Time’s Hypocrisy: The Continuing SaganThe cover story is about achingnbacks. On the cover we can see half ofnan aching back (cut vertically), and,nnaturally, one neatly exhibited, beautifullyncurved left buttock of a youthfulnmodel, as well as a lovely contour of hernleft breast. We know several grandmasnwith excruciating back aches; for somenreason, they were not asked to modelnfor an illustration of what Time callsn”the oldest agony.” We wonder why.’nInside such an eloquently coy cover,nwe find, among other things, an essaynentitled “The Bull Market in PersonalnSecrets.” Its author complains bitterlynabout the recent flood of salaciousnmemoirs of movie stars and other celebrities.nWe read there:nThe public traffic in what used to benrespected as intimate lore is con-nCorrectnIn a recent issue of The New Re-n/•’xi’lic, we found an elucidating, impres/sivenand, to our mind, valuable es-n^^ entitled: “War Against the West,”noy Mr. J. B. Kelly. We can read there:n… the West, which is equated in thenArab mind with Christendom, has remainedna familiar and tangible enemy,none which has never ceased, at leastnin popular mythology, to oppress andnexploit the Arab peoples.nRacked thus by powerful sentimentsnof grievance and resentment againstnthe West, the Arabs see the oil weaponnas a gift sent by God to redress thenbalance between Christendom and Islam.nIt enables them to act as thoughnthe might and grandeur of the Umayyadnand Abbasid caliphates has beennrestored, to lay the Christian Westnunder tribute to the Moslem East,nand to fulfill the destiny which Godnin His infinite wisdom has ordainednspicuous and feverish enough to havenprovoked some thought about the implicationsnof the trend. Somethingnmore than a mere departure from decorumnmust be involved when a societynbegins to live habitually in anblizzard of under-the-rug sweepings.nWe may be able to help the editors ofnTime in their newest agony. Thatn”something more” they are frettingnabout can be found in what they propoundnas movie and book reviews, whatnthey support in their “Behavior” section,nand, above all, what they relishnin their “People” department. A hardnlook at the last 15 years of their ownnjournal would make them marvel atntheir contribution to the nausea in ournpopular culture. But would they admitnit.’ Ever.’ Dnfor those to whom He has chosen tonreveal the one true faith. Extravagantnthough these fancies may appear tonWestern eyes, they are very real tonthose who entertain them, and infinitelynmore appealing than the calmerndictates of reason ….nThe conduct of the Arab oil-producingnstates over the past decade hasndemonstrated beyond the slightestndoubt that their actions are motivatednfar more by rapacity and by rancorntoward the West than they are by fearnof the Soviet Union ….nThat upsurge and its aftermath alsonexposed the irrelevance of the beliefnin the incompatibility of Islam andnMarxism with which the West hasnbeen wont to comfort itself.nIn The Rockford Papers of Septembern1979, Leopold Tyrmand wrote:nIn the Middle East, Israel is only annnpart of a much larger problem. Wenlive in a time when the Moslem andnArab world is materializing its centuries-oldndream. Christianity defeatednIslam in the historic strugglenfor the Eastern hemisphere; this wasncompleted in the 19th century by thencolonial empires of England andnFrance. However, both Islam and thenArabs… have never relinquished thenidea of revenge. Oil as a weapon hasnmade vengeance feasible …. thenMohammedan universe, under Arabnstewardship, is to embark on the crusadenfor its long-awaited preponderancenon the world scene . . . -^ ThenArabs cannot deploy their oil strategynagainst the West so long as Israelnexists. Oil must first serve to forcenthe West to annihilate Israel…. ThenWest cannot lose sight of the archtotalitariannvectors of Moslem andnArab history, their traditions of politicalndespotism and oppression, theirnreceptiveness to tyrannical conceptsnof government, their cruelty in dealingnwith political adversaries, theirnidolatry of [military] conquests, finallyn—their easy compliance with fascismn[and] Nazism … as the outgrowthnof Western sociopolitical modes ….nHowever, what’s most disturbing isnthe smooth partnership between mostnArab states and the Soviet Union,nthe total dependence of the PLO uponnMoscow, the KGB and Soviet armament,nand, last but not least, thenenigmatic fact of the loyalty of Moslemsnto the Soviet state. The communistsnin Russia wage a ferociousnwarfare against any Christian denomination;nthe large Islamic populationnin Soviet central Asia seems to collaboratenreadily with the Politbureaunand pledge the Soviet state an allegiance.*nBetter late than never—we are trulyndelighted that The New Republic, annunflinching supporter of Israel, finallynhas reached a conclusion and indulgednin an interpretation which we emphasizednover a year ago. Dn*The text from which this quote is takennis available from The Rockford Institutenfor $1.00.nIVovcmbcr/Dcccmbcr 1980n