‘People were willing to sell their own mothers for the right to see Jews in concentration camps again.” These harsh words were written by the Italian journalist Oriana Fallaci in her book The Force of Reason, published in Israel in 2006 (Dvir Publishing). Today, her words sound like a prophecy that is slowly being fulfilled.
European countries are losing their identity, marching with open eyes toward a future where a Muslim majority will rule and courts will judge according to Sharia law. “Leaders without honor and intellect, intellectuals lacking dignity and courage,” Fallaci writes, boldly predicting what will become in the coming years a collective suicide of European nations.
She investigates and attempts to understand who the Palestinians are and the ideology behind their desire to kill us. She writes: “I traveled to Lebanon and Jordan with a determination to understand who the Palestinians are. I visited the secret camps from which they launched attacks on Israeli kibbutzim and witnessed the arrogance with which they behaved in Amman, the brutality with which they stormed hotels hosting foreigners, demanding their money with Kalashnikov threats.”
Fallaci interviewed the brother of the once grand mufti of Jerusalem, Mohammed Amin al-Husseini, who revealed “essential similarities” between National Socialism and Islam. Al-Husseini was tried in absentia at the Nuremberg Trials (that lasted from 1945-46) for years of urging Arab countries to support Nazi Germany. In 1944 he had traveled to Berlin to pay homage to Hitler.
Fallaci continues: “I interviewed Arafat and his rival George Habash, the leader of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine [PFLP], responsible for most of the terrorist attacks in Europe during the 1970s. The interview with George Habash proved that not only Israel is the enemy of the Arabs but so is the West, America, and Europe.”
Indeed, Habash mentioned targets that must be struck, including Italy, France, Germany, and Switzerland. “Our revolution is part of a global revolution. It is not limited to the reconquest of Palestine. Not just for Palestine but for all Arab lands. The Palestinians are part of the Arab nation. Therefore, it is essential that the entire Arab nation start a war against America and Europe. From now on, they will know no peace.”
The strategy is to advance step by step, millimeter by millimeter, year by year, decade by decade, with determination, stubbornness, and patience.
The threat of terrorism
Countless brutal terrorist attacks have been carried out, not only against Israelis and Jews but also against Western civilian targets. In 1972, the May 30 attack at Lod Airport; the August 4, sabotage of the Trieste oil pipeline; the August 16 case of two British tourists who boarded a flight to Tel Aviv with tape recorders filled with explosives; and the September 5 massacre during which 11 Israeli athletes were murdered at the Munich Olympic Games. On December 27, four of Abu Nidal’s terrorists opened fire on passengers at the El Al counter at Rome’s Leonardo Da Vinci International Airport airport, killing 16 and wounding 99. And of course, one of the most horrific attacks was the explosion of the World Trade Center towers in New York (the Twin Towers) by al-Qaeda terrorists, killing about 3,000 people.
And in 1985 there was the hijacking of the Italian MS Achille Lauro by Abu Abbas’s murderous organization and the hijacking of an EgyptAir plane to Malta, where 62 passengers were killed during an Egyptian commando rescue attempt.
Despite the potential for terrorist infiltration, leaders of Europe and the United States have nevertheless shown compassion to the poor refugees fleeing al-Qaeda, the Taliban, Hamas, and other terrorist organizations. The United Kingdom was one of the first to surrender and allow the beginning of the Islamic takeover. Norway, Sweden, and Germany followed, opening their doors indiscriminately. What began as humanitarian aid, as understanding and compassion for refugees, continued as an unending stream of migrant workers who established Islamic communes that spread to entire cities.
We didn’t understand.
In Israel, we wanted so much to believe in peace with our neighbors; we thought that if we withdrew from Gaza, the Palestinians would build a thriving state that would live in peace with us. But they had different plans. The Oslo Accords were just a stage in the planned withdrawal from all territories taken in the Six-Day War.
But Israel found that, instead of moving forward on the path to peace, buses began to explode and rivers of blood began to flow in our cities.
We didn’t understand the terrible lie that was fed to us. We, the wise Jewish people, fell into the trap set by Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) leader Yasser Arafat. For the Palestinians, this is the doctrine of stages: Take what you can in a salami-slicing method and continue to the next stage with patience, over time, until achieving the “final solution.”
We fell asleep, as did Europe and the US.
Journalist Fallaci writes: “Europe is sick. Europe has sold itself as a slave to sultans, caliphs, viziers, and mercenaries of the new Ottoman Empire.
The ominous term “Eurabia” was coined from the combination of the words Europe and Arabia. It is also the name of a publication founded in 1975 by the official executors of the Middle East International Group in London; the Groupe d’étude sur le Moyen Orient in Geneva; L’Association de Solidarité Franco-Arabe (publisher of France-Pays Arabes) in Paris; and the European Coordination Committee for Associations of Friendship with the Arab World. This body was set up ad hoc by what was then called the European Economic Community (EEC), the precursor of the European Union (EU).
In an outrageous editorial in Eurabia, the French antisemitic editor urged the EEC to cancel its agreement with Israel and praised “a thousand years of Arab contributions to culture.”
The takeover continued with the purchase of assets, some strategic, such as banks, publicly traded companies in Europe – and with US Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi purchasing 10% of the Italian company Fiat.
The cornerstone of Islam’s ideology is that it must rule the world. This is the drive that motivates extremists and sweeps up the masses. Religious rulings back “the Prophet’s fighters”: the Muslim Brotherhood, ISIS, Hamas, Hezbollah, and others driven by religious rulings.
Considerable amounts of money are invested in preserving the ideology in educational institutions (schools, universities, and colleges) as the foundation for instilling Islam. Additionally, they have been building mosques in countries all over the world. They are everywhere. Not all of them learn the local language, and a significant number speak Arabic – the language of the Quran.
The notion that the Arab/Palestinian conflict is only about territory is a mistake and a distortion of the truth. The conflict is primarily ideological and religious, and it is time for the world and Israel to understand and internalize this.
What cannot be won in war will be achieved through migration and hostile takeover. The European community and even our friend, the US, fantasize about transferring rule over Gaza to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas as a step toward establishing a Palestinian state.
Whenever I hear this nonsense, I wonder: Is their memory so short? After all, in 2005 Hamas drove Abbas and Fatah out of Gaza in shame, slaughtering many. And this is the same Abbas who denies the Holocaust in his book, and his textbooks teach and preach genocide.
This is not history repeating itself; this is the same history of violence and murder that has continued for many years. Abbas’s tongue is smooth and cautious, but his ideology is the same.
The Turkish president, Tayyip Erdogan, dreams of re-establishing the Ottoman Empire, and Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei dreams of re-establishing the Persian Empire. Either way, the ambitions of Khamenei and Hamas, according to the statements and threats from Iran and Palestinian leaders, are identical – the destruction of Israel.
October 7 is a glaring red flag for Israel, Europe, and the US.
Wake up before it is too late.
The author is the CEO of Radios 100FM, honorary consul-general of Nauru, deputy dean of the Consular Diplomatic Corps of Israel, president of the Israeli Radio and Communication Association, and vice president of the Ambassadors’ Club.