Intro: As we Americans once again commemorate that horrific 9-11 attack on our sovereignty and ideals just twenty years ago, a little country in the heart of the Middle East understands. While many Americans still have trouble explaining what happened on that day and, most importantly, why it happened, most Israelis weren’t confused, as they had been bearing the brunt of radical Islam’s hatred for decades.
Here to explain the unique Israeli perspective is American-Israeli David Rubin, author of “Confronting Radicals: What America Can Learn from Israel”.
Suggested Q&A:
- What is unique about the Israeli understanding of 9-11? It’s something we understand instinctively. First of all, there is the personal, emotional aspect. When the news of the attacks reached Israel, we felt an immediate bonding with the American victims. After years of burying our dead civilians, who had been frequently murdered in terror attacks carried out by Muslim extremists, we felt like we uniquely understood what Americans were feeling, even though the magnitude of the 9-11 attacks were far more enormous than anything that the world had yet experienced.
- Did this feeling of bonding go beyond the emotional aspect of mourning the dead? Yes, certainly, there was the much bigger picture, sort of a confirmation to us that maybe now, the world might begin to understand the great danger to our way of life from the Muslim extremism that we had suffered from for so many years.
- That was twenty years ago. Looking back in retrospect, would you say that America has learned the lessons from 9-11? Maybe part of the American public has. Those who believe that American values and the values of Judeo-Christian civilization are worth defending certainly recognize that this wasn’t just a random attack of a few lone-wolf terrorists who had lost their minds. It was a carefully-planned ideological assault on America, indeed a declaration of a war that hasn’t ended by those who hate the American way of life.
- But unlike in Israel, where the terrorist attacks are ongoing, here in the United States, it’s been relatively peaceful, hasn’t it? The Islamic terrorist attacks have been sporadic on American soil, thanks to strong efforts by the intelligence services and the police, but the attacks on Americans have been redirected to foreign-based American targets, as in Benghazi and Afghanistan. Every terrorist organization, whether Hamas, ISIS, or the Taliban, has a commonality of purpose based on an extreme Islamic ideology, with the goal of carrying out Jihad, or holy war, against what they call the Jews and the infidels, which of course means the Jews and the Christians. The free world must remain vigilant.
- You already sounded the alarm many years ago, with your book, “The Islamic Tsunami”. Where can our viewers/listeners find out more about that book, as well as your latest book, “Confronting Radicals: What America Can Learn from Israel”? The best way to get more information about my books is to go to my website, which is www.DavidRubinIsrael.com
Bio: David Rubin, former Mayor of Shiloh Israel, is the author of the new book, Confronting Radicals: What America Can Learn from Israel and six other books, including “The Islamic Tsunami”. Rubin is the founder and president of Shiloh Israel Children’s Fund, established after he and his then three-year-old son were wounded in a terror attack. He can be found at www.DavidRubinIsrael.com or www.ShilohIsraelChildren.org
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