I'll tell you what happened to Israel.
Cable TV. The Internet. Civilization.
Westerners want to live a normal life. To pursue happiness.
The psyche can just not accept 24/7 that others want you dead.
So you begin to rationalize. To hope. To pretend. You begin to act in a way that will show today's enemy that you could all be friends. So you concede. Show your open palm.
But the enemy doesn't change. It still wants you dead. And when it sees you weak it attacks.
And you, the civilized, are at a disadvantage.
That was really well stated. You've got it exactly right.
In our home school, we call it "Fat, Dumb, and Happy Disease," the bane of every successful civilization throughout history.
The psyche can just not accept 24/7 that others want you dead.
The people who founded Israel had little to lose. They understood the stakes in life and had no problem embracing the risks they had to take. That Isrealis cannot accept it now, in their current secular socialist state of mind, is obvious. Sadly, the cause of that shift isn't so obvious to them. Even more obscure is what it will take to fix it: turning back to G-d.
But the enemy doesn't change. It still wants you dead. And when it sees you weak it attacks.
Correct, Islam is a violent and destructive idealogy, cohesed by substituting obsession for faith, praying for conquest five times a day. They must be defeated.