Jostein Gaarder’s profoundly confused attack on Israel contains an Orwellian lie that is breathtaking in its audacity but dismayingly common.
the state of Israel, with its unscrupulous art of war and its disgusting weapons, has massacred its own legitimacy.
This assertion makes no sense unless there is something particularly repellent about the way Israel practices war that should single it out from all the other bloody handed states in the world – the states that should remain legitimate. The obvious question is why the US and the UK remain legitimate states in light of their current adventure in Iraq. And while there are many criticisms of the US in Europe, it’s Israel that is “illigitimate” even though there is absolutely not one single atrocity committed by Israel in the last 50 years that has any advantage in either originality or scale over the common practice of the European nations and their colonies over the last 300 years or more. (Please note, I’m attacking European ideologies, not defending Israeli atrocities – even in Haaretz you can see too much.)
What accounts for this singling out of Israel is Europe’s legacy racism and denial. Gaarder’s lie is part and parcel of the anti-semitic constructs of his essay but it cuts to the heart of the colonial past and present and the way Europe and its settler states have refused to come to terms with how they came to the top of the heap on this planet.
Although essays like this are common in Europe, an example from a Norwegian is particularly illustrative because Norway has relatively clean hands. The same type of essays written by English, Germans, French, or Belgians show us that double-talk truly has no limits.
Like the American conservatives who he echos although he would undoubtedly gag at the comparison, Gaarder makes a rushed and grudging admission of some unclear unpleasantness in the past before recycling classical racism. In the US we hear exactly the same story from racists who want to condemn what they imagine to be the especially violent and criminal nature of African-Americans.
We acknowledge and pay heed to Europe’s deep responsibility for the plight of the Jews, for the disgraceful harassment, the pogroms, and the Holocaust. It was historically and morally necessary for Jews to get their own home. However,…
Yes, it was a bitch, but that was in the past, we gave them everything because we are generous to a fault, and still they behave as it is in their low natures to behave:
We do not believe that Israel grieves more for forty killed Lebanese children than it for over three thousand years has lamented forty years in the desert. We note that many Israelis celebrate such triumphs like they once cheered the scourges of the Lord as “fitting punishment” for the people of Egypt. (In that tale, the Lord, God of Israel, appears as an insatiable sadist.)
In America, racists complain that someone is “playing the race card” when they are called to task for their racism. In Europe, we hear about the unfair accusations of anti-semitism raised against pure humanists who are beyond that. But anyone familiar with European anti-semitism will recognize this pattern. The start, “Israel grieves”
as “it for over three thousand years …” shows us that – despite any pretence- the target here is “it” – the Jews – not the state of Israel. And then we get the predictable slap at the barbaric and violent religion of the Jews (when a Norwegian finds your ancestral myths barbaric, you must be bad indeed.). One could immediately predict the reference to Christs new revelation and its rejection by the stubborn evil doers and we are not disappointed
We do not recognize the spiral of retribution of the blood vengeance with “an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.” We do not recognize the principle of one or a thousand Arab eyes for one Israeli eye. We do not recognize collective punishment or population-wide diets as political weapons. Two thousand years have passed since a Jewish rabbi criticized the ancient doctrine of “an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.”
He said: “Do to others as you would have them do to you.”
That’s very nice. The Jews, as is well known, have rejected Christ’s mercy. Did you know that Norway was consituted as a Lutheran nation? When Martin Luther advised the Princes of Europe to burn all the synagogues and the books of the Jews kill, torture, and expel the Jews themselves, he wrote
That is the kind of Messiah we Christians have, and we thank God, the Father of all mercy, with the full, overflowing joy of our hearts, gladly and readily forgetting all the sorrow and harm which the devil wrought for us in Paradise. For our loss has been richly compensated for, and all has been restored to us through this Messiah. Filled with such joy, the apostles sang and rejoiced in dungeons and amid all misfortunes as did even young girls, such as Agatha, Lucia, etc. The wretched Jews, on the other hand, who rejected this Messiah, have languished and perished since that time in anguish of heart, in trouble, trembling, wrath, impatience, malice, blasphemy, and cursing, as we read in Isaiah 65:14: “Behold, my servants shall sing for gladness of heart, but you shall cry out for pain of heart, and shall wail for anguish of spirit. You shall leave your name to my chosen for a curse, and the Lord God will slay you; but his servants he will call by a different name.” And in the same chapter we read: “I was ready to be sought by those who did not ask for me; I was ready to be found by those who did not seek me. I said, ‘Here am I, here am I,’ to a nation that did not call on my name (that is, who were not my people). I spread out my hands all the day to a rebellious people.”
We, indeed, have such a Messiah, who says to us (John 11:25): “I am the resurrection and the life; he who believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and whoever lives and believes in me shall never die.” And John 8:51: “Truly, truly, I say to you, if any one keeps my word, he will never see death.” The Jews and the Turks care nothing for such a Messiah. And why should they? They must have a Messiah from the fool’s paradise, who will satisfy their stinking belly, and who will die together with them like a cow or dog.
And when Joostien Gaarder also became exasperated with the Jews he wrote:
There are limits to our patience, and there are limits to our tolerance. We do not believe in divine promises as justification for occupation and apartheid. We have left the Middle Ages behind. We laugh uneasily at those who still believe that the God of flora, fauna, and galaxies has selected one people in particular as his favorite and given it funny tables, burning bushes, and a license to kill.
Oh those funny tables, not like virgin births or God dictating books to merchants in the desert or any of the things in serious religions. Well we don’t have to go back to the middle ages – in 1851, the Norwegian constitution expressed it quite clearly:
Paragraph II – stated “the Evangelic-Lutheran religion will remain the official State religion. Jesuits and Monastic orders are not accepted. Jews are furthermore excluded from the Kingdom.”
My goodness, as Don Rumsfeld might put it. Good thing this was so far in the past, or we’d have to question the legitimacy of the Norwegian state. And then if we consider that 1850 was the beginning of a major escalation of the slaughter and land theft from the Sami (Lapps), a theft that was continuing in 1980 when the Norwegian state violently suppressed Sami protests of the theft of some of the last of their land for a power plant. Do we realize that until the 1970s, the Swedes had laws limiting the size of houses that could be built by this despised minority?
Why are there not teeming camps of angry Sami firing Silkworm missiles into Oslo or Stockholm? Is it because of the good treatment they received when enslaved and forced to work in the mines? No. It’s because they were so thoroughly slaughtered and suppressed that the remnants are like the Apaches and Dakota, too close to the fate of the Tasmanians to be able to resist. But the morality of “legitimacy” has an amazing statute of limitations that is very beneficial if you have been thorough in your ethnic cleansing. You see, it was all so long ago that it has been washed out in the blood of the lamb. That’s why the condition of the Dakota or the Tasmanians or the Jews of Europe or the Congolese or any of the other recipients of the tender mercies of Christian Europe is not relevant. It was a long time ago – at least a few decades or months if we consider the Brits in Basra.
I can’t move past this without referencing Gaarder’s invocation of sacred international laws that have been ignored by the Jews because I find this commonplace of Colonial Morality to be especially telling. It is not a secret that international laws are routinely violated by every state that thinks it has an advantage in doing so. Europe recently collaborated with US illegal “extraordinary rendition”. I don’t notice any officials going to jail. And even Norway showed us that when a vital, a critical, a life-and-death matter such as the right to butcher whales is at stake, international laws can be ignored. Amazing how these violations of international law do not create issues of legitimacy either.
So finally, we come down to the core meaning of Gaarder’s argument, stripped of all the pious bullshit and fraudulent “international standards”. That core meaning was expressed by (allegedly) Sharon in the famous interview with Amos Oz:
I personally don’t want to be any better than Khomeini or Brezhnev or Ghadafi or Assad or Mrs. Thatcher, or even Harry Truman who killed half a million Japanese with two fine bombs. I only want to be smarter than they are, quicker and more efficient, not better or more beautiful than they are. Tell me, do the baddies of this world have a bad time? If anyone tries to touch them, the evil men cut his hands and legs off. They hunt and catch whatever they feel like eating. They don’t suffer from indigestion and are not punished by Heaven. I want Israel to join that club. Maybe the world will then at last begin to fear me instead of feeling sorry for me. Maybe they will start to tremble, to fear my madness instead of admiring my nobility. Thank God for that. Let them tremble, let them call us a mad state. Let them understand that we are a wild country, dangerous to our surroundings, not normal, that we might go crazy if one of our children is murdered – just one! That we might go wild and burn all the oil fields in the Middle East! If anything would happen to your child, God forbid, you would talk like I do. Let them be aware in Washington, Moscow, Damascus and China that if one of our ambassadors is shot, or even a consul or the most junior embassy official, we might start World War Three just like that!”
Because 20 years later, it will all be long in the past. And here is the real sorrow. As long as Europeans wish to live in a fantasy world in which “international standards” and humanitarian rules apply to only others, there can be no world progress. The rich nations sit on top of the heap of bones and explain loudly to everyone in a transparent code that if you get your looting and murder done quickly and tidily, you can join the club. That is the way the world works. If you don’t like it, you can either be honest or live in a fantasy, as long as the world let’s you be comfortable there.
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in criticism of Israel in the War of Attrition on innocent people of Lebanon, its destruction of Lebanese infrastructure, a new democracy after the Cedar Revolution and massacre its citizens in Qana is cause for you to attack ad hominum Sirocco and the Norwegian nation is very caustic and will not erase your virile hijack of another diary.
So we are all anti-Zionists and perhaps a pinch of anti-semites in Europe. Bull Shit!
«« click to enlargeLebanese citizens inspect the destroyed bridge of Halat, which links Beirut to northern Lebanon, in a sharp expansion of its bombing, blasted highway bridges for the first time in the Christian heartland north of the capital during morning rush hour. AP Photo/Hussein MallaWe have raised our voices on all issues on war crimes and illegal wars, the Iraq invasion to follow Ariel Sharon’s advice of a new, secure Middle-East. The US is just too close to the regional aggression and suppression of the Palestinian by the state of Israel.
Perhaps you should focus on the whaling issue and don’t confuse the conflicts of past generations. Hey the Dutch were heavily involved with slavery and colonialism, looking forward to your attention and conviction of my ancestors.
● Propaganda Hasbara Made in Israel
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."▼ ▼ ▼ MY DIARY
Thank you Oui. I knew this individual was full of it, but I thought the peak was reached yesterday when, in a desperate attempt to excuse Israeli occupation and war crimes, he brought up Norwegian whaling (which he incorrectly claimed is in breach of int’l law). But no; now he confects a fictitious genocide on the Sami people (“thoroughly slaughtered and suppressed that the remnants are like the Apaches and Dakota, too close to the fate of the Tasmanians to be able to resist”) whom he claims were “enslaved and forced to work in the mines.”
Advice to other readers: don’t call a Sami “Lapp” to his or her face, as citizen k in his arrogant ignorance does here.
For anyone interested in the real history of the Sami people in Norway and its cultural oppression by the authorities, Wikipedia gives a good overview. Note the lack of reference to any “slaughter” or “enslavement in mines.”
As I stated in that diary, I have my own reservations about the Gaarder essay, but its problems pale in comparison to citizen k’s dishonest drivel.
In the 1600s, silver ore was discovered near the Norrbotten area of Nasafjäll. The Sami were pressed into ore transport using their reindeer as draft animals. Those who refused to cooperate were keel-hauled under the ice.
http://www.arcticdiscovery.com/sami_culture.php
1635: The mine in Nasafjäll is opened and the Sami’s is coerced to work both in the mine and with the transports of ore, those who refused to work was cruelly punished.
This slavemine is perhaps the worst atrocity committed by the Swedish government. Many Sami’s flee from the the area, so a large part of the provinces previously used by Pite and Lule Sami’s is depopulated. The government sends troops to prevent the Sami’s from fleeing.
http://boreale.konto.itv.se/history.htm
and so on.
In other words, you have knowingly presented acts committed in Sweden by the Swedish government in the 1600s as acts committed in Norway by the Norwegian government in the 1800s or later. And if someone hadn’t come by to call you out, this obfuscation would have stood.
Liar.
By the way, I have long since pointed out to you in the other diary that Norwegian whaling is not in fact contrary to international law, so quite apart from the sheer grotesqueness of comparing sustainable harvest of marine mammals to aggressive war and 39 years of brutal occupation, it’s telling that you are desperate enough to repeat that falsehood here.
I’m sorry. I didn’t realize that actions taken by the common government of Norway and Sweden had nothing to do with Norwegians or Norwegian history.
The common government of Norway and Sweden? You’re embarrassing yourself. Norway was a Danish colony at the time.
You are right about Sweden – I confused the dissolving of the union with Sweden with the 1814 independence. However, I don’t see how it helps your case. The indigenous peoples of Northern scandanavia had their land stolen, suffered great starvations when their herding land was seized, were enslaved, had their language suppressed (esp. in Norway) and were, in sum, treated like most other indigenous tribal people who did not learn about armies and guns fast enough.
My case is that the difference between the Palestinians and the Saami is to a great extent due to the completeness of the defeat of the Saami. I don’t see that you can dispute it by blaming the Swedes.
Well, over and above the significant historical falsehood which your diary entry still asserts — you haven’t edited or updated it — the equivalence argument you are trying to construct makes no sense:
Europeans have oppressed indigenous minorities and colonized peoples in the past, therefore they cannot now protest the ongoing oppression (and worse) of other peoples?
By the same logic, it was hypocritical for Europeans to protest the Iraq war because of Europe’s warlike past.
History is there to be learned from, not to be used a club to bludgeon legitimate objections to hukan rights violations in the present.
Here’s a quote from another essay I have translated, by Per Nyholm writing in Jyllands-Posten back in April:
Europeans have oppressed indigenous minorities and colonized peoples in the past, therefore they cannot now protest the ongoing oppression (and worse) of other peoples?
I don’t say or believe that. Anyone is free to speak and the truth of what they say does not depend on what their ancestors or country has done.
Listen, I have also heard this same argument in France. To say that, for example St. Dennis, is the source of a great deal of crime is to “protest”. To say it is so criminal that the residents should be deported is to apply a false moral standard. And to say that the problems of the neighborhood are due to the inherent criminality of Arabs is to be racist.
Israel is doing terrible things – no problem, even agree.
Israel is so far beyond normal state behavior that it should be abolished as a state – double standard.
Israel does these terrible things because the Jews are evil people who rejected Christ’s teachings – anti-semitic.
Fine, they what’s the point of your characterization of Gaarder from the other diary:
More choice quotes on speaking out while Norwegian:
And today, a four centuries old story about Samis in Sweden, plus an entirely non-atrocious one about a power dam in 1982.
These are used to create an equivalence argument to the effect that it’s double standards for Gaarder to write as he does. For instance, because Norway hasn’t militarily intervened in the Lebanon war, it is too, as you put it, a partner in the barbarity. Well, that is the kind of bullshit I have called you on.
But fundamentally, I think the problem is that you are misinterpreting what Gaarder says:
He doesn’t say that. He explicitly states:
As a result, Gaarder predicts in the style of an ancient prophet, Israel may in the future be abolished wholesale. But that’s not what Gaarder recommends. I do think he should have been clearer, and this is one of the essays’s flaws; but you have gotten the wrong end of the stick.
On your other point of exegesis I’m more inclined to agree, and I haven’t disputed criticism of the essay that centers on this:
While he doesn’t claim that “Jews are evil,” he clearly does tie Israel’s crimes to Judaic religion. And this is where we agree he goes wrong.
There are two different points. Point one is “smugness” of Gaarders essay. For me, there is no separation of his “Christian mercy” from his condemnation. Essentially, he is saying “these people, these miserable people, don’t have our moral values of mercy, they have a barbaric superstition of vengence”. That is, Gaarder is contrasting the supposed high moral standing of “us” with the immoral standing of “them”. Gaarder brings up his own moral standing and makes it an issue. He is not just critiquing Israel, he is contrasting Israeli morality with “our” morality.
Point two is feigned helplessness. I’m horrified by what my government is doing. But lots of other countries have great resources, powerful armed forces, and so on, but pretend to be unable to take any action. There are limits to what the US and its clients can do. Our government is run by crazy people, but even they will not attack a NATO ally. Waving your hands in despair instead of sending a troop carrier is a moral choice – maybe a good one, I don’t know. But it’s a choice, not a necessity. Norway could intervene militarily in Lebananon, with great daring. France could with less daring. Norway could open its borders to Lebanese refugees at some cost. Norwegians who believe as Gaardner claims to believe that Israel must be abolished could call for their government to open doors to disaffected Israelis. But NOBODY advocates anything that would cost themselves anything. Acting morally and paying the price for it is always what someone else should do.
I know that I have a unfortunately brusque writing style and I apologize for it. But look how angry you are when I question the generosity of Norwegian aid, and how puzzled you are by my strong reaction to someone arguing that Jews are primitive savages and indulging in fantasies about helpless jewish refugees (snails with no shells) at the tender mercies of their former enemies (and I am not fooled for a moment by his fraudulent protestations).
For Jews, even those of us who are at most ambivalent about the whole Zionist experiment, the spectacle of a “humanist” calling for Jews to be disarmed is a big red warning sign.
If you can be so easily offended by a minor slight to the honor of Norway think about what it is like for prospective unshelled snails (for I don’t have much trust that the ones who will chase such refugees will distinguish between species of Jews) to see this interesting essay that you are “ambivalent” about.
OK, you can have the last word; my final thoughts on the piece of writing is posted here.
I too apologize for my at times overly strident tone.
By the way, you really should change the title if nothing else. The derogation is grating.
That’s a very nice way of putting it. I hope the Israeli ambassador is taking notes.
http://www.dams.org/docs/kbase/contrib/soc208.pdf
How about “The incursion into Lebanon brought Shiite rights onto the political agenda.”? Sounds very nice and polite.
That’s the best you can do? I have to laugh…
So in your considered judgment, the above is such a grave crime against humanity as to preclude any ethnic Norwegian from objecting to this:
A little sick maybe?
why are you bothering with this? just a question.
Trust me, I’ve asked myself the same.
The “Sharon” argument in the Amos Oz interview is that Israel should stop screwing around with small scale human rights violations and just get it over with and establish facts on the ground, so to speak. The argument goes on to say that in another few years, it will all be ancient history. Nobody will care – the land will be Israels without dispute just as the Saami land is Norways without dispute because there is no military force on the other side of the dispute. Then the Israelis can perhaps establish a reservation for the surviving Palestinians to continue their picturesque way of life.
Obviously, you agree with “Sharon”. I don’t. but you represent the clear majority view and the one that has the force of history behind it.
So in your considered judgment, the above is such a grave crime against humanity as to preclude any ethnic Norwegian from objecting to this
Objecting isn’t the same thing as declaring that the perpetrator has no right to exist whatsoever. Perhaps the diarist’s specific claims about Norway are debatable. The larger point is that Israel is held to a different standard than other nations, and its crimes are equated with thousands of years of behavior of Jewish people.
No, they are factual falsehoods, ranging from the relatively trivial (Norwegian whaling is illegal) to the rather serious (Norway has slaughtered, enslaved, and nearly annihilated an indigenous minority).
That’s not what Gaarder says. He says that Israel has no right to exist in its present, post-1967 form. He also cautions that it may cease to exist in any form unless it mends its ways, but he’s not advocating that.
As I have noted from the get-go, there are problematic aspects to his essay, which includes rhetoric that can be criticized as anti-semitic. But the way citizen k has gone about this is just completely ridiculous.
Of Norwegian history, I am pretty much ignorant. I understand why it would outrage you if someone is spreading giant falsehoods about Norway. Can you understand why it would outrage other people when anti-Semitism cloaked in moralistic rhetoric is held up as a good example of a thoughtful critique of Israel? I didn’t see criticism of Gaardner’s anti-Semitism in your original diary, merely “ambivalence.” I admit I didn’t read all the comments though. I have no stomach for all the ill will around here these days.
Have I ever called it “a good example of a thoughtful critique”? I believe the term I used was ‘excoriating’.
As to my own view of the essay, here’s what I wrote:
That’s criticism in my book. Too mildly expressed? Perhaps; but hardly an endorsement either.
I considered the essay interesting enough to translate and post, partly in its own right and partly, as BooMan put it, for what it represents.
Well if you didn’t endorse his point of view, why feature it in a diary? It certainly appeared to me to be an endorsement of his point of view. The diary itself wasn’t critical at all and your criticism, in a comment, so mild as not to seem criticism at all, more like explication. I accept your reason for posting the essay though, and hope you understand the objections.
I think there are many valid ways to react to the essay. MarekNYC’s furious rejection is one; it’s exaggerated to my mind, but fair enough, and I haven’t objected to it. What I have taken issue with is citizen k’s ad hominem attacks on the author for his nationality, and the mix of absurdities and lies conjured up to “substantiate” that.
It’s interesting that one anonymous blogger earns your detailed, time-consuming, point-by-point rebuttal but anti-Semitic absurdities from a famous author earns your translation and publishing.
‘Anti-semitic absurdities’ are your words, not mine.
Exactly.
I can’t speak for Sirocco, and he has made comments that I would not make. But one thing that is frustrating when talking about Israel, is that it is so hard to get across a point-of-view which is primarily concerned with Israel’s security.
In other words, for twenty something years, many on the left have been arguing that the settlements are a long term drain on Israel’s security, for a whole range of reasons. And one thing 9/11 made clear, and was intended to make clear, is that there are consequences for America for what Israel does, and what Egypt, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia do.
Bush and Sharon pursued a totally different path than the one Clinton/Rabin/Barak chose, and it has led to disaster.
But, too often, when we argue that Israel’s opponents won’t push them into the sea and that terrorism will diminish if they get out of the occupied territories, we are met with militaristic rhetoric and charges of anti-Semitism.
And even within this matrix, there are many people that are fed up and might correctly be called anti-Israel, but not anti-Semitic.
The most anti-Israel people I know are American Jews. I have one friend who is so vitriolic in his abuse of Israel that I told him if I said the same thing, he would call me an anti-Semite. And he agreed with me.
For my part, I can’t see any conventional threat to Israel for any of their neighbors. At the same time, they can’t stop rocket attacks. If they want to live in peace they are going to have to make a deal. And excalating the violence and bringing us in to do what they cannot will just make matters worse for everyone.
Sometimes, critiques of Israel’s policies really have Israel’s best interests at heart. I want peace for Israel. And I don’t think they will ever get it acting the way they are now.
I agree with you on Israel’s long-term security. Yet I also concur (if on nothing else) with As’ad of the Angry Arab that the US mainstream discourse is almost solely concerned with identifying the best interests of Israel. Even to garden-variety US Democrats, hamfisted oppression of Palestinians or savage war in Lebanon are unfortunate not so much because they are wrong, but because they weaken Israel’s long-term security, boost international terrorism, and so on and so forth. There’s something disturbing about that point of view.
even saying what I am willing to say places me outside of acceptable parameters of debate in this country and could be suicide for a politician. I do find that disturbing. But I cannot ignore it.
Note that I have repeatedly stated I am not apologizing for or excusing Israel’s actions. What I am objecting to is (a) recycling of traditional anti-semitic arguments (e.g. that the Jews rejected Christs message of mercy) in the guise of humanism, and (b) the evasion of systemic approach to morality and power. These are related.
The “Sharon” argument reported by Amos Oz is grossly immoral, but absolutely correct – it is a restatement of the Athenians discussion with the Melians and has nothing to do with the religious traditions of Jews or Moslems. To confront the logic of that argument, you need to do more than try to sanitize the behavior of the Powers.
But, too often, when we argue that Israel’s opponents won’t push them into the sea and that terrorism will diminish if they get out of the occupied territories, we are met with militaristic rhetoric and charges of anti-Semitism.
I agree. But at the same time there is a tendency to deny that some of Israel’s opponents do insist on Israel’s destruction. Perhaps the most visible recent example was the debate over Ahmadinejad’s comments about wiping Israel off the map.
And even within this matrix, there are many people that are fed up and might correctly be called anti-Israel, but not anti-Semitic.
Assuming that by anti-Israel you mean denying Israel’s right to exist then I think it’s walking a very fine line. When challenged on that this sort of ‘anti-Israel’ person will generally say that they don’t see any reason why there should be any right to a Jewish state. While this was arguable sixty years ago, today it is no different from questioning the right of Arabs/Muslims, and only Arabs/Muslims of having Arab states, or of black majority states – sorry folks, plenty of you have done horrible things in the name of Arab nationalism and/or Islam, so this whole idea of Arabs running there own states is a mistake, and if you don’t accept that then you deserve our bombs and missiles, same goes for African states.
The most anti-Israel people I know are American Jews. I have one friend who is so vitriolic in his abuse of Israel that I told him if I said the same thing, he would call me an anti-Semite. And he agreed with me.
That’s normal. The threshold for saying that a white person is a racist tends to be lower than for saying that a black person is self-hating or an Uncle Tom – is Cosby ok? How about some of those black Republicans, and then what about the guy down south expressing his love for the neo-confederates?
But even if Ahmadinejad said that he wants to wipe Israel off the map, or that it shouldn’t exist, he has no means to do it. Even a suitcase nuke set off in Tel Aviv would only invite a much heavier response from Israel, and possibly the United States. I don’t ask people to ignore the threat of Iran, but to look at it with calm eyes.
It’s Israel’s strategy right now that is straining their traditionally decent relationships with the Sunni nations that border them and posed the traditional threat. It’s hard to see how this is not hurting their national security.
I agree that, while it might be satisfying to fantasize about a world where the Jewish state was somewhere less controversial, or didn’t exist at all, it is really beside the point now, sixty years later. Israel isn’t going anywhere and they are not going to be wiped off the map.
Their threats are demographic, and they do face a threat of nuclear attack, as do we. The best way to diffuse that threat is to do a deal along the lines of the 2000 deal. If they have to give up somewhat more, it is worth it.
They can’t keep going down this neo-conservative path because we are losing and their public support is going to start to evaporate.
The biggest threat to Israel is that America begins to view Israel with the same jaundiced eye as the rest of the world. And we face the same threat in reverse.
Peace is not appeasement, when you have such fundamental military strengths. Getting sucked into expensive occupations is the way to lose that military advantage.
It is really a pro-Israel way of looking at things.
You’re right Booman. It’s really hard to see what exactly Israel’s current actions, or our support thereof are supposed to accomplish. The “war on terrorism” is so wrongheaded in so many ways.
The most anti-Israel people I know are American Jews. I know, I’m one of them, and I’ve had the same discussion with one of my friends who defends Israel. I know that some critiques really have Israel’s best interests at heart. And I agree with you Booman, that the settlements are a huge problem. I abhor the settlements.
I also know that threads of anti-Semitism run through the fabric of European and American civilization. I’m used to it. It’s very difficult to tease out the threads and these days, near-impossible. It’s sad.
How is it exactly that Israeli violations of human rights justifies European anti-semitism or whitewash of history?
The American “libertarians” have an interesting rhetorical trick in which they start with a fanatical defense of “property rights” and complaints about the “despotism” of any coercive state limitations on property rights, but declare all discussions of how the property was accumulated (e.g. from use of slaves, genocide of Indians etc.) to be off limits. See, that was all long ago and has nothing to do with people today.
I am a great admirer of the Netherlands, but while the Rijksmuseum is filled with the loot of Java, Dutch discussions of colonialism and oppression that do not take this history into account are not accurate. Royal-Dutch Shell is not a major player in world petroleum because of the good deeds of the Dutch state.
History does not start in Tel Aviv in 1948.