Israel: Western Cultural Outpost in the Middle East

What we are seeing following the heinous attack on Israel, 07 October 2023, by Hamas, boils down to the latest flash point in a clash of two civilizations. Palestinians have had five opportunities since the 1930's to agree to a two-state solution and have turned all five down. Conceived by the 1917 Balfour Declaration as a haven/home for the beleaguered Jews, and backed by UN resolutions to legitimate its nationhood, Israel is essentially a western cultural outpost in the Islamic middle east. The Arabs (Islam) don't want "us" (Judeo-Christian) there... period.

I will never forget my initiation into the middle east culture clash as a freshman at American University in Cairo (AUC) 1963/64. Early in the first semester I found myself seated at a round wicker table in the AUC student lounge with five male, Palestinian fellow AUC students. My mind's eye has the young men stereotyped: very well dressed, gold jewelry, slicked-back hair, drinking Turkish coffee and smoking Gauloise cigarettes. In the AUC student lounge that afternoon, my fellow AUC Palestinian students gave me a tutorial in Jew hatred. Hearing such vitriol was quite an eye opener for me, who had spent the prior year as a culturally ignorant senior at Provo (happy valley) High School - Utah, USA. The Palestinian students opined: The Jews were occupying the properties that their respective families had owned for generations. The Jews had to be excised from Palestine. And so on.

It would appear today, two generations later, that the anti-Jewish fervor expressed by my Palestinian AUC classmates has not dissipated. The coming months will be a real test for America, whose Judeo/Christian values appear to be fraying at the edges, to recertify Israel as a western cultural outpost in the middle east... or not. To many of America's putative friends, and those countries sitting on the fence observing this cultural conflict, America does not seem as strong as it has been in the past. Per a line from this AM's Daily Mail, "The water is warm in Chaosville and everyone is jumping in."