Caroline Glick: Iraq, Israel are Fronts in the Same War

Regular readers of the Hedgehog Blog know that the Kosher Hedgehog is a great fan of Caroline Glick, Middle East Fellow for Frank Gaffney's Center for Security Policy and a columnist for the Jerusalem Post. Recently, Caroline was interviewed by Yishai Fleisher at Israel National News.

His opening question was almost personal, and was one that I would have liked to have asked her myself: Ms. Glick repeatedly writes about how Israel's confrontation with the Palestinians is a theater in the overall war by an international Islamic extremist movement to try to create an Islamic world; about how the battle to compel Israel to yield territory in Gaza (successful) and the West Bank (outcome still in doubt) is a tactic of the overall strategic goal of Israel's destruction; and that, although Israel may be the first target of the Islamic extremists, it will not be the last. Every prediction made by Ms. Glick and Mr. Gaffney regarding the consequences of an Israeli pullout from Gaza have proven correct. Yet their views seem at best to be rejected by Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, by the Kadima-led government, and by a majority of the Israeli public at large. At worst, Gaffney and Glick are the target of frequent vitriolic attacks by the Left. Does she ever get discouraged and frustrated?

"Of course," she answered. However, she added, giving up, while sometimes attractive, is not really an option. There really are people out there trying to kill her, she noted, and they would continue to do so even if she stopped writing.

She emphasized the connections between the Israeli theater and the overall war against the Islamic extremists:

"Every time Israel leaves territory, we give them hope that they're winning. I think about the 1500 Israelis who have been killed since 1993, since Oslo, I think all of them would still be alive today. It's self-inflicted, we did this to ourselves, and we brought the PLO in. Every time Israel gives up land, it's not just Israelis that get killed, it's Americans in Iran, Shiites and Christians in Pakistan, and it's Canadian Muslims who get incited to believe that they'll be able to overthrow Canada, or British Muslims who believe they will be able to turn the houses of Parliament into a mosque. Because they see that the forces of Jihad are on the march and the forces of freedom, the forces of democracy, the forces of western civilization are on a retreat."

However, she concluded optimistically that she foresees an eventual victory for freedom, and defeat for Islamic fascism, because ultimately free people will fight desperately to remain free:

"I'm hopeful because we have three things going for us, one is that we're right. It doesn't matter how much people want to deny reality, reality is what it is and eventually people are going to have to see the truth. Second, today in Israel there are people who want another Holocaust and seek to annihilate the Jewish people. But today we are much stronger, even with all our weaknesses, than we were in 1939. We have to make sure to remain strong. The third thing is that we thought that the tiger of the free world woke up after 9/11, and maybe it did for five minutes and then proceeded to go back to sleep. At the end of the day people want to be free. It doesn't matter how many people are on the side of Jihad or what kind of weapons they have - they'll be no match for freedom and we'll win."

I pray that she is right. Listen to the entire interview here, and read her most recent Jerusalem Post column here.