How Hatred Of Jews Prevents Peace In The Middle East

Stephen Steinlight emails: “Shall we cut to the chase? As this piece makes plain, peace between Israel and Muslims is impossible because the dispute isn’t about a “Palestinian state” or any of the sub issues repeated ad nauseam as the impediments — borders, sharing a capital, the “right of return,” etc. The crux of the dispute, what makes is insoluble, is Muslim annihilationist hatred of Jews and therefore, incidentally and only incidentally, of Israel. As a leading Egyptian cleric recently stated, the religious obligation to destroy Jews would be incumbent on every Muslim to obey even without the “occupation of Palestine,” even if there were no Palestine. As long as Islam exists this will be the case: the destruction of Jews is part of Islamic escathology. Can naive universalistic Jews who venerate “tolerance” stop projecting their idealistic/adolescent worldview onto Muslims who vehemently reject it? Of course it’s difficult to assimilate so barbarous a viewpoint, but they will serve as convenient idiots advancing the interests of the enemy until they accept this simple truth.”