Read Online The Last Days by Joel C. Rosenberg - Free Book Online

highly radicalized subsection of Palestinian society who saw themselves as hard-core Islamic loyalists. They despised Israel and were deeply committed to jihad, a “holy war” against the “Zionist infidels” and their conspirators from the “Great Satan” known as America. They weren’t the vast majority of Palestinians. They weren’t even a plurality. They weren’t “nominal” Muslims. They were true believers, and—though she’d never admit it to anyone in this car—what they believed terrified McCoy.
    They were “Islamists,” and during America’s long war on terror a lot had been learned about the financial, technical, and ideological links between the purists of Islam. The mob closing in on them now had bitterly fought in the streets and in the Palestinian Legislative Council for the imposition of the shari’ah, an Islamic legal system not unlike the one the Taliban had imposed on the poor souls of Afghanistan. Like the Taliban, they wanted a world where women couldn’t be educated, couldn’t work, couldn’t show their face. A world where women couldn’t wear nail polish, couldn’t smile or laugh in public, couldn’t listen to Mozart. Indeed, they could be flogged or stoned or killed for trying. They wanted a world where children couldn’t play with toys or dolls or watch Sesame Street or have birthday parties. They wanted a world where men ruled and ruled ruthlessly, just like the Taliban.
    These were kindred spirits with the Iranian-funded Hezbollah of Lebanon. They’d been supporters of Hamas and Islamic Jihad. But wherever they lived or whatever they called themselves, the mission of the “Islamists” was the same—to conquer in the name of Mohammed. They’d danced in the streets when the Ayatollah Khomeini led the Islamic revolution in Iran and took Americans hostage for 444 days. They’d danced in the streets when Osama bin Laden and the Saudi-funded Al-Qaeda attacked the World Trade Center and Pentagon on September 11, 2001. And in the subsequent U.S. war in Afghanistan, they’d joyfully sided with their “Muslim brothers” in the Taliban.
    One Reuters headline McCoy had come across before leaving Washington now came flashing back: “Hamas Backs Taliban, Urges Muslim Unity.” The article was dated September 14, 2001, just three days after the terrorist attacks that left three thousand Americans dead. Cited prominently in the story, Abdel-Aziz al-Rantissi of Hamas couldn’t have been more clear. “I join the cause for Muslims to be united in order to deter the United States from launching war against Muslims in Afghanistan,” al-Rantissi said proudly. “It is impossible for Muslims to stand handcuffed and blindfolded while other Muslims, their brothers, are being attacked. The Muslim world should stand up against the American threats which are fed by the Jews.”
    There it was, in black and white. The “dots” were “connected.” Radical Muslims in Gaza and the West Bank were soul mates with their brethren in Afghanistan, not to mention those in Tehran and Riyadh. They saw the world the same way. They fought for the same objectives. They’d supported each other in the same struggles. This was an alien world into which she and Bennett had just been submerged. It was an alien world out of which they now had to fight.
    McCoy fought back a flood of emotions. Her own father had died fighting radical Islam. Was she destined to do the same? Sean McCoy had worked for the CIA. Now she did, too. He’d been a senior advisor to the president of the United States. Now she was, too. Despite his strong marriage, he’d struggled with putting his career ahead of love. Wasn’t she doing that, too? “There are only two places for a woman,” a Taliban leader once said. “In her husband’s house, and in the