Alexandros Petersen: Israel: The Vienna of our Time

Alexandros Petersen is Director of Research at the Henry Jackson Society and author of The World Island: Eurasian Geopolitics and the Fate of the West.

In his hit BBC 4 series ‘Civilization: Is the West History?’, Niall Ferguson refers to Israel as the new Vienna, ‘a fortified city on the frontier of Western civilization’. For the well-known historian and commentator, this was an off-hand remark on the way to contrasting historical Western vigour with Eastern idleness. For those who focus on Israel a little more closely, however, it was a quip pregnant with meaning.

Simon Rocker at the Jewish Chronicle picked it up, saying ‘at least someone likes Israel on Channel 4’. But, the significance of Ferguson’s characterization goes far beyond the calcified battle lines of those traditionally pro and anti-Israel. It is important precisely because it transcends that tired debate. Through historical comparison, it reshapes the way the West ought to be thinking of Israel: not just as the Jewish state or in terms of the Middle East peace process, but as a Western outpost under siege. 

The famed Siege of Vienna in 1529 marked the beginning of a century and a half of armed struggle between a coalition of European forces and the menacing, albeit lumbering Ottoman Empire. Israel has so far been assaulted by many of its neighbours, states and non-state actors, for 63 years. If grave security threats such as Hamas, Hezbollah and a potentially nuclear Iran are not neutralized, Israel’s struggle may well go on for another century. But, regardless of its length, Israel’s struggle is not its own. It is part of the great struggle for the continued preponderance of the West.

I do not frame the struggle in this fashion to join ranks with those who believe the global struggle against Islamist extremism to be an extension of the Reconquista, the Crusades, the Ottoman devouring of the Byzantines etc. It would be inaccurate to the see the Yom Kippur War as a modern-day Lepanto....