https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/05/09/west-proving-islamist-terrorism-works/
What would be the worst foreign policy message imaginable? There are many contenders, but the frontrunner has to be simply that “terrorism works”. Once this lesson has been learnt, the door will be open to years of violence against us. It’s called appeasement, and history has taught us where it leads.
If you, like me, are concerned by the rise of Islamist extremism around the world, the danger it poses to Jewish communities everywhere, and the way it threatens both the firmness of liberal values and our national security, the inconstancy of Western support for Israel in its mission to destroy Hamas – including here in Britain – should fill you with dread.
Most voters want our country to stand up for democracy, not capitulate to the terrorist forces rising to menace it in the most brutal manner imaginable. Why can’t our leaders express without equivocation that backing Israel in its fight to destroy Hamas completely was, and is, the right thing to do? Why do they stay silent, giving succour to our enemies
Instead, seven months on from October 7, Western politicians seem intent on pursuing what Ronald Reagan called the “utopian solution of peace without victory”. As he put it during the Cold War: “They call their policy ‘accommodation’ and they say if we only avoid any direct confrontation with the enemy, he’ll forget his evil ways and learn to love us.” Of course, the opposite is true.
It is difficult to look back at the months since October 7 and conclude that this has not been the message. An unprovoked massacre of 1,200 innocents, involving the most depraved scenes of butchery, mutilation, infanticide and necrophilia, has lead to a groundswell of support – for the perpetrators. From the Ivy League to Oxbridge, university authorities are indulging students that openly support the “intifada”: an appalling wave of terror that claimed thousands of lives, many in suicide bombs of the sort we suffered in the Manchester Arena a few years ago.
What would be the worst foreign policy message imaginable? There are many contenders, but the frontrunner has to be simply that “terrorism works”. Once this lesson has been learnt, the door will be open to years of violence against us. It’s called appeasement, and history has taught us where it leads.
If you, like me, are concerned by the rise of Islamist extremism around the world, the danger it poses to Jewish communities everywhere, and the way it threatens both the firmness of liberal values and our national security, the inconstancy of Western support for Israel in its mission to destroy Hamas – including here in Britain – should fill you with dread.
Most voters want our country to stand up for democracy, not capitulate to the terrorist forces rising to menace it in the most brutal manner imaginable. Why can’t our leaders express without equivocation that backing Israel in its fight to destroy Hamas completely was, and is, the right thing to do? Why do they stay silent, giving succour to our enemies
Instead, seven months on from October 7, Western politicians seem intent on pursuing what Ronald Reagan called the “utopian solution of peace without victory”. As he put it during the Cold War: “They call their policy ‘accommodation’ and they say if we only avoid any direct confrontation with the enemy, he’ll forget his evil ways and learn to love us.” Of course, the opposite is true.
It is difficult to look back at the months since October 7 and conclude that this has not been the message. An unprovoked massacre of 1,200 innocents, involving the most depraved scenes of butchery, mutilation, infanticide and necrophilia, has lead to a groundswell of support – for the perpetrators. From the Ivy League to Oxbridge, university authorities are indulging students that openly support the “intifada”: an appalling wave of terror that claimed thousands of lives, many in suicide bombs of the sort we suffered in the Manchester Arena a few years ago.
