Now that the new year is officially upon us, the time for reflection is over and it behooves us to look ahead. Normally, human nature bids us to do this with hope in our hearts, but to no one’s surprise, 2009 finds us in a position where international events make it nearly impossible to do so. To put it mildly, the world has gone mad.

In a sane world, one faced with a religious cult that has been responsible for countless incidents of brutality and monstrous assaults on innocent life all over the world, we might see that world unite to rid itself of those responsible for these atrocities. As in WWII or the Gulf War, the civilized nations would put aside their differences and come together in the name of decency to defend the decent.

But in a mad, mad world, the perpetrators are lauded as “freedom fighters” and defended by “human rights” groups. Now, with renewed hostilities in the Gaza Strip, much of the world has incredibly decided that the fault lies with Israel, a people who in sixty short years have gone from earning the sympathy and respect of the world for enduring the Holocaust to being on the receiving end of its hatred and enmity.

In a world that claims to defend the lives of the innocent, any culture that encourages its women to become suicide bombers and straps bombs to its children and the mentally ill would justly earn the scorn and contempt of good men everywhere. Yet, in a crazed world, this behavior is incredibly excused by blaming it on the victims of such ungodly acts.

In a compassionate world, the use of schools, hospitals and places of worship as staging areas for terrorists would be decried as the barbaric and savage practice that it is. Every international agency and NGO would scream to high heavens about these heinous abuses of the “rules of war.” But in a world gone mad, these tactics are defended as necessary to counteract the “disproportionate response” of the Israelis; as if the aim of legitimate warfare is not to gain such an advantage over one’s enemies.

In a world still capable of informed judgment, the true message of Islamist extremists — worldwide conquest through jihad — would be trumpeted across the globe, and all nations would be aware of Hamas’s own professed view of the “peace process”:

There is no solution to the Palestinian problem except by jihad. Initiatives, proposals and international conferences are a waste of time and a farce. The Palestinian people is far too eminent to have its future, its rights and its destiny toyed with. As stated in the Hadith: “The hypocrites among them are not allowed to be superior to the believers among them, and they shall die in grief and distress.”

Yet in a world devoid of wisdom, one that saw Yasser Arafat refuse to accept nearly all he asked for under the Clinton Administration, the myth that Palestinians will ever accept peaceful coexistence with Israel still persists.

In a wise world, one that purports to learn from its history, those sworn to genocide would be universally condemned across the political spectrum as were the Nazis. But in our world, those who seek another “final solution” are given a free pass while George W. Bush is condemned as “Hitler.” Yes, in a mad, mad world, the executioners are invited in for tea while those who seek its salvation are reviled.

Indeed, if we still lived in a world where the recognition of objective truth still held sway with those in power, belief in a religion that preaches peace, brotherhood and forgiveness would be welcomed and nurtured, and considered what it truly is; a gift to humanity. Instead, it is increasingly belittled, persecuted and suppressed worldwide, while those who follow the dictates of “the sword” are lauded and protected.

Our world may yet awake and throw off the blinders that allow nefarious acts of terrorism to be perpetrated against it, or it may continue down the path of destruction paved with misguided notions of moral equivalency. One thing is certain, however: those who indiscriminately heave rockets into Israel and those who share their dream of a world without infidels harbor no such qualms; their aim is true.