Dennis Showalter: Says Israel-Palestinian conflict can't be resolved
One of the most important writers to fuel the rise of radical Islam in Egypt and across the Middle East - Sayyid Qutb - based his scathing contempt for the corrupt, sinful West on the months he spent in Greeley in 1949.
"Personally, I'm not sure the devil would know how to tempt people in Greeley today, let alone in 1949," Colorado College professor Dennis Showalter joked to a surprised but laughing audience of about 60 people at a guest lecture Thursday night at Colorado State University-Pueblo. "God help us if Qutb and the Muslim Brotherhood visited Las Vegas in 2008," he finished.
The anecdote was only part of Showalter's thesis - that the Islamic world is going through a fundamental religious reformation that is only going to pose a greater challenge to the West and the U.S. in particular. That challenge should force the U.S. to become more energy independent as well as give up some naive notions about its ability to broker peace in the Middle East, the 65-year-old military historian told the audience.
The long struggle between Israel and Palestinians is a conflict than can't be resolved, given the current rise in Islamic fundamentalism, Showalter argued. Israel wants to force its enemies to accept its existence, while Palestinians want "justice" and their former lands back, meaning the destruction of Israel.
"That's like trying to bring two parallel lines together in geometry," Showalter said, acknowledging that his view was pessimistic, but one he argued was realistic.
Showalter has taught at Colorado College since 1969 and has published a long list of books on European and German history, particularly military history. He has been at guest professor at the Air Force Academy and the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, N.Y., and shows up occasionally on the History Channel in programs about Nazi Germany and World War II.
In his lecture Thursday, sponsored by CSU-Pueblo's History Club, Showalter briefly traced the rise and fall of the Ottoman Empire and the failure of Muslim nationalism to defeat Israel militarily. Those struggles and failures opened the door to extremely devout groups, like the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, to declare that Muslim nations needed to return to a more devout faith and then they would be victorious....
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"Personally, I'm not sure the devil would know how to tempt people in Greeley today, let alone in 1949," Colorado College professor Dennis Showalter joked to a surprised but laughing audience of about 60 people at a guest lecture Thursday night at Colorado State University-Pueblo. "God help us if Qutb and the Muslim Brotherhood visited Las Vegas in 2008," he finished.
The anecdote was only part of Showalter's thesis - that the Islamic world is going through a fundamental religious reformation that is only going to pose a greater challenge to the West and the U.S. in particular. That challenge should force the U.S. to become more energy independent as well as give up some naive notions about its ability to broker peace in the Middle East, the 65-year-old military historian told the audience.
The long struggle between Israel and Palestinians is a conflict than can't be resolved, given the current rise in Islamic fundamentalism, Showalter argued. Israel wants to force its enemies to accept its existence, while Palestinians want "justice" and their former lands back, meaning the destruction of Israel.
"That's like trying to bring two parallel lines together in geometry," Showalter said, acknowledging that his view was pessimistic, but one he argued was realistic.
Showalter has taught at Colorado College since 1969 and has published a long list of books on European and German history, particularly military history. He has been at guest professor at the Air Force Academy and the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, N.Y., and shows up occasionally on the History Channel in programs about Nazi Germany and World War II.
In his lecture Thursday, sponsored by CSU-Pueblo's History Club, Showalter briefly traced the rise and fall of the Ottoman Empire and the failure of Muslim nationalism to defeat Israel militarily. Those struggles and failures opened the door to extremely devout groups, like the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, to declare that Muslim nations needed to return to a more devout faith and then they would be victorious....