Americans could learn a thing or two from Bibi Netanyahu.
The Israeli prime minister was in Washington this week to receive the
American Enterprise Institute's Irving Kristol Award. He made some
controversial remarks -- at least controversial at AEI, where I am a
fellow, and where the freedom agenda is alive and well -- about the need
to be realistic about what's going on in the Middle East. Sometimes, he
said, brutal dictators are better than the real-world alternatives:
even more brutal Islamist movements hell-bent (or, if you prefer,
paradise-bent) to conquer the world.
Less controversial but more intriguing was his description of the
turmoil in the Middle East. "The core of the conflicts in the Middle
East is the battle between modernity and early primitive medievalism,"
Netanyahu explained.
Everyone understood what he meant, of course. The Islamic State believes
the Muslim world took a wrong turn more than a thousand years ago.
The Taliban, the Wahhabis, al-Qaida, the Muslim Brotherhood and all the
other Islamists share this same worldview to one extent or another. Not
every Islamist believes in crucifying Christians or throwing acid in the
face of little girls going to school. But they all reject modernity,
pluralism, secularism, democracy and, in many cases, even science.
"Medievalism" isn't a perfect word, but it's a better word than "terrorism" or "Islamism."
