Editor’s Note: In Part 1 of this two-part feature, Dr. Nils Haug describes how the moral and intellectual foundations of the Torah with the Quaran and various sayings of the Prophet Muhammed from the Hadith clash in violent ways. In Part 2, Dr. Haug focuses on why this clash represents one of the gravest tests for Western Civilization.
“Antisemitism always finds justification in whatever the dominant moral discourse of the day is” (Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks)
As discussed in Part 1, a practical illustration of the moral chasm between Judeo-Christianity’s Torah-inspired natural law outlook and that of an Islamist-jihadist Sharia worldview, became devastatingly apparent on October 7, 2023 when Hamas invaded the peaceful communities of their Jewish neighbours, slaughtering everyone they came across.
In this final segment, the disparate perceptions of core Western values, such as human rights, are further examined.
Human Rights
The West’s concept of universal human rights is alien to fundamentalist Islamism. Sourced from the theistic natural law tradition, articles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights form the basis for international humanitarian law which, in turn, defines parameters of just-war and armed conflict. Where appropriate, the International Criminal Court and the Court of Justice apply these guidelines in reaching their decisions. In short, the precepts of Islamist fundamentalism conflict with humanitarian values and principles of the Western democratic tradition, as founded on the Torah’s moral-ethical tenets.
Through establishing humanitarianism in Torah precedent, the West’s human rights and obligations are grounded in moral authority, absolutism, and rationality. Without this foundation, the influence of a situational ethical approach which includes relativism and subjectivity, will temper the objective imperative so necessary for wide acceptance. The reasoning is that there should not be a compromise on foundational truths, despite diversity of moral and ethical convictions and fickle social popularism.
Concessions on foundational moral principles will, no doubt, result in competing proposals and give effect to a multitude of ethical complexities. The United States Commission of Unalienable Rights was established to avoid attenuation of established human rights through tenuous and fluctuating ideals and ideas.
Representing the Commission, past Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, in 2020, declared the Commission’s purpose was to “ground our discussion of human rights in America’s founding principles.” These founding principles are those derived from the Judeo-Christian moral and ethical order. By adding new or convenient rights to established rights amounts to an introduction of subjective, relativist, or otherwise humanist ethical constructs which might vary according to the spirit of the times.
Such action would be perturbing. Yet, then-Secretary of State Anthony Blinken made exactly those proposals at a 2021 meeting of the Commission. Blinken, however, concealed in his terminology, ideals of identity politics relating to race, gender, and the like. It seems that, on occasion, some politicians cannot refrain from manipulating foundational dogma for their own purposes.
In 2020, Professor Robert George pondered the universality of human rights in the context of regimes which did not espouse the Western ethical tradition. To quote: “the very concept of human rights includes their universality. Human rights are rights we have, not in virtue of any achievement of ours but simply in virtue of our humanity.”
Professor George emphasized that inalienable rights “means they are the rights of the weak as well as the strong … To talk about human rights is to talk about justice.” The question of justice is where things go awry because refutation of traditional, Western natural law principles of justice – whether distributive or social – with attendant human rights and ethical principles of combat, can result in deadly situations like that of September 11, 2011, in the US, and more recently on October 7, 2023, in Israel.
On that day in 2023, acting free from all civilized constraints, yet averring deep religious convictions and seeking justice for perceived harms, Hamas revealed the malevolent spirit of their agenda: one based on jihad (holy war) – a purported offshoot of Sharia. Considering themselves independent of Western conventions of war, justice, and human rights, Hamas had no hesitation in using civilians to their advantage, without mercy.
Barbarism vs. Western Civilization
Ideologies of holy war and martyrdom are underpinned by Sharia. Islamic jihadists thus feel compelled to sow terror, sorrow, death and destruction wherever they operate: whether in Africa, Middle East, Afghanistan and elsewhere, while ultimately aiming to ideologically conquer the United States and Europe. To varying degrees, all Western nations are adversely impacted whether economically, financially, or socially by jihadists seeking global domination for their religion and its Sharia laws. The desire for an utopian Caliphate, based in Jerusalem and created through force, causes nothing but misery for the world at large.
The Apathetic West
While much of the West bemoans the increase in Islamist radicalization, their leaders pay lip-service to increased military budgets and preparedness despite signs of escalating internal and external conflicts. This is particularly the case in Europe which has relied on the United States to carry much of their external military burden, under NATO. Even so, current events indicate that Europe will probably experience an acute growth of Sharia law radicalization – one that they have allowed to foment in their midst.
A pertinent reason for the wilful dissonance of major Western powers, and to a lesser extent the US, towards Islamic and allied extremists and their aberrant values, is that the West’s foreign policies are based on an outlook which Professor George Weigel refers to as “rationalist secularism.” As a result, Western leaders find it difficult to regard religiously-powered radicalism with the gravitas it deserves. Weigel concludes, however, that “it is precisely because it’s religiously grounded that such radicalism is exceptionally dangerous.” His view is sound; the question of religion, and conflicting value systems, underlies many of the world’s conflicts, principally in the Middle East.
A Question of Truth
Hamas, Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad, and other Islamists are animated by religious dogma, hence their belief in a transcendent iteration of martyrdom anticipating lofty rewards in the life hereafter. Fr. Richard Neuhaus, founding editor of First Things, explained such outlook when he wrote, “we think it true to say that politics is, in largest part, an expression of culture, and at the heart of culture is religion.” This perceptive statement requires an addition: “and the heart of religion is truth.” Truth itself emanates from precepts of the Torah and a dichotomous stance towards its rubrics inexorably results in competing political, cultural, religious, and possibly military efforts for world dominance. The upshot of conflicting truth can result in violent conflict, as seen in Israel’s existential conundrum in the Middle Eastern arena.
A Clash of Religions
It is perhaps inevitable that the two major kinetic monotheistic religions of the world would one day collide over exclusive claims to legitimacy (the biblical Creator or Allah), justice and allied values (the Torah or Sharia), eternal truth, and a transcendent destiny (Judeo-Christianity or Islamism). On October 7, 2023, the confrontation between these two opposing worldviews was inaugurated in earnest. Israel was not only the focal point of the conflict, but serves as a crucible for testing the resolve of Western powers in safeguarding their traditional values, culture, and society. In this regard, the West failed dismally.
The West’s dire situation over its civilizational values is illuminated by the historic 1940 speech of that great statesman, Winston Churchill, in the British House of Commons during World War II, “If we fail, then the whole world, including the United States, including all that we have known and cared for, will sink into the abyss of a new Dark Age.”
Conclusion
Bearing these sombre words in mind, which echo those of Oswald Spengler in 1923, mentioned in Part 1, it is time for Western leaders to again rise up against malignant intent to disrupt the traditional liberal democratic order. The hard-fought values, and natural law rights underpinning Western society, need to be protected for the benefit of forthcoming generations of freedom loving citizens.
