Page 50 - Signs of the End

14 THE SIGNS OF THE END

and has been continued during the Clinton administration. They
believe that it was this same external pressure that caused the
election of the Labor Party, as well as the ensuing efforts to
arrange accommodation with the PLO.

We have already alluded to the lecture given our tour group
in Jerusalem by the Israeli Army officer. He made a number of
significant points about the position of Israel in light of the new
peace agreement and in light of the demise of the Soviet Union.

Communism the Old Threat —
Mohammedanism the New Threat

With Russia at the head of the vast expansionist Soviet
Empire, international Communism w as perceived as the greatest
threat to world stability. Israel played a key role in assisting
NATO during the Cold War in combating the expansion of the
Soviet Union in the Middle East. That was the old threat.

Now, the officer said, the threat is not the atheism of
Communism, but the false religion of Mohammedanism. Noted
above are some of the doctrines of the Koran, which cause many
of the adherents to be untrustworthy and implacable enemies to
those they consider to be "infidels." If they were just isolated to
the sands of the Arabian peninsula, Moslems would be a
relatively simple people to deal with. But they have spread far
and wide since the seventh centuiy when they began, and now
dominate much of the eastern world, from northern Africa,
through the Middle East, the southern tier of the old Soviet
Union, much of the territory in and around India, and into the
East Indies.

With all of this territory, the Moslems control an enormous
amount of the geopolitical influence in world affairs, buttressed
by their wealth in the oil reserves they own. In one way or
another, Moslems are involved in much of the unrest that is
found throughout that whole part of the world. Certainly, India
has found itself in a struggle between the Moslems and the
Hindus, which has forced the creation of Pakistan and Bangla­
desh in this century.

Also, in the post-Cold-War period, the old Yugoslavia has
disintegrated into a bloody conflict between the Moslems and the