Sympathizing with a screensaver mentality amounts to ceding reality to an imaginary, pleasant, sometimes hallucinating alternate reality. The October 7 horrific Islamic terrorism possesses the potential of moving the mouse, hitting a key and disparaging a screensaver-like self-defeating Western policy.
For example:
1. The October 7 massacre – which was guided and financed largely by Iran’s Ayatollahs, who have also guided Hezbollah’s and the Houthis’ offensive against Israel, the US and other Western countries – should have removed the screensaver mentality of the diplomatic option toward Iran’s Ayatollahs for the following reasons:
*The screensaver-led diplomatic option has been boosted by skilled Iranian moderate talk coupled with speculative Western scenarios. The underlying assumption has been that a diplomatic and financial bonanza (hundreds of billions of dollars since 1979) could induce the Ayatollahs into peaceful coexistence with their Sunni Arab neighbors, accept good faith negotiation, and discard their 1,400-year-old religious, fanatic, imperialistic vision.
*The diplomatic option screensaver has sacrificed the 45-year-old rogue track record, which highlights Iran’s Ayatollahs as the leading global epicenter of anti-US terrorism, drug trafficking, and mega-billion-dollar money laundering throughout the globe, with a focus on Latin America – “America’s soft underbelly” – including the US-Mexico border and on US soil. The Ayatollahs have been preoccupied with subversion and terrorism against US installations and key individuals, as well as every pro-US regime in the Middle East and Africa. They are determined – as documented in their daily conduct, Constitution, school curriculum, mosque sermons and official media – to topple all “apostate” Sunni regimes and bring the Western “infidel,” and especially “The Great American Satan,” to submission.
*While the diplomatic option’s screensaver mentality considers Iran’s Ayatollahs as a target for negotiation, reality has documented Iran’s Ayatollahs – the head of a venomous octopus with its arms stretching from the Persian Gulf to the US homeland – as a target for regime-change.
2. The October 7, 2023 massacre should have disparaged the screensaver of the proposed Palestinian state, which has sacrificed the well-documented rogue Palestinian walk on the altar of speculative assumptions, cushioned by seductive Palestinian talk. This screensaver (alternate reality) mentality envisions a reformed Palestinian government, complying with agreements, abandoning its 100-year-old core vision (mandating the destruction of the “infidel” Jewish entity), uprooting hate education and mosque incitement, and peacefully coexisting with Jordan and Israel.
However:
*In proportion to the US population (345 million), the October 7, 2023 massacre, mutilation, beheading, rape, and the burning alive of 1,200 Israelis is the equivalent to 41,500 Americans murdered on one day by a neighboring terrorist state, or 14 “September 11s”! How would the US react?!
*This horrific terrorism was heralded by most Palestinians in Gaza and Judea and Samaria (the West Bank), where Hitler’s Mein Kampf is a best seller. It was committed by graduates of the Palestinian education system, which was established by Mahmoud Abbas in 1993. Their families are already receiving the Palestinian Authority’s generous monthly “pay-for-slay” allowance. The October 7 massacre replicated the 1920s, 1930s and 1940s Palestinian pogroms against Jews. A more horrific massacre could erupt from Judea and Samaria if Israel would retreat to the pre-1967 lines.
*Moreover, October 7, 2023 was consistent with the Palestinians’ intra-Arab terrorism, as demonstrated in the 1950s (Egypt), 1960s (Syria), 1968-1970 (Jordan), 1970-1982 (Lebanon) and Kuwait (1990), transforming them into a role model of intra-Arab subversion, terrorism and treachery. Furthermore, Arab leaders are aware that the Palestinians have systematically sided with radical forces, such as Nazi German, the Soviet Bloc, Ayatollah Khomeini, international terror organizations, the Moslem Brotherhood, Cuba, Venezuela and North Korea.
*Therefore – contrary to the screen saver Western worldview – Arabs have showered Palestinians with an embracing talk, while refraining from an effective walk on behalf of a Palestinian state. For example, six Arab states concluded peace accords with Israel without preconditioning it upon the establishment of a Palestinian state. Also, Arabs have never flexed any military muscle – and barely any financial muscle – on behalf of the Palestinians.
*Arab leaders do not engage with screensaver policies. They are convinced that the Palestinian track record would determine the conduct of a Palestinian state, which would doom the highly vulnerable pro-US Hashemite regime, transforming Jordan into another epicenter of anti-US Islamic terrorism (and its sleeper cells in the US!), destabilizing every pro-US, oil-producing Arabian Peninsula regime (south of Jordan), bolstering the stature of Iran’s Ayatollahs, the Moslem Brotherhood, ISIS, Russia and China, while dealing a blow to the US’ economy and homeland security.
3. The October 7, 2023 massacre has exposed the wishful-thinking foundation of the screensaver-led Western policy in the Middle East.
For instance:
*The well-intentioned screensaver-led policy has sacrificed the 1,400-year-old frustrating and volcanic Middle East reality – featuring no intra-Moslem peaceful coexistence, the centrality of religion and vision, violent intolerance of the “infidel West,” hate education, ruthless despotism, tenuous regimes, policies and agreements – on the altar of a convenient and optimistic alternate Middle East.
*Middle East reality has proven that the screensaver-led policy wrongfully assumes that rogue Middle East regimes would welcome Western values such as negotiation as a venue to resolve conflicts, peaceful coexistence, democracy, human rights, adherence to agreements, while preferring an enhanced standard of living over entrenched fanatic ideologies.
*For instance, the screensaver-led Middle East policy has professed negotiation with any enemy, failing to discern between entities, whose aspirations mandate the annihilation of their enemies (e.g., Iran’s Ayatollahs, Hezbollah, Hamas, the PLO and ISIS) and entities driven by aspirations, which do not mandate annihilation (e.g., Saudi Arabia, Oman, Kuwait, Egypt, Jordan, the UAE, Bahrain, Morocco and South Sudan). In fact, the screensaver-led Western pressure on Israel yielded numerous negotiations with terrorist entities, which paved the road to the October 7 massacre.
*Contrary to the screensaver-led policy, Middle East reality documents that terrorists do not shake – but bite – the hand that feeds them, as experienced by the pre-October 7, 2023 litany of Israeli gestures for Gaza Arabs (e.g., work and hospitalization permits in Israel, extension of humanitarian aid, facilitating international financial aid). It also afflicted the US following its 1978/79 critical support of Ayatollah Khomeini, the 1982/83 support of the PLO in Lebanon, the 1980s support of Saddam Hussein, the 1980s support of Afghanistan’s Mujahideen, the 2011 US-led toppling of Gadhafi, and the February 2021 delisting of the Houthis from the US terror list.
4. The October 7, 2023 massacre, in particular, and the violently volatile and intolerant Middle East reality, in general, should have dismantled the Western screensaver mentality, which maintains that a negotiated peace accord constitutes a critical element of national security in the Middle East. However, the 1,400-year-old Middle East reality determines that peace accords cannot be less tenuous than Middle East regimes, which rise to power via the bullet, not the ballot. Therefore, the posture of deterrence is the most critical component of national security in the Middle East, especially for an “infidel” Jewish entity surrounded by “believers.”
The October 7, 2023 debacle(!) demolished Israel’s posture of deterrence, which could be tantamount to a death sentence in the Middle East. Therefore, since October 7, 2023, Israel has been preoccupied with the restoration of its posture of deterrence, which requires the obliteration of the military infrastructure of Hamas and Hezbollah. Moreover, snatching Hamas and Hezbollah from the jaws of defeat – as attempted by Western policy makers – would be perceived, in the Middle East, as a dramatic victory for anti-US Islamic terrorism, inducing more terrorism and war against Israel, which is viewed, by Islamic terrorists, as the Middle East vanguard of the US and its first line of defense, as it is for Jordan and additional pro-US Arab regimes.
The restoration of Israel’s posture of deterrence does not require more diplomatic negotiation, but surging from defense to offense, from reaction to pre-emption, from containment – to obliteration – of terrorism, from “the right to defend itself” to ”the right to a total victory.”
The bottom line:
Has October 7, 2023 awakened Western policy makers to the realization that they are driven by a screensaver – rather than Middle East reality – which generates a robust tailwind to Islamic terrorists, who are determined to bring the “infidel” West, and especially “The Great American Satan,” to submission?!
This column was published at The Ettinger Report
The views expressed in guest columns are not necessarily the views or positions of the CCNS or its members.
