TORONTO — Islamic jihadists have targeted Israel as the key front-line state in the war of terror they are waging against the West, according to the deputy managing editor of the Jerusalem Post, Caroline Glick, LEFT,.
Speaking at Holy Blossom Temple last week, she said Muslim radicals regard Israel as the first western nation to be eliminated in their campaign to establish “global domination.”
They hate Israel because it’s a Jewish state and an outpost of freedom, said Glick, an American from Chicago who made aliyah in 1991 and then served as an assistant foreign policy adviser to Benjamin Netanyahu when he was Israel’s prime minister.
Glick, the author The Shackled Warrior: Israel and the Global Jihad, published two months ago by Gefen, said the current Israeli government refuses to acknowledge the Islamic threat.
Israel can defeat its Islamic enemies, but only if it looks “at reality in the eye” and rebuts the increasingly heard argument that Muslim rage is driven by Israeli settlements in the territories and Israel’s refusal to make concessions to the Palestinians.
Glick, a syndicated columnist and a former officer in the Israel Defence Forces, belittled the claim that the absence of a Palestinian state explains why Islamists have launched a jihad.
The Palestinians have been offered statehood since the 1930s, but have rejected each offer, she observed.
Given the international funds they have received in recent years, the Palestinians could already have built a state.
Instead, they have constructed “the largest terror base in the world,” she said, referring to the Gaza Strip, which Israel evacuated in 2005.
If the Palestinians really sought statehood, they would not have elected a Hamas government in 2006.
She denounced Hamas as “a genocidal terror organization” intent on wiping out Israel, and she accused Hamas of building a Taliban-style state instead of “a new Singapore” in Gaza.
In a diatribe aimed at Palestinian leaders, Glick charged that they’re dedicated to destroying Israel rather than building a civil society.
Blasting Saudi Arabia for financing jihadist forces and spreading Muslim anti-Semitism, Glick singled out Iran as the country behind the war of terrorism.
She added that senior Al Qaeda officials operate openly in Iran.
Iran fights Israel through surrogates, Hamas in Gaza and the West Bank and Hezbollah in Lebanon, she noted.
For all intents and purposes, Hezbollah is Iran’s “foreign legion,” while Hamas is “an Iranian proxy” financed to the tune of some $100 million annually, she added. “This is the system that Israel is fighting.”
Turning to Syria, Iran’s ally, Glick said it has ceased to be an independent nation and is now “an Iranian colony” whose military is essentially under Iran’s control.
Without Iran’s annual subsidy of $1 billion, Syria would be “an economic basket case.”
The secret Syrian nuclear reactor destroyed by Israel last September was financed by Iran, she said.
During a question-and-answer session, Glick argued that Israel has nothing to fear from Christian Zionists whose goal is to convert Jews to Christianity.
“We should be nice to them,” she said, minimizing their long-term objective.
Saying that Israel desperately needs fresh elections so that it can embark on a new direction, Glick named Likud leader Benjamin Netanyahu and Moshe Ya’alon, the former Israeli chief of staff, as credible alternatives to the incumbent Israeli prime minister, Ehud Olmert.