WARSCHAWSKI: [Since 9/11] the discourse of clash of civilizations has become deeply internalized in Israeli discourse and by the Israeli public – that we Israel are the front line defending not only ourselves but so-called Judeo-Christian civilization against not just the Palestinians – they are only the front line of a much bigger threat, which is Islam, Islamic fundamentalism. In fact, there was a shift in the discourse, starting with fighting terrorism (this was the main discourse at the end of the ’80s) then to Islamic terrorism, and then to Islam as such – a civilizational threat.
JAY: And it goes to the very core of the conception of the Israeli – of a Jewish state, because if there wasn’t some kind of clash of civilizations, you wouldn’t need a Jewish state.
WARSCHAWSKI: Yes, but the Jewish state was a answer not to Islam but to European anti-Semitism.
JAY: That gets transferred.
Watch interview here.