Keuka College opinions & editorials

Stop Trying to Appease Islamic Extremists

by Sander A. Diamond, professor of history, Keuka College

Published Oct 20, 2006

KEUKA PARK, N.Y.—The anti-civilization revolt set into motion by Islamic extremists has settled like a dark cloud over the West and out of fear of making matters worse, world leaders do their best not to upset what one commentator called the "religion of perpetual insult," Islam. 

The Pope, a quiet academic type rooted in a traditional and deeply conservative vision of a West rooted in Judeo-Christianity, found himself embattled over a quote he used that describes Islam as a violent religion. For an institution that waited 500 years to apologize to Galileo, whose vision of the universe was counter to the Church's geocentric view, and nearly 2,000 years to admit it pursued a policy of anti-Judaism, the Pope's repeated apologies were without precedent.  Meanwhile in Berlin, the German Opera pulled a Mozart opera from its winter season out of fear it would offend the Islamic world, much to the consternation of a nation that has labored to be a free and open society since the war.

The fear of terrorism is causing the collapse of civility, depriving us of reasoned argument concerning the best way to deal with an uncertain future. The terrorists and nations hostile to the U.S. know exactly what they want and do not think twice over offending the West. Iran's hosting of an "art display" of the best cartoons that reveal "the myth" of the Holocaust, call for the murder of the Pope, daily anti-Semitic tirades, the sight of Christians packing and leaving Islamic nations, and images of wide-eyed and enraged Muslims burning the U.S., German and British flags are buried in the news. The vilification of President Bush before the United Nations by the leaders of Iran and Venezuela was unprecedented along with the call by Iran's leader for a panel of scholars to investigate whether the Holocaust really happened. After all, he said, "a lot of people were killed in World War II." Even at the height of the Cold War, artful diplomatic language was used. The spread of venom has now infected our political debate.

We are witnessing an anger borne out of frustration. We have lost control of events and merely react to the irrationality of our opponents, whose progenitors hold us hostage. No different than the Pope, we delude ourselves into thinking that an apology will stem the tide of Islamic anger and for the sake of political correctness tiptoe around. For a nation that tipped the balance in favor of a British-French victory in the First World War and defeated Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan in the second, not only is our behavior— and that of much of the West—inconceivable, but equally so is our inability to design a policy that will at least stem the tide of Islamic radicalism. We need the types of imaginary breakthroughs that permitted us to defeat our enemies in the last world war and contain the expansion of the USSR in the Cold War.

We should stop trying to appease Islamic sensibilities since they are not appeasable. We should counter their insults and lies point by point. Rather than fearing the wrath of indigenous Islamic populations in Western Europe and caving in on every issue from the Danish cartoons to the withdrawal of a Mozart opera, the European Union should make it clear that the price of living in a free society is the freedom of expression.  Dr. Merkel, the German chancellor, should broadcast a TV message to the Middle East, especially Iran, clearly stating that the Holocaust is not a myth to be investigated and that in her country, Holocaust denied is a punishable offense.

Withdrawal from Iraq is an option but withdrawal from the region is not.  Perhaps the time has come to use an enlarged NATO to ring those states that sponsor terrorism.  It is time to revive the Truman Doctrine of containment used against the USSR.  This policy held that the USSR could keep what it already had under its control in Eastern Europe but not another inch. In other words, Iran, Iraq and Afghanistan are free to destroy themselves and create theocratic prisons if this is their vision of self-determination, but placed on notice of the consequences if they try to export their dismal vision of the future to neighboring states. We must make it clear that any expansion of terrorist states will bring about their destruction. It is not too late to create a new global policy to contain rogue states with threats backed up with all of the punch we can muster by air and by sea, but as we have learned in Iraq, not by land.

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