We don’t want to know it, but we do. America is already at war. The only question for us is to know thy enemy. That is, who indeed is our enemy. The enemy has begun to reveal itself in stark terms, well understood by American Greatness readers.
Let’s first address several lists of values.
This first list contains the words and tactics of one side in the war. They are well known: Invasion. Killing children. Human shields. Raping women. Hostages. Torture. Cult of death. (And those don’t include those from Professor Dershowitz’s history of writing here about Hamas’s acts in Gaza attacking Israel).
But these pages know better the second list – the language of our ideals: Respect and tolerance. Valuing of life. Freedom. And this list goes on and on.
These ideas have spread throughout the world. Whether we credit them to religious roots or not, we call those who share these ideas as “The West.” But, it is nothing short of the pure projection of our own masthead, American Greatness.
If you cannot establish in your mind that the world which favors the first list will never allow the existence of the world that favors our list, then please stop reading and send us your fantasy novel as to how those two worlds live side-by side.
Because as anyone now knows, that novel, absent being a pure fantasy, has only one ending. The events of October 7 and the reactions to it serve as a wake-up call to the West. The West is in a war for its very existence.
“Pooh pooh,” you say.
Americans would hope WWEx, officially launched by Hamas against Israel during the Sabbath and final day of the Jewish Festival of Tents, ends where it started. In the Middle East. And presumably, in Israel for the mere fact that expansion means escalation, and escalation means challenging (more of) America’s interests. Keeping American lives out of the war’s way when America’s military is already stretched, and arguably overambitious, is a primary American objective.
We may tactically ask Israel to fight and win this war for the West. But if Israel cannot defeat its attackers, The West’s enemy will be further emboldened. Watch out for those who try to stop Israel from fighting a war as a war needs to be conducted as if the attack had happened on America’s soil. Because our enemies will bring WWEx within our borders, as they have in the past.
Edward “Coach” Weinhaus, Esq. serves as a War Correspondent for Globe Banner in Jerusalem where he is the International Envoy for GazaPassage.org, Global Humanitarian group of attorneys seeking to help non-combatants leave Gaza. He is a lecturer at Yeshiva University, attorney, commentator on contemporary Jewish issues, and international judicial reformer. Coach has earned five degrees from among the London School of Economics, the University of Chicago, and Washington University in St. Louis.