A Foul Wind

There is something about this new, intensely violent, stage of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict that is starting to feel like the fuse for a much larger war of civilizations. You can smell it in the incredibly foul wind blowing through the Arab-Muslim world these days. It is a wind that is fed by many sources: the (one-sided) Arab TV images of Israelis brutalizing Palestinians, the Arab resentment of America's support for Israel and its threat against Iraq, the frustrations of young Arabs with their own lack of freedom and jobs. But once these forces are all bundled together, they express themselves in the most heated anti-Israeli and anti-American sentiments that I've ever felt.

This is dangerous. The notion is taking hold — it started with Osama bin Laden, was refined by Palestinian suicide bombers and is cheered on by Hezbollah, Iran and other radicals — that with a combination of demographics (a baby boom) and terrorism, the Arabs can actually destroy Israel. Some radicals even fantasize that they can undermine America.

A visiting Egyptian official told me that he was recently speaking to Arab students about Middle East peace and one of them interrupted to say that with just "eight small, suitcase-size nuclear bombs," the whole problem of Israel could be eliminated.

"The question is whether Palestinian extremists will do what bin Laden could not: trigger a civilizational war," said the Middle East analyst Stephen P. Cohen. "If you are willing to give up your own life and that of thousands of your own people, the overwhelming power of America and Israel does not deter you any more. We are now on the cusp of the extremists' realizing this destructive power, before the majority is mobilized for an alternative. That's why this Israeli-Palestinian war is not just a local ethnic conflict that we can ignore. It resonates with too many millions of people, connected by too many satellite TV's, with too many dangerous weapons."