“If We Conquer Israel, We Will Be Able To Conquer The West. Israel is the executive arm of Western hegemony. If you cut off this arm, Western hegemony will collapse,” Masoud Aali, a clerical authority there, said on Iranian television.
I won’t dwell on his analysis of the Koran or his interpretation of how the killing of the Jews is a condition for the salvation of the world (or the coming of the “hidden Imam”, a sort of Islamic version of the second coming of Jesus Christ). Masoud Ali, however, said two important things.
One of them is absolutely true. It is infinitely more difficult to conquer a six-million-strong Israel than it is to conquer a sixty-million-strong Britain. If anyone has the capability to conquer Israel, no Western state can resist. This calls into question the relationship between size and security, among other things. Big states can be stronger if they can use that size properly.
The second statement is bullshit. How can Israel be an instrument of liberal hegemony in Latin America, in the Czech Republic, in the war against Russia, in the attempted coup in Georgia, etc. The problem is that this connection (Israel and Western hegemony) is firmly planted in the brains of much of the Western left (progressive and conservative). So firmly that many people have lost the ability to think rationally about these things. Jihad is seen as a manifestation of the national liberation movement and hence there is a moral obligation to support jihad. Until the jihadists show up right down your street.