We’re not in Hibbing anymore

The anti-Orleanist republicans of 1830s France, like their revolutionary grandfathers, never cared much for ambiguities. Recall the blood-pumping verses of Les Miserables’ black-and-white “Red and Black”:

It is time for us all
To decide who we are…
Have you asked of yourselves
What's the price you might pay?...
The color of the world
Is changing day by day...

The color changes century by century, too, and France’s color has dulled. President Nicolas Sarkozy gazed at this Gaza invasion with pallid restraint, and revealed who he was and the price he would pay in his conclusion: “the violence must stop.”

The US’s only Muslim Congressman, Keith Ellison of Minnesota, seconds that, and by the way knows how to shamwow away the decades of murderous hatred in Gaza. Here ye and let it be known, “the ability to eradicate the extreme elements fomenting war will be done so with jobs, food, water, medical supplies, schools, books – and not bombs.”

Nay, it will take much more than French beckonings, bottles of Evian, and croissants to please the bright green banners of the party called “Zeal.” Hamas proudly kills Jews, Americans, apostates, and infidels out of bubbling religious conviction. Schools and books are powerful indeed, especially when the schools are Islamist madrassas and the books are Korans. No need for Curious George when you have imperfectable and ultimate holy texts. Hamas celebrates, teaches, and legislates these texts’ creepiest, most disturbing death-passages.

Last month Hamas gave legal sanction to Islamic punishments. Caught drinking Merlot? Forty skin-ripping lashings. Caught stealing Merlot? Off with your hands. Getting over-romantic up on Jihad Ridge with your girl? Public stoning. Decide you’re gay? Public hanging. Decide being an atheist is more fun than being a Muslim? Crucifixion.

Israel isn’t invading Hibbing. It’s invading a backward society governed by enemies of civilization. No doubt Israel’s attack humiliates Palestinians, but how drastically more humiliating it is to consent to a society that stones hijab-less women! And how humiliating to take terrorists for heroes!

Of course Sarkozy and Ellison don’t take them for heroes, but do they view Hamas and Gaza’s rotten culture as enemies? Author Melba Beals inaugurated the freshman class at my Luther College to the gray world of “who am I to judge?” relativism last year. She talked about the inspirational determination of female suicide bombers and the Taliban, and concluded that “the answer” was:

to love and to care and to see everybody as your equal. No they don’t do the same things you do, they don’t want the same things you do, but you know what, they are so wonderful if you just open them up like a flower.

Gaza’s Islamist society is not loveable, not equal to Western democracy, not a flower to be saved from violent winds by Sarkozy and nourished with water by Ellison.

Hamas is our enemy. A man recently asked writer Christopher Hitchens why he wouldn’t foster a dialogue with Islamists to help them realize he is not their enemy. “I am their enemy,” he replied. “I hate my enemies, I think the enemies of civilization should be killed.”

Israel need not apologize. The colors of Israel and the colors of Hamas stand starkly in opposition. Hamas has asked itself what price it will pay for the victory of a backward society enslaved to the harshest words of the 7th century infidel-mutilator Muhammad, and that price exceeds the worth of innocent lives. We in France and America have yet to “decide who we are.” But Israel doesn’t have the luxury to visualize suicide bombers as “flowers,” and it has decided that violent victory against Hamas is a victory for civilization.