Our rightist friends

What is currently referred to as the "clash of civilizations," as termed by Samuel Huntington, is not merely a theoretical concept. We're talking about a new reality with Israel at the center of its melting pot as an isolated stronghold in the face of the Muslim world's franticness.

It is no coincidence that Arab leaders scream out that Israel is the center of all troubles and problems in the Middle East. It is no coincidence that the Americans and Europeans are cursed for their support of the Zionist entity.

This is akin to a local earthquake that feeds the underground currents in the Muslim world. This is not just a dialectic intellectual Hegel-style conception. It also features a dialectic movement of the new reality in the world, also represented by Hegelian theories. This reality constitutes an existential threat on Israel and likely also on the Jewish world.

This new conception also entails serious confusion in the Jewish world watching the cruel reactionary and conservative forces, which succeeded traditional fascism and anti-Semitism fed by despicable religious perceptions. This raises a fundamental question: How should we approach elements who suddenly embrace Israel as part of a wider movement seemingly intent on fighting radical Islam in the framework of the current clash of civilizations?

Far right parties, including ones that are neo-fascist in essence, include in their declarations support for Israel as an entity that should be backed, and even view its heroic stance as a model for curbing murderous tendencies by hostile populations. These forces may not have a separation fence like we do, but they do have territorial waters where ships carrying illegal immigrants can be allowed to sink.

Suppressed nausea

Liberal intellectual circles, compared to rightist parties, tend in this reality to espouse nihilistic hypocrisy that allows them to dismiss facts and stick to past slogans that undermine Israel and Jews. The same is true of the evangelical pro-Israel circles. They offer active support for Israel, but their tendencies undermine the unique fundamentals of Jewish belief and tradition.

This "alliance," which features words of praise for Israel uttered by leaders who grew on the tradition of fascism, is difficult to digest. Many Jews in the modern world were educated to despise this phenomenon.

Suddenly we are forced to hear about the reemergence of the name Mussolini, see the disciples of Le Pen and Belgium's radical Right express solidarity with the Jews, and sense restrained hope that they overcome liberalism, which has become hostile to Israel.

The modern-day Jews finds it difficult to even think rationally about the revival of sympathy to Hitlerism in Germany. The simple, instinctive explanation that the enemy of our enemies "should be blessed" is not tasteful. It includes a measure of suppressed nausea.

We must honestly note that the emergence of conservative thinkers and approaches among Jewish communities is not a simple matter at all. We're not talking about capitalism's victory and the rejection of socialist norms in the economic theater as well as a rational world order.

There is no possibility of explaining the phenomenon using intellectual tools, but rather, through the possibility of deep movement in the fundamental principles of Jewish communities worldwide.

So what is the answer to those problems? For the time being it is not yet tangible in collective terms and is only at a nascent stage. Yet it would be worthwhile to address it and not make do with public relation "spins" governed by current needs.

We must not turn our back, despite the many difficulties, on the tradition of genuine liberalism that emerged from our heritage and was passed on to the enlightened world.