After the murder of Theo van Gogh I remember quite a few American columnists writing that Holland would finally wake up to the threat of radical Islam. They couldn't have been more wrong. Instead of waking up to the threat, Holland preferred to respond to it by going into coma. Maybe the differences between the U.S. and Europe are so big that it has become impossible for you to understand how people think here. This is a very individualistic society -as is yours- but because the notion of a collective is not stimulated nations in Europe seem to behave like individuals. Just think of the rioting French students. If I am only an individual with rights and not a member of a society to which I owe my liberty and wealth, then why should I be asked to sacrifice anything? Have you ever heard of Sylvia Millecam? She was a Dutch actress who was diagnosed with breast cancer but she let herself be convinced it was some sort of virus. She ignored the threat, ignored it despite all symptoms. She did that because it's easier not to deal with a life threatening disease than it is to face up to the fact that in order to stay alive you must fight a battle which you might loose. Faced with such a future it is tempting to believe that what is a threat is not and what is not a threat is. If you managed to understand the meaning of this rambling sentence I just explained to you why people prefer to hate America. I'm not an American but I'm not much of an European either. In 1993 I made the decision to move to Israel and I lived there until 2002. One of the differences between the peoples of the Middle East and the Europeans is their different attitude towards the past. The European view of the past is that of a line, the Islamic and Jewish view the past that of a circle. It may be the cause of a lot of our troubles but it gives us a sense of who we are, where we're from and where we're going to. The Europeans believe the past is gone and that they have no relation to it. Jews and Muslims believe they are the continuation of the past. With that notion comes a feeling of responsibility and I think Americans -with their secular state religion- share that view of the past. The Europeans are the odd man out. They don't understand the power of religion, the pull of ideology and the dynamics of fanaticism. This is why they tend to ignore it. Now the question is how this has come about and the answer lies in the past. Specifically the experience of the two world wars and the lessons we learned from it. I don't need to explain the history so let me just quickly tell you what I mean. After World War I the Western Democracies were convinced they should never go to war again. This may have been a breakthrough in our history but the timing was not right. It's not just that pacifism in the face of tyranny is an abdication of responsibility. "Pacifism is objectively pro-Fascist," wrote George Orwell. "This is elementary common sense. If you hamper the war effort of one side you automatically help that of the other....In practice, 'he that is not with me is against me.'" It's interesting to see a contemporary George say the exact same thing ("You are either with us or against us") and be ridiculed for it. Those European countries that gave Germany a chance to rearm and that sacrificed their allies to Germany never had to take responsibility for their acts. Nor did the Soviet Union ever have to take responsibility for allowing the destruction of the second front in 1940. Or for the simple fact -- conveniently forgotten -- that the Second World War started with a joint attack on Poland by the Soviet Union and Nazi-Germany after they had formed a military and economic alliance. So it was Germany and Germany alone which was condemned for causing the war and committing genocide even though many nations helped her along on the road to disaster. The lesson that the Americans and the Jews learned was that appeasement is wrong and that tyranny must be opposed. If we don't oppose it we will have to deal with it under much worse circumstances. Even though we cannot always live up to it, this has been a guiding principle for the United States of America and for the State of Israel.