Gosh, Mickey, I hope you’re right, because if you are, it means that Bin Laden’s following is less robust than we all fear. But I stand by my and Emily’s point that no piddling, Bush-Arafat-Sharon-negotiated Palestinian state is going to sate the rage of Islamic fundamentalists. I’ll leave you and our readers with a link to Bernard Lewis’$2 1990 Atlantic essay, “The Roots of Muslim Rage,” which explains why America has become the diabolical enemy of Muslim fundamentalists and has become an insta-classic in these past two weeks (Jacob also quotes it in his original piece). Lewis ticks through the list of potential reasons–racism, Israel, imperialism–and concludes that the real grievances of Muslim extremists are modernism and secularism. In fact, Lewis notes that Muslim rage has outlasted the cooling of some of the Middle East’s hottest political fires. Here’s the money quote: “The French have left Algeria, the British have left Egypt, the Western oil companies have left their oil wells, the westernizing Shah has left Iran–yet the generalized resentment of the fundamentalists and other extremists against the West and its friends remains and grows and is not appeased.”
Of course I have no answer to Jacob’s point about an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal making it easier for moderate Arab regimes to support the anti-terrorism coalition. That’s not what I was disputing–instead, it’s your contention that a peace deal may protect U.S. citizens from terrorism, either in the long term or the short one.
My last objection to your piece is that it isn’t realistic. For the past year, Israelis and Palestinians haven’t even been able to call a time-out to their fighting (though they’re trying again right now). Just how would you propose leading the Israelis and Palestinians to water and making them drink? Do you think a deal strong-armed by the U.S. would hold?
As for the other messages posted to this thread: Jacob is preparing a response to Josh’s query about the New York mayoral race. I wish someone would reply to Geraldine Brooks’ superb post about Saudi Arabia. And Sian, I don’t really have much to say about prayer, other than that I’m about to be late for my pre-Yom-Kippur dinner.