But it is here that Sharansky, an immigrant, understands the threat better than any sabra.
As a dissident in the former Soviet Union, Sharansky himself bridged the gap between the movements to promote human rights for all Russians and the push for the right of Jews to emigrate. Today Sharansky is derided by activists in groups like Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch because while still backing human rights causes elsewhere, he actively supports Israel’s right to defend itself against terrorists, whose goal is to deny Jews freedom.
Just as the West can’t defend itself against Islamism by giving up a belief in the superiority of its own ideals of democracy, Israel won’t survive by “giving up on Jewish identity.”
“There is another way,” argues Sharansky. “The path to peace lies in strengthening Israel’s Jewish identity, maintaining a robust Israeli democracy and encouraging our non-democratic neighbors to build free societies.”
Equally as important, Defending Identity cuts to the heart of the malaise that causes many in Europe and America to refuse to understand the threat to their freedoms that post-identity thinking represents.
“A world without differences is a world that denies people their deepest attachments to history and to the future, to memory and to inheritance,” writes Sharansky.
Islamists claim they will win because Westerners and Jews “love life,” while they “love death” because their belief in their cause is so great. The author’s answer is to assert that “the free world’s shield against its enemies is its own identity, vigorously asserted… Not all cultures are the same. Not all values are equivalent. The right to live a unique way of life is a right worth fighting for and if necessary worth dying for.”
The altered political climate may mean that another trip to the bestseller list for Sharansky is unlikely. But this is a message that all those who espouse the values of the democratic West need to take to heart.