"The Clash of Civilizations" - It's not what you think

21 Elul 5773

It's a "best-seller." Editorial review from Amazon: "For anyone interested in foreign affairs, this book will catalyze debate, and not only for Mr. Huntington's concluding scenario for World War III. He sees how this could happen if the U.S. mishandles an increasingly xenophobic and truculent China. Chinese assertiveness, Huntington argues, rises out of its felt grievances against a relatively weakening West. After China, the gravest challenge to the West is resurgent Islamic identity. So what to do? The West should ensure the survival of its values within a stronger European-North American alliance that can offset the emerging Sino-Islamic grouping."

No, I'm not promoting the book. I haven't even read it. I got to it by searching "clash of civilizations" and was intrigued by the way the cover artist chose to depict Western civilization - with the American flag. West (Christianity) versus East (Islam) - Eisav-Edom versus Yishmael.

Our people wrote the book long before Mr. Huntington. Imagine though what the world would be like today had not Islam risen up in direct opposition to the Christian west.  The Vatican would no doubt be sitting on the Temple Mount, G-d forbid! And instead of a mosque with a golden dome, there would be a church with a large golden cross on top, similar to what can be seen across the wadi from there.

Say what you will about Yishmael, at least he's not a hypocrite.  What you see is what you get.  He's our enemy and he says so.  Not Eisav.  Everything with him is a big show of outward righteousness with a veneer of 'friendship.' He smiles and calls you brother while he's stabbing you in the back. Yishmael endangers us physically, but it's always been Eisav who wanted to destroy our souls by destroying Judaism.

We've spoken before about how the US is trying to export Western civilization and culture throughout the world, but maybe it hasn't really hit home exactly how that impacts us here in Israel. An article in today's Yeshiva World News is instructive.  It notes the following:

...This is a most difficult period for the chareidi tzibur in Eretz Yisrael by all accounts. The new national government has significantly slashed funding to yeshivos, avreichim and talmidei yeshivos along with monthly child allowance payments. Simultaneously, the government is finalizing its new chareidi draft law which will compel most draft eligible chareidim to serve instead of continuing limudei Torah. On the education front there is the ongoing attempt to link state funding to the introduction of secular subjects into the school curriculum.

It's the Hellenistic Jews who are carrying out this program, but it is dictated by the Americans who insist that we assimilate with them, even if we don't live in their home anymore.  This is part of turning Jewish values into "Judeo-christian values."

Get men out of the yeshivas and into the army where they can be brainwashed. (Long-term look for religious women to lose their army exemptions, too.)  Get the women out of the home and into the workforce so the birthrate will decline, ditto for the cuts in child allowance (how dare you have more than two children!) Force secular programs into the religious schools, again to raise the children according to foreign 'values.'

But there's much more on their agenda:  separation of 'synagogue' and state; recognition of 'alternative streams' of Judaism; gay marriage (God forbid!); zero tolerance for gender segregation and exclusion of women from the public sphere (i.e. women must be allowed to sing in public and wear tallit and tefillin and pray from a Torah scroll at the Western Wall.) Otherwise, Israel is violating someone's "human rights" and Torah law holds no sway with any of these people.

In a report yesterday from Arutz Sheva:

Livni: Judge or Rabbi? I’ll Stand By the Judge

...Minister of Justice, Tzipi Livni, participated this evening (Monday) in a conference at the Tel Aviv Bar Association. “The judge is an interpreter of the law, and the rabbi is subject to it,” she stated.
“I have full confidence in the legal system and in law enforcement here in the State of Israel.

Note well what they are doing to the Muslim Brotherhood today. That's what they will do to Torah Judaism tomorrow.