian ethics we have striven valiantly to instill in our own societies. We are faced, in Samuel P. Huntington's inimitable words, with a genuine clash of civilizations that has nothing to do with borders or territory, but a great deal to do with the very survival of our own way of life.
Who else can the Jewish people rely upon in this struggle? The Europeans have been frozen into paralysis, frightened by the rapid, uncontrollable growth of their own Muslim communities. In France, there are neighborhoods where the French police fear to enter, because they are controlled by militant Muslims. Holland ten years ago had 10 mosques. Today it has 1,000. When the prime minister of Hungary recently met with Jewish leaders, he warned that both Poland and Hungary will soon become the next frontier in radical Islam's inexorable encroachment
All over Europe this mobile, expansionist culture is advancing on a weakened Western culture that has lost its own moral bearings and its will to resist coercion.
In the United States, we also have reason for intense concern. The FBI reports that powerful Muslim criminal networks, specializing in illegal cigarette importation, credit card fraud and drug running, are actually bigger and stronger than the Mafia.
Unfortunately, our own intelligence services are still unequipped to deal with all the information they receive because of a lack of translators. Among the 47 boxes of documents removed from the apartment of El Sayyid Nosair, the killer of Rabbi Meir Kahane, were complete details of the planned attack on the World Trade Center in 1993. The FBI overlooked the documents, designating them simply as 'insignificant religious materials'.
In the end ,we have a common cause and a common enemy and, together, we can make a difference. Why then hang back from embracing those whose welfare is our own?
Have we forgotten that among the hundreds of delegates at the first Zionist Congresses at the turn of the 20th century were dozens of evangelical Christians, including major philanthropists and well known politicians? Have we forgotten how British protestant evangelicalism combined with the intense 19th Century activism of men such as Lord Shaftesbury and Sir Laurence Oliphant drove the eventual promulgation of Britain's Balfour Declaration ?
Those who argue against aligning ourselves with the Christian community should also remember the dual attitudes of Harry Truman. Here was a man whose decision to support Partition in 1947 and then immediately recognize the fledgling Jewish state in 1948 transformed him into a Jewish folk hero. But he was not always a lover of the Jews. According to a recent book by the Presidential biographer Michael Benschloss, he would often refer to New York as ?kike town? and once, when the expression ?Chosen People? was uttered, snapped, ?I think G-d has better judgment.?
We can therefore never forget that men and women who once were suspected as enemies can transform into allies and even into trusted partners. We are too few in number and have too many enemies to reject a hand offered in friendship. When we recognize that the owner of that hand must also endure the same struggles and ordeals as ourselves, there should no longer be any doubt in our minds.
[Part 2 of 2]
--------------------------------------------------------
Rabbi Steven A. Weil is the senior rabbi of Beth Jacob Congregation in Beverly Hills, the largest Orthodox congregation on the West Coast.
Avi Davis is the senior fellow of the Freeman Center for Strategic Studies in Los Angeles.