The coming fall of Europe

Joshua Trevino has an interesting essay up on The Brussels Journal today:

Deutsche Welle has an interesting little roundup of European press reaction to Israel's campaign against Hezbollah, most of which appears to condemn the Israeli actions as "disproportionate." As a corollary, Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero (of Spanish Flee fame) went on record stating that the results of the Israeli response to the agents of radicalization, fanaticism, conflict and instability will be "radicalization, fanaticism, conflict and instability." The European reaction is instructive for several reasons: First, because it is indicative of the extent to which nationalism and national feeling has declined - there is simply little understanding of why a state would seek so dramatically to protect its own. Second, because it illustrates the European mindset on Islamism - that it is indestructible, and by implication, that its agents cannot be repelled or thwarted. Third, because it lets us know, again, that the Europeans do not see Israel as one of its own - even though, in the cultural and historical sense, it is - and that they
blame Israel in a manner reminiscent of those who would blame a provocatively-dressed woman for her rape.

European received wisdom is wrong on all counts.

The whole thing is very much worth a look but I want to focus on what Mr. Trevino terms the second pfuelinge fuleing the European rejection of Israel:

The second prejudice is a re-casting of an old Continental European pathology, which for the past century has rolled over and sought accommodation with the most dire threats to itself. First fascism appeared the wave of the future, and in its advance gained adherents of surprising vigor in much of Europe - or at the least acquiescence on a scale that some modern European polities, France chief among them, have been at pains to deny and forget. Then, when fascism evaporated, the new existential threat was communism: and it, too, wielded an enduring appeal to the politicized masses. And, like fascism, the romance with communism did not disappear until its fountainhead did. Now, for the third time in a century, we see the leading classes of Europe stand in defense of the latest existential threat to themselves: Islamism. All their prior fascinations would have annihilated them, and this one is no different. But as before, this threat is unstoppable; it is supported by the people; it is the wave of the future; and it must be accommodated. And as before, there is the combination of the sane remnant of European culture plus America to remind them of Simone Weil's dictum: "Who were the fools who spread the story that brute force cannot kill ideas? Nothing is easier. And once they are dead they are no more than corpses."

It is probably too late to overcome this impulse to preemptive surrender which characterizes Europe today. The implications for the United States are troubling. Europe is a poor ally, but at least it has been an ally. What we will have to do when it becomes a shooting enemy as well as a diplomatic annoyance will likely be expensive and inconvenient.

I hope that the Republican Party is able to get its ducks in a row well enough to maintain power as a conservative party. Otherwise we (America) will not be up to the task.