How do you tell a communist? Well, it's someone who reads Marx and Lenin. And how do you tell an anti-Communist? It's someone who understands Marx and Lenin.

The fundamental reason America is under attack by Arab terrorists, several dozen people want me to know, is that the U.S. supports Israel.

This is true - it's not the only reason, but it is the major fundamental reason.

And the only reason we do that, several of them have said, or hinted, is because of the political power of the Jewish lobby here in the U.S.A.

Okay, that's at least party wrong. They walk, talk, and dress like we do. They are the "good guys" as we grow up. They're even the "good guys" in the Bible - well, for most of it. There is a cultural allegiance that guides our democratic decisions to engage in supporting them in their religious war. And that same allegiance (plus memories of Hitler) will get one called "Anti-Semite" faster than one can down a matzo ball, if ever one should mention that it might be better for our own national security if we did not overtly involve ourselves in their fights.

...at the risk of yet more ill-tempered or abusive emails, I am going to declare that I don't think these recent outrages can be blamed on the Jews, nor even on pro-Israel American politicians.

Okay, I buy that it's not to be blamed on Jews or on Israel, but it's ridiculous to discount the role of our alliance in all of this. The Jew-hating Muslim terrorists want to destroy Israel, so why is the jihad against Israel and the USA? Because we dress alike? No! It's because we send money and weapons to these people! As the author himself says later on, Israel is severely outnumbered over there, and they know that they would get overrun without us. Bin-Laden knows that too - that's why we are targeted. We are the ones who facilitate their survival and control of Muslim holy ground. That's what the acts of war are all about.

The root phenomenon is not American involvement in Middle Eastern affairs: the root phenomenon is hesperophobia.

I disagree to some extent - the article is very interesting and very well written, and I appreciate exposure to the new word, but I cannot accept his conclusions.

I can't see any strong reason for believing that if the state of Israel were to disappear from the face of the earth tomorrow, hesperophobia would disappear with it.

Red Herring! He has tricked the reader into assuming that the hesperophobia (independent of financial and military backing) is the basis for the terrorist actions themselves - thus making it easy for the reader to agree that killing the Israelis wouldn't stop the terrorism. Check your premises.

They hate us because we humiliated them, showed up the gross inferiority of their culture. To them, and similarly humiliated peoples, we are the other; detested and feared in a way we can barely understand.

An excellent and insightful note. Imagine - really try to imagine - if China announced tomorrow that they had developed cold fusion, transhumanism, and FTL travel. And they won't sell - they'll only assimilate those who want in. How would we feel? Imagine if we resisted, how would we feel in 50 years? Holy shit.

However, imagine if they didn't demand assimilation. Imagine if we could have those things just by throwing away parts of our culture - say, the internal combustion engine and other fossil-fuel engines are outdated, and all of our medicine is antiquated, and every form of transportation is slow.

Would we resent them still? Well, we would if we couldn't meet their price. The hesperophobia comes from the fraction of the population who is more focused on clinging to the old ways, and they are of course among the most vocal (as is often true here, too). The way to win them over is not to carpet-bomb Kabul and beautiful Baghdad, but rather to offer free trade.

Aren't you hungry for Burger King now? Most of them are - and Nikes and Nokias and Nordstrom's, too. They would love westernization - at their own pace. And it would not have to be violent. Let them buy what they like and refuse what they don't. That certainly works, or we would not have the distinction that the author himself makes between their Arabs and our Arabs - the Kuwaitis and Saudis, cowering in their plush-lined air-conditioned bunkers being waited on by their Filipino servants while we did their fighting for them. (btw, far from accusing him of anti-Semitism, I would note that the author seems to have a very strong prejudice against Arabs, whose culture is referred to as "squalid, hopeless, irredeemably inferior", and who he divides into two categories "the mad phobics and the cowering, pampered, Westernized Arabs.)

The mall in Dubai is more culturally diverse, classically liberal, and "Westernized" than any mall I have seen in the USA. And they make better coffee. But if there is a sense that they've lost control to us, of course they will resist and pull away! It has to be at their own pace - the same way each of us keeps up (or doesn't) with the latest technologies. It's no different.

If the present state of Israel were inhabited by Christian Lithuanians or Frenchmen, the hatred would be nearly as intense.

I agree - it's about the land!! Why do people fail to recognize that? The irrational belief that Jews should live in that strip of land because God gave it to them, and that it is our duty to protect them because that's our God too and he's for whatever reason not available to rain fire on their enemies like he used to so we should show some religious solidarity and kick Arab ass for our beloved Jewish friends who have been there since way back in the 1940s, IS ABSOLUTELY INDEFENSIBLE AND STUPID!

A Western state on "Arab land," is an outrage, an illegitimate creation, a crusader state. The fact that the Jews had a wealthy and powerful nation on that land three thousand years ago counts for nothing. Israel is, from the point of view of most Arabs, an alien graft that must not be allowed to "take."

This is meant to be facetious, but I agree with it. In this country we are outraged by the number of Arabs who own prime real estate in our best cities, and there is great resentment toward the fairly new Arab parts of town. How would we feel if we had lost WWII and Hitler gave New England and the Mid-Atlantic States to some new pals from Persia and Palestine? An Arab state controlling the birthplace of American democracy? We would fight - throwing rocks at tanks if necessary, and we don't even have the cultural cohesion that Palestinians have. Why is their point of view so difficult to understand?

So, so, so, is this any of America's business? What are we doing, meddling in the Middle East? Where is our interest? Well, U.S. politicians must speak for themselves, but if I had any position of authority in any Western nation, I would be urging full support for Israel, and I am not Jewish. It's a matter of cultural solidarity.

"Cultural solidarity"? We were pretty culturally similar to, say, King George's England. Should we have stood by them? How about the Civil War - should the North have refused to fight based on the fact that the Southerners looked and talked pretty similar to Northerners? How about the Germans? Or, was that because they weren't as much like us as the UK was?

How did they start fighting in the first place? What a crock - look at what he's saying. The Arabs aren't like us and the Jews are, so that's why we should support Israel fully. It's complete and total racist, cultural elitism - and that's the real reason people hate Westerners. JFC!

What, after all, does the Buchananite program offer us, if carried through?

Using Buchanan's name is an emotional appeal, and not even an appropriate one. Most people who don't feel we are justified in supporting Israel in their struggle against Arabs do not have old Pat's extremist's attitudes. I for one say we throw open the doors to all Israelis - hey, it's not a police state over here, so if you can be peaceful and lawful, we'll let you live in our country, where there are not car bombings by people who feel that you're living in their ancestral homeland! But if you feel it's more important to stick to your religious guns, I can't help you - ask your God.

But if we don't arm the Israelis, who will?

Allow me to take a moment to say that I am not advocating any actions that would prevent private companies from selling arms or sending money to Israel; nor do I feel we should try to prevent our citizens from forming a Foreign Legion that operates sans tax dollars and outside the government's sanction - hey, if you want to risk your life freeing the Israelis or Bosnians or Chinese, that's your right. But when you use my tax dollar to fund a war in which you send my brother or son in a draft over to fight a war, in which they and I do not believe, that is unjustifiable and wrong.

Don't tell me it can't happen - the draft was in effect less than 30 years ago, in support of a war that was not on our soil and was controversial in justification (to put it mildly).

You just have to think straight. You just have to understand that the war between civilization and barbarism is being fought today just as it was fought at Chalons and Tours, at the gates of Kiev and Vienna, by the hoplites at Marathon and the legions on the Rhine.