The Real and Present War

[David Morris]

http://www.thenewrepublic.com/092401/editorial092401.html

Anybody who hates modernity hates America. Anybody who hates freedom hates 
America. Anybody who hates privacy hates America. Anybody who hates human 
rights hates America. Anybody who hates ballots and bookshops and newspapers 
and televisions and computers and theaters and bars and the sight of a woman 
smiling at a man hates America. Osama bin Laden and the terrorists of Al 
Qaeda chose the United States as their target in perfect accordance with 
their beliefs. Philosophically speaking, we are their mortal foes and they 
are ours. But to the hatred of America they add another virulence, the 
hatred of Israel. In the same breath bin Laden calls for the killing of 
Americans and the killing of Jews. "We will see again Saladin carrying his 
sword," he ranted on a tape that surfaced this June, "with the blood of 
unbelievers dripping from it." By unbelievers, of course, he means those who 
do not believe what he believes: this is an enemy by whom we should be proud 
to be known.

The religious dimension of bin Laden's war against Zionism is perfectly 
clear. In his view, he wins heaven who wreaks hell. Bin Laden is waging a 
holy war, which is always the unholiest war of all, since it drags the most 
sacred things into its crimes. The common view is that he is seeking to 
punish America for its association with Israel, but the contrary is also the 
case. He wishes also to punish Israel (and Jews generally) for being so 
remorselessly American, that is, so secular, so liberal, so enthralled by 
enlightenment, so unimpeded by the burdens of the past. Israel poses the 
same threat to bin Laden's picture of the world, the same challenge to his 
horror of liberty and equality, as the United States does, and Israel is 
flourishing right there in the orbit of Islam. Its vitality represents a 
rebuke to its torpid region. For this reason, the terrorist war against the 
United States and the terrorist war against Israel is the same war. This is 
as it must be, for the principles of the United States and the principles of 
Israel are the same principles, the same brazenly modernizing ideals. If not 
for anti-Americanism and anti-Semitism, those two towers would still be 
standing.



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