At my Anglican church each week there are prayers for world peace. I assume this occurs in all Christian churches. Praying for peace is admirable but a complete waste of time. Christians familiar with the Book of Revelation should know that. The world will end warring. World peace will never arrive. A practical prayer, steeped in Old Testament writings, is for victory. For the unjust to be defeated; with, of course, a nod to the effect that justice is on our side. With that in mind the question arises: when to wage war? It depends.

It depends on the stakes and on how powerful the unjust are and therefore on whether they can be restrained at all without insufferable costs in blood, treasure and territory.  For example, if China were to invade Tiawan what should America and its allies, including Australia, do? I suggest that nothing much can or will be done militarily. It will probably be over too quickly and once over will be met with useless temporary sanctions.

The length of time it takes for the big bad guy to have his way can be crucial. Russia needed to have its way with Ukraine quickly. It took too long. It gave NATO time to respond. However, Russia is too big and powerful to counter directly so resort was had to sanctions and supplying arms to Ukraine with limiting conditions on their use. A halfway-house response sure to fail. But the option of boots on the ground and all-out war with Russia was and is unthinkable.

It was quite different when Iraq invaded Kuwait. Iraq was much too weak to pose any threat to America so George Bush senior ordered Operation Desert Storm and quickly kicked Saddam Hussein and his army out of Kuwait. It satisfied the test that the potential losses were expected to be tolerable and the intervention brought no threat to the homeland. This brings me to Isreal.

Leave aside dealing with the remnants of Hamas, Isreal is suffering attacks from Hezbollah, which has killed Americans among others, which has effectively taken over Lebanon and routinely fires rockets and missiles into Israel. Its shipping is being attacked from Yemen by the Houthis, which lob missiles at ships in the Red Sea and strangle the Suez Canal. And this aggression is supported, inspired and financed by Iran. The same Iran whose leaders regularly chant death to America and which is on course shortly to have a nuclear bomb. And this is all happening when each of the bad actors could be relatively easily disabled by the military might of the US (and its allies). Then how come no defining military action is taken?

The US is probably suffering PTSD from its ill-fated military interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan? However,  I can think of another reason, with an ugly history. The key is that Muslim forces are attacking the Jewish state of Israel. In other circumstances perhaps military intervention would have occurred. Think of Kosovo. As it is, in a perverted twist of morality, Isreal is blamed for defending itself too resolutely. It is no sooner attacked than calls ring out for cease fires and de-escalations. Apparently too, it is required to conduct its military operations without harming civilians who willingly or unwillingly harbor terrorists. I wonder what Churchill or Truman would have said about that.

The inaction, the Israel-blaming, smacks of another variant of antisemitism. Owed, this time around, to the religiously concocted outrage of the worldwide Muslim community. Don’t think we are talking about a few radicals here. We are talking about the great mass of Muslims everywhere; including, as we all have witnessed, in the streets of Sydney and Melbourne. This, not climate change, is the existential threat of our age.

Biden, Starmer, Macron, Scholz, et al are handwringing from the sidelines. Perfidious Albanese and Wong are beneath contempt. What we have is Isreal alone defending Judeo-Christian civilisation. Considering the past, it is a fine irony that the Judeo half is doing all of the heavy lifting.