Is democracy for everyone? Can a value system based on Judeo-Christian values of what’s just and fair be effectively imposed on societies that are not just and fair? It seems that both Israel and America are learning the hard way that not all cultures are candidates for constitutions and bills of rights.
The Bush administration’s push for Palestinian elections in 2006 resulted in the landslide victory of the terrorist organization Hamas. Obama’s interference in Libya and his non-interference in the Arab Spring, particularly in Egypt and Syria, misfired against the Arab citizens of those countries and engendered anarchy rather than order in the Middle East.
Indeed we can now look back at old guard Arab dictators almost with nostalgia. The embattled Hafez al-Assad and the ousted Hosni Mubarak, though no friends of Israel, kept the lid on any conflict from boiling over with Israel. And notwithstanding the Scud missiles he launched against Israel in 1991, Saddam Hussein was a known quantity some 547 miles away. Now the ISIS, encroaching on Israel’s bordering neighbors of Jordan and Syria, is operating out of Gaza, claiming responsibility for recent bombings in Southern Israel and vowing to reach Jerusalem.
Too many descendants of Yishmael, whether or not they seek an Islamic caliphate, decry the democracy we cherish and wish to spread. Theirs is a culture our eternal Torah refers to as “pereh adam” (Bereishis 16:12), which Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch defines as “a free man…free from the human yoke and from the constraint of cities [i.e. civilized standards of behavior].”
Such “freedom” explains why, of the current 22 world conflicts around the world, 21 involve Muslims. Muslim societies stand out for subjugating women, championing jihad, and beheading infidels. And while the world advances in technology, science and medicine, Muslim countries continue to slide centuries backward.
Perhaps such societies are better off governed by autocracy. And perhaps the world itself would be better off if they were, especially if the autocratic rulers can be forced to mind their own business on the world stage.
Trying to impose tolerance on an intolerant people has only jeopardized our own standing as a beacon of freedom. Rather than foist a fantasy on others, Americans and Israelis should focus on safeguarding the precious gift of democracy for ourselves so that boys like Eyal, Gilad, and Naftali, Hashem Yikom Damam, will not have died in vain.