Looking at our recent history and near future, it seems like the wars keeps coming and the condemnation of other nations and their ‘voices of morality’ reliably follow.

Our foes want us dead, and we see no exit.

It seems as though our menu of choices has only three choices. Keep fighting with no hope of any resolution, eliminate our enemies, or have them eliminate us. Any hope for a peace agreement is founded in a false narrative. For our enemies, an ‘acceptable peace’ is our elimination. They are willing to pay a tremendous price in their own peoples’ blood to achieve it.

It is a stark and deeply uncomfortable reality. With each fight the world seems to hate us more and its condemnation seems to gather force.

Our allies appear to abandon us. Stage-by-stage, they walk away. First they abandon us diplomatically, then they deny us arms and then they turn fully against us or simply allow others to do the job they lack the courage to do themselves. Some do it to our faces, but others lack the conviction and courage to so publicly share their desires.

It seems hopeless.

The biblical statement that the nations will look upon us and say, “Only a nation of wisdom and understanding is this great people” seems almost like a joke.

But we are the Jewish people. And through every catastrophe, we seek hope; we dream, forever, of peace.

Peace without extermination.

The question is: how do we get there?

Our reality is that we are the vanguard. The vanguard of an ideological war. Like any ideological war, deaths and guns and bombs and diplomacy and alliances are only the symptoms of conflict. They are not its core.

Our enemies are fighting their own ideological wars. Their solutions are extermination. And we are not their only target. In Syria, Nigeria, Iraq and other places we can see their approach to this war. Guns and bombs and death seem to define their battle.

In this ideological war, Israel is playing defense.  We are justifying our actions, but our actions are only responses to the attacks upon us. We are forever playing defense. We argue that we belong here; but we are failing to conduct our ideological war like we conduct our physical ones; but pushing the battle into our enemies’ space.

But we can conduct an offensive. If we believe in our ideas, we can attack. We can do more than roll back the advances of our enemies. We can overwhelm them with our vision and our promise in this world.

Writing in the early 5th century, a prominent Christian theologian named Augustine presaged our modern world. He spoke about a City of G-d. But instead of being a physical city, it was a city of shared religious connection that unified disparate people wherever they may be.

We are now seeing a twisted and dangerous version of his insight. The Internet and modern media seem to be producing a multitude of twisted Cities of G-d. We are flooded with people grouping themselves by ideas. They are then forming into international groups with more cohesion than ever before. They are like flash mobs of destruction. Some dominate societies. That is what the Islamic State, Boko Haram and others are doing. They are forming state-like entities with laws and governments and territories.

They are a coming together of like-minded people to establish something new and different. Something dangerous and repulsive.

States like Israel and its allies have a very hard time dealing with this. We want to deal with other states. We want to play by the rules that have developed over hundreds of years. We can’t understand how to battle with people who ignore our model and our world view. We somehow imagine that negotiations with states formed purely for offensive ideological purposes – states like the Palestinian Authority – are a solution.

Israel’s Ambassador to the United Nations Ron Prosor warned the United Nations Wednesday that its willingness to be held ”hostage” by human rights abusers will boomerang on the entire world.

“Today I am here to issue a warning: Stand with Israel and stand against terror before it is too late, before the danger lands on your doorstep and self-preservation strikes its jarring gong,” Prosor said at a special session of the General Assembly that dumped on Israel.

His remark was a quote in a statement by Winston Churchill in 1935, four years before World War II, when he referred to the world’s allowing Germany to re-arm and stated, “The family of nations suffered from a want of foresight, an unwillingness to act when action would be simple and effective, and a lack of clear thinking and confusion of counsel until the emergency comes, until self-preservation strikes its jarring gong.”

Prosor told the ambassadors of the world that “Hamas must be disarmed, Gaza must be demilitarized., and the international community must divorce itself from the romantic notion of Hamas as ‘freedom fighters.’”

He cited the numbers of people killed in Arab countries and silence from the Arab world.

“In Iraq, over 1,600 people were killed in July. In Libya, clashes between rival militias killed 200 people last month. In Nigeria, Boko Haram has slaughtered nearly 3,000 people this year,” Prosor explained. “It may just be me, but I didn’t hear the Arab group rally to condemn these atrocities. Instead, this group gangs up against the only democratic nation in the Middle East that is defending its citizens from the totalitarian forces threatening every enlightened country in this Assembly.”

“Israel is on the frontline of the war against radical extremism,” Prosor added. “The battle we fight today is the same battle that you all will fight tomorrow….

And yet, some of you have abandoned the only democracy in the Middle East standing against the tide of terrorism. What does this say about your values? What does it mean for the next generation? This institution is being held hostage by some in this Assembly who are the worst human rights abusers.”

In Syria and Iraq, the Al Qaeda-inspired Islamic State of Iraq and al-Shams (ISIS) is now kidnapping boys as young as 10 years old to “recruit” them for a Shari’a (Islamic law) army whose ultimate goal is to “liberate” Jerusalem.

Some of the boys are joining up voluntarily, according to a report posted on the RT website. But many more are being conscripted against their will, and forced to fight in a jihad (Islamist holy war) they barely understand.

The two terrorists killed last Friday in Gaza in a surgical air strike by Israeli fighter pilots were both members of ISIS who had infiltrated the region. The terrorist group has begun to make its way towards Israel via the Sinai Peninsula in Egypt and Hamas-ruled Gaza. It has already seized control of the sole border crossing between Jordan and Iraq — a victory that prompted the United States to send troops overseas to “advise” officials in the Iraqi army, and quietly assist its ally, Jordan.

The report in RT quoted The Daily Beast, which described the youngest known ISIS fighter, 10-year-old ‘Abdullah,’ fighting with the group in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul.

The report described the young boy – who in this case joined up voluntarily, following his father and brother — as being masked and toting a heavy machine gun that was “about as big as him.”

But equally disturbing was the declaration by a gunman with the boy who told the news outlet, “We believe they will conquer all of Iraq and Persia and that they will liberate Jerusalem.

“They have a dream and their dream is to establish an Islamic state.”

Children in the ISIS bases undergo a 25-day course in which they are taught an extremist form of Islam and Shari’a law in daily classes, as well as the principles of jihad ideology. In addition, they are given field and combat training and are taught to use weapons, ITV reported.

The United Nations has apparently confirmed at least some of the above, noting in its annual report published in May, “children fighting in Syria with ISIS are reportedly paid like adults (35,000 Syrian pounds, approx. $200) and undergo both weapons and jihadist indoctrination training.”

Some of the children are subsequently sent on suicide bombing missions, according to a report published on June 24 by the Human Rights Watch organization.

The ISIS force currently fighting in Iraq is comprised of some 7,000 to 10,000 guerrillas.

An undercover police officer narrowly escaped death Wednesday as an Arab mob tried to lynch him in the Shuafat refugee camp in northern Jerusalem.

The officer was discovered in the heat of Arab riots following the murder of an Arab teenager, Muhammad Abu Khdeir,  overnight between Tuesday and Wednesday. Abu Khdeir’s charred body was found in the Jerusalem forest at about 5:00 a.m., about an hour after police received a call from his parents reporting him missing. The boy, a 17 year old resident of Shuafat, was allegedly kidnapped from nearby Beit Hanina.

The discovery sparked riots by Arabs in northern Jerusalem Arab neighborhoods such as Shuafat and Beit Hanina, who claimed the murderers were Jews avenging the murders of Eyal Yifrah, Gil-Ad Sha’ar and Naftali Fraenkel.

Israeli leaders, including Minister Uri Ariel (Jewish Home) and Yesha Council spokesman Dani Dayan, condemned the murder immediately.  “I vigorously condemn barbaric murder of boy in #Jerusalem. I am confident security forces will bring perpetrators to justice,” Tweeted Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat.

Large Scale Riots

Throughout Wednesday morning, residents clashed with police and security forces in Arab-majority neighborhoods around the city.  Light Rail service in the area was suspended as rioters hurled rocks and rolled burning tires at police. At least one person injured in the melee and taken to the hospital.

In the Old City Arab worshipers stoned security forces on the Temple Mount and threw rocks over the wall at the Western Wall plaza below. In response to the violence police closed the Mount to Jewish visitors, while leaving it open to the Muslims responsible for the violence.

Police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld confirmed that no arrests have been made as a result of the clashes, but added that police would likely detain participants in the riots “soon. “It is likely there will be (arrests), following review of CCTV footage of the incident,” Rosenfeld told The Jewish Press. 

Rosenfeld added that the Temple Mount area has since quieted down, although riots are continuing in the Beit Hanina neighborhood.

Police are continuing their investigation of the circumstances that led to the murder of the young Arab teen, who sources requesting anonymity said may have been killed in a blood feud between two rival clans.

Australian commentator Andrew Bolt, a columnist for the Herald Sun tabloid in Melbourne, is no stranger to controversy. His strident criticism of Islam and his conservative stance on domestic issues (and, it should be noted, his consistent support of Israel) has won him the scorn of the left-hand side of the local political map.

But let it not be said that Bolt is one to criticise without citation. While it would be hard to argue that Bolt has any soft spot for the Religion of Peace, he certainly takes pains to back his assertion that the Religion of Peace is perhaps the deadliest force on the planet today.

So for those of you who thought the gallant abduction of Jewish children was the Islamic highlight of the week, here is an excerpt from Bolt’s post, What is Wrong with this Religion? 

In Kenya:  At least 34 people have been killed after unidentified armed men stormed the coastal city of Mpeketoni, setting hotels, restaurants, banks and government offices on fire and spraying bullets in streets.

Kenyan army spokesman Major Emmanuel Chirchir …  blamed al-Shabaab, Somalia’s al-Qaeda-linked militant group… “They were shouting in Somali and shouting ‘Allahu Akbar’,”

In Nigeria:Suspected Boko Haram gunmen have reportedly kidnapped 20 women from a nomadic settlement in north-east Nigeria near the town of Chibok, where the Islamic militants abducted nearly 300 girls in April, most of whom are still missing.

In Iraq:  Sunni Islamist militants claimed on Sunday that they had massacred hundreds of captive Shiite members of Iraq’s security forces, posting grisly pictures of a mass execution in Tikrit as evidence and warning of more killing to come.

In Syria: The Al-Qaeda-breakaway Islamic State of Iraq and Greater Syria has prevented food and medical supplies from reaching some neighborhoods in an eastern Syrian city, an activist group said Friday.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said … an offensive by ISIS in eastern Syria against rival Islamic rebel factions has killed more than 640 people and uprooted at least 130,000 since the end of April.

In Spain:  Spanish police arrested eight people in a pre-dawn raid in Madrid on Monday, breaking up a jihadist recruitment network led by a former Guantanamo Bay inmate, the government said…

Spain’s government has said it fears battle-hardened Islamist fighters may return to Spain from Syria… Spain this year marked the 10th anniversary of the March 11, 2004 Al Qaeda-inspired bombing of four packed commuter trains in Madrid, which killed 191 people.

In Belgium: The fourth person to die after a gunman opened fire on the Jewish Museum in Brussels was to be buried in a Muslim cemetery in Morocco.

Alexandre Strens, whose mother is Jewish and father a Muslim Berber, was to be buried near his grandparents’ graves in the cemetery in Taza, north-east Morocco… A suspect, Mehdi Nemmouche, was arrested in Marseille, southern France, 11 days ago …

In Indonesia:  Radical Islamists in Indonesia have been celebrating and swearing allegiance to ISIS on line, raising concerns that more potential terrorists will be attracted to the conflicts in Iraq and Syria… Jakarta-based terrorism expert Sidney Jones says Indonesians are known to be fighting in Syria, and that Indonesians attracted to ISIS are more radical than the Bali bombers.

In Sudan: The retired Libyan general Khalifa Heftar who is leading the military campaign dubbed as ‘Operation Dignity’ against Islamist militias accused Sudan directly of providing aid to these groups… Heftar says that these militias have wreaked havoc in the North African nation.

In China:  China today sentenced three people to death over a deadly attack at Beijing’s Tiananmen Square last October, state television reported, an incident blamed by the government on Islamist militants….

Egyptians are going to the polls today (Monday) and tomorrow to elect a president in what many see as a foregone conclusion. But the issue is not whether former Field Marshal and Defense Minister Abdel Fattah el-Sisi will be elected president – the issue is how many of Egypt’s 80 million citizens will actually turn out to vote.

El-Sisi, whose opponent was socialist activist Hamdeen Sabahi, was responsible for the June 30, 2013 removal of Egypt’s first democratically-elected president.

Former President Mohammed Morsi was backed by the Muslim Brotherhood and elected by a popular vote that many Egyptians said was rigged. The election followed the “January 25 Revolution” that toppled the decades-old regime of former President Hosni Mubarak in February 2011.

The “intervention” – as the subsequent military government called it – came in response to months of protests against the increasingly restrictive Islamist regime.

By June, millions of Egyptians had signed a petition asking the president to resign, and were flooding the streets in major cities around the country. But the streets ran with blood as the protesters clashed with their Muslim Brotherhood counterparts, who supported Morsi and claimed the entire scene was a setup by the military.

Now new elections have arrived and the question is whether the country will turn out to support el-Sisi — the military chief who seized the initiative to remove Morsi from office, attempted to restore order to Egypt and has since cooperated with Israel in trying to eliminate terrorist camps in Sinai.

Presidential elections in Egypt are on the way, and Abdel Fattah el-Sisi has already picked up 85% of the ex-pat vote.

Of course, he has very little competition.

He is opposed by only one other candidate: Socialist politician Hamdeen Sabahi, an opposition activist during the eras of Anwar Sadat and Hosni Mubarak, who was jailed during the terms of both presidents.

Egypt’s presidential elections are set for May 26-27.

Two police officers and two civilians were injured Saturday when a “homemade” bomb exploded at a rally for el-Sisi in Cairo, AP reported.

The former Egyptian army field marshal and defense minister was not there, however; he has restricted his appearances to television programs and interviews for security reasons.

Thus far two assassination plots have been uncovered, el-Sisi said in an Egyptian television interview, but gave no details. He accused the Muslim Brotherhood in connection with the plot and that under his regime the organization would no longer exist, “just like that.”

Former president Mohammed Morsi, backed by the Muslim Brotherhood, was the first democratically-elected president to enter office following the January 25 revolution that ended the regime of President Hosni Mubarak. Last June, el-Sisi removed Morsi from his post after he had spent one year in office due to a groundswell of grassroots protests throughout the country.

Since that time the country has been run by a national council but the Muslim Brotherhood withheld its support, instead choosing to continuing protests and clashes with security personnel.

More than 16,000 members of the movement and other radical Islamists have been arrested, according to Aljazeera, and hundreds of others have died in the violence.