The West's existential struggle.

Jewish Current Issues has a great account of the speeches by Natan Sharansky and Hugh Hewitt before the Republican Jewish Coalition. Here's an excerpt of what Hewitt thinks will be the central issue in the coming US election:

This [election] . . . is really against fantasists -- against people who do not believe that the threat is what it is. . . . Our fellow citizens and our friends also felt as badly as we did about the events of [9/11]. But increasingly they have come to believe that it was a lucky one-off, a fluke, a tragedy, as opposed to the first massive expression of a very sinister and very powerful will . . . intent not on peaceful coexistence . . . but on the relentless expansion of their radical vision of Islam.

[T]he Republicans are going to be saying a very hard thing to hear -- that we are locked in an existential struggle . . . and that indeed it is going to be a long and difficult and often bloody 20-30 years ahead of us. That’s a very tough hard message to sell in 60 seconds . . . especially when Democrats insist on saying it’s not so, and that we can retreat from Iraq without the carnage following us home, and that we can pretend that the radicalization of the Islamic population in Europe is neither far advanced nor continuing.

[W]e are only going to win if we make a sophisticated argument, based upon facts, and we do it every single day, and we do it day in and day out.

It’s why I recommend the book “Looming Tower” to everyone who will listen to me. You’ve got to understand what Sayed Qtub was saying and how it has spread and how it has metastasized . . . and it’s not about poverty in the Middle East, and it’s not about the West Bank, and it is not about Gaza. It is about a relentless ideological understanding of Islam that cannot be treated with. That book does it better than any.

I’d recommend “America Alone” . . . Mark Steyn’s effort to alert the world that it isn’t getting better in Europe; it is getting worse, and it’s getting worse in a hurry . . . .

I’d recommend Robert Kaplan’s “Imperial Grunts” . . . the story of the American military . . . an astonishing group of extraordinarily capable men and women who indeed are protecting the peace and preserving liberties -- and that is a reason for optimism.

I would also recommend the book that President Bush recommended . . . “The Case for Democracy” by Mr. Sharansky . . . It’s why the Bush Doctrine is . . . the only opportunity we have, the only rational choice, which is what Bernard Lewis said in Newport Beach Temple where I went to hear him a few weeks ago: either we will bring them freedom, or they will kill us . . . and he is right.

And finally one other book -- “Alone,” which is the story of the Thirties, the story of Winston Churchill by William Manchester -- the story of how Churchill never stopped doing one thing, which was say listen to what Hitler is saying, take him seriously, he means what he says and you cannot negotiate with him. It took a very long time and an extraordinarily terrible loss in history, for people to believe Churchill. . . .

Recently our friends at MEMRII put out a pamphlet “The Doctrine of Mahdism” and . . . I recommend you download it. It is the ideology of Mesbah-e Yazdi and Ahmadinejad. And people need to know that unlike the Thirties, horrible as they were, the next nut who gets their hands on weapons and begins offensive war is not going to have four and five years to roll out their divisions. It will be a flash of light . . . There is no Atlantic fortress to come to the rescue. . . .

That’s what we have to tell the American people repeatedly from now until November 2008. And it may not be until Election Day that we discover that they indeed were listening.

Islam West jihad Israel Jews Republicans Democrats