In The Middle East’s Moral Challenge to the West, Caroline Glick explains why the State of Israel is so important to the freedom enjoyed by the West. She sets out three challenges:

“If the first challenge, the first moral challenge presented by the Middle East to the West is being able to contend with and recognize the political and religious pathologies of the Islamic world, and the second moral challenge of the Middle East is to understand that Israel is getting short shrift by the international community that has simply projected classical anti-Semitism on the Nationalist model of the Zionists in Israel, then the third challenge is to understand who we are and recognize that our way of life is worth defending, and that it must be defended.”

This Commentary is based on the transcript of remarks Glick made at the Civitas National Conference in Winnipeg, Manitoba on 3 May 2008. Glick told the conference that she believes that if we abide by these three moral challenges and we do it in a clear way, there is no doubt that we will emerge victorious and stronger for having struggled. However, she said that if we  don’t, or only abide by some of them and not others, we will find ourselves in more precarious situations in the future.

“We don’t realize that when Ayatollah Khomeini in 1978 defined the primary enemies of the Islamic Republic of Iran as the great Satan, the United States, and the little Satan, which was Israel and sometimes Britain, that what he was saying was first we go for the Saturday people and then we go for the Sunday people.”

Israel is the appetizer, you are the dinner. If you don’t understand that, then you’re going to find yourself with Israel wiped off of the map with a vague recollection of a conversation you once had with a lady named Caroline Glick from Jerusalem and you’re going to have millions upon millions of people inspired by the model of the destruction of a Zionist entity marching on Canada and marching on England and marching on the United States in victory.”

To read the complete Commentary, click here.

Caroline Glick is the Deputy Managing Editor of The Jerusalem Post. She is also the senior fellow for Middle Eastern Affairs at the Center for Security Policy in Washington, D.C. and travels several times a year to Washington where she routinely briefs senior administration officials and members of Congress on issues of joint Israeli-American concern. In 2003 Glick was named the most prominent woman in Israel by Ma’ariv. In December 2005, she was awarded the Ben Hecht award for Middle East reporting from the Zionist Organization of America and in January 2006, she was awarded the Abramowitz Prize for Media Criticism by Israel Media Watch.