Five Arguments Against Conciliation

President Bush was seen as “conciliatory” towards Islam in his speech at the UN yesterday. Pope Benedict XVI and his spokesmen have been “conciliatory”, if not downright groveling, in their most recent responses to Muslim rage over the Holy Father’s recent speech at Regensburg.

Anyone who gets his information from the legacy media — which, unfortunately, still includes most people — is reminded that the West and its leaders need to be more “conciliatory” towards Muslims, to “initiate dialogue”, to “learn more about Islam”, etc blah yak. If only we would give that extra inch, or ell, or mile, why, then Islam would turn a sunny countenance upon us, peace would reign, and all would be well.

I’m here to drop a coprolite in that particular punchbowl. I’m opposed to conciliation, and I’ll give you five reasons why it’s a bad idea:
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1.		It’s wrong.
2.		It’s a strategic blunder.
3.		It will never achieve its objective.
4.		It’s a one-way ratchet.
5.		We harm ourselves when we do it.

These reasons run the gamut from simple moral calculus to the cold appraisal of self-interest. Here’s a more detailed elaboration for each of them.

1. It’s wrong.

When the “Muslim street” becomes enraged and demands conciliatory behavior, it’s always because someone has spoken the plain truth, usually about the Islamic propensity for violence.

Since they are irony-impaired, the enraged Muslims generally respond to such provocations with violence, and the vicious circle of the West’s interactions with Islam is elegantly completed:

“You guys tend to be violent.”

“How dare you insult my honor in such a fashion? I shall cut off your head for saying that!”

One has the option of remaining silent about such matters, in order to avoid the wrath of thin-skinned Muslims. But, having spoken the plain historic truth, it is wrong to back down. If I do so, then I either lied before, or am lying now for cowardly reasons.

Either one is wrong.

2. It’s a strategic blunder.

It’s a well-established fact that being conciliatory towards Muslims only emboldens them to make more demands. The tribal culture of the Arabs (and Muslims in general) sees conciliatory behavior as evidence of weakness, and is thus moved to press for even greater concessions.

A cursory glance at the “peace process” concerning the Palestinian territories, especially since Oslo, will underscore this fact. Every time Israel has made concessions to its enemies, it has been rewarded with more violence and carnage.

Conciliation towards the Palestinians means more dead Jews. It’s as simple as that. The behavior of successive Israeli governments in the face of this evidence has a kind of perverse obstinacy about it.

3. It will never achieve its objective.

Islam has historically been an aggressive and violent political force. It is relatively subdued only when it is outgunned.

Being conciliatory towards an irredeemably aggressive negotiating partner can only bring temporary and illusory advantages. Your interlocutor will make the right noises, smile, and wait for the opportunity to put the knife at your throat again.

Our mistake is to see the Islamic enemy as basically like ourselves. These chaps may look different and have some strange customs, but we’re all the same under the skin, don’t you know?

No, we’re not. The well-entrenched mental, social, cultural, and political system evolved by Islam over the last fourteen hundred years relies on the combination of aggression and deceit to gain its objective, which is to expand until it fills the entire earth.

The only restraint it will recognize is overwhelming force on our part, and the obvious willingness to use it.

4. It’s a one-way ratchet.

Whenever a concession is made to Islam, another waits in the wings, ready to be rolled out onto the stage to take its place. It’s like the Sudetenland in 1938, over and over again. Lop off one piece and give it Hitler, and then another, and another, but somehow it’s never quite enough.

And, if you watch carefully, the Muslim negotiating partner never manages to carry through with his half of any compromise.

This process has been painfully evident, once again, with the Palestinians. Israel always has to complete its obligations under the terms of any agreement, regardless of the fact that the Palestinians never manage to implement their half of the bargain. In order for them to do that, Israel must jump through yet another hoop, and then another and another…

That’s why, thirteen years after the Oslo agreement, the PLO has never amended its charter to allow for the existence of Israel. Somehow they never quite manage to get around to it.

Concessions to Islam are a one-way ratchet in Islam’s favor. It’s a racket, and it’s time we acknowledged it.

5. We harm ourselves when we do it.

Every time we perform another act of abasement, every time we fall all over ourselves apologizing for insulting Muslims, every time we publicly pretend that Islam is the Religion of Peace, we are doing damage to our collective psyche. All these efforts fly in the face of the obvious truth: historically speaking, right up to the present moment, Islam has been the Religion of War.

The Demonic Convergence is drawing the Left and radical Islam into bed with each other, so that there are very strong forces in our public life which strive to convince us otherwise, that we are bad, bad people, racists and Islamophobes, for thinking such things. It produces a cognitive dissonance in the collective psyche of the West, because the average person, deep down, knows the truth.

We’re like a co-dependent in an alcoholic marriage. “Joe doesn’t drink very much. He’s not drunk; he’s just tired. He needs to unwind after the stress of his job. He’s just a social drinker.”

No he’s not: he’s an alcoholic. And Islam is violent.

Any further conciliation is crazy-making behavior on our part.

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Changing this situation is going to be a long and difficult process, because you and I, the average people, do not own or have influence over the megaphones of public communication. The media are effectively in the hands of the enemy, and, as a result, many more people will die before we stop trying to appease the Islamic tiger.

But, futile though it may be, I’ll say it again: it’s time to hear conciliations from the other side. No more conciliatory behavior until we do.

By their fruits ye shall know them.