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‘Good vs. Evil’ vs. ‘Weak vs. Strong’
As the fight rages between Israel and Hamas-led Gaza, those supporting Israel shake their heads at progressives around the world. How can a movement which boasts of its dedication to tolerance, feminism and LGBT equality endorse a terror state founded on thuggery and theocracy?
Israel is a modern, multicultural nation in a sea of medieval misery. Women can vote, gays can marry, and Arabs can serve in government. Just over the security fence, women are subjugated, gays are lynched, and there isn’t a Jew to be found (unless he has been kidnapped).
How can the Left be so enamored of the Palestinians? Are they simply immoral? Yes and no.
The Left has a morality, but it is different from that of most conservatives.
We on the Right tend to view struggles as “Good vs. Evil.” Our less religious allies might rephrase this as “Right vs. Wrong,” “Civilization vs. Barbarism,” or, more broadly, “Order vs. Chaos.” Nevertheless, when we see two sides duking it out, we tend to support the Good and the Civilized.
The Left mocks these tired notions of “good” and “evil.” And what is “civilization” but a Eurocentric justification for racism and colonialism? While it’s tempting to call progressives immoral — or at least amoral — the Left has replaced traditional morality with a morality of their own invention.
Progressives have dropped “Good vs. Evil” for “Weak vs. Strong.” The oppressor in any conflict is considered, for lack of a better term, “bad,” while the oppressed victim is an underdog who is worthy of support.
By viewing conflicts through this lens, progressives make several bizarre alliances. They will root for a gun-wielding murderer if the object of his crime was a cop. They will pat the back of a Yippie bomber if his quarry was the Pentagon. And they will support violently homophobic theocrats in Hamas over pluralistic secularists in Israel.
A substitute morality of “weak vs. strong” has a facile appeal since most of us enjoy cheering on the underdog. But if your morality is based on this paradigm, you’ll soon find yourself rooting for a genocidal Hamas over a truly liberal Israel.
Published in General
Seriously? Gaza became Judenrein when the Israeli government, by force, evicted every single Jew in order to give the Arabs a chance to set up a government and build their own society.
It failed. Israel is *desperate* for peace. But there needs to be someone at the table whose starting and ending position does not start with you dead.
Israel and the PA are coexisting pretty well, by contrast. And why is that?
This is actually one of the most simple moral situations we have seen.
The US attacks on Japan were far less defensible. After all Japan, was just trying to protect its security borders. So, too, was Russia in Europe. What possible business did the US have against Germany?
In all those cases, the US was victorious – and with Japan and Germany, the cost was enormous in human life and destruction. And we consider WWII a “Good” War!
Because I do not agree with you?
Let’s face it: Gaza needs someone to actually build it into a nation. Israel has consistently (except during violence) provided all the essentials – food, medical, fuel, and electricity. But the place needs a grown-up capable of reforming the culture of death, and transforming it into a capitalist paradise. It has proven that, thus far, it has neither the skill nor the inclination to better itself.
Indeed, when Hamas took control, they lined up and shot Fatah members. Fatah are not Good Guys – but in the PA they have proven to be angels by comparison to Hamas.
Who is going to be that adult? The UN has failed utterly. Egypt has enough trouble (and is hardly a grown-up). Israel is going to be stuck with that role by default – even though basically nobody wants it.
I fail to understand what you call justice in this case. Would Gazans permanently resettled in Egypt be justice?
The US could tie its foreign aid to Egypt on Egypt absorbing Gazans. Most Gazan Arabs are Egyptians anyway (just like Arafat and that Orientalist fellow at Columbia). Would that be justice?
Though the Egyptians would probably just take them across the border and shoot them. That is what normal countries do to people who would rather kill than live.
I don’t see why it is any worse than it is for those in Yemen or Egypt. Indeed, Gaza could be a MUCH nicer place than either of those nearby countries. And the amazing thing about it is that all it takes is the decision to move forward productively.
If you are one of the countless millions in Egypt living hand-to-mouth, there really is little or no hope. But Gaza is smaller, and the recipient of massive amounts of foreign aid. Palestinians are far better educated than are Yemenis or Egyptians.
You want to say that Gaza is a uniquely bad case. I would say that more than half the world would happily exchange their lot for the lot of Gazans if they could. After all, in times of peace Gaza has running water, sewage systems, electricity, telephones. The weather is nice, the beaches are lovely. How much of the world does not have all of these things?!
If Israel is desperate for peace, they should elect a government whose charter doesn’t explicitly state that the Palestinians can’t have their own state west of the Jordan (and that the settlements must stay permanently given their importance to Zionist principles). Should stop building more settlements in the West Bank. Should have some kind of plan for resuming negotiations with Palestinian authorities.
I was thrilled when Sharon announced the plan to move settlers from Gaza. The settlements were an obvious mark of Israeli aggression and a huge source of rancor, and moving the settlers was politically courageous because they’re mostly hardliners who didn’t take it well.
That said, treating this like some kind of final resolution to Palestinian problems is ridiculous. Like I say, Gaza is basically an Israeli-created reservation for displaced natives. Moving your soldiers out of the reservation (but continuing to control and police the borders, and also leaving your soldiers and settlements in the West Bank) is hardly a final resolution. Even with some donated greenhouses. And that was the last elected government. This one doesn’t appear to have any kind of plan, other than perpetual occupation.
Islamic terrorists are definitely evil. Fixed it for you.
Why? Why should people not be able to buy land and live there, even if they are from a different religion?
When Arabs form a village or city we don’t decry it as an offense. Why is it offensive for Jews to do so?
In fact, according to the left-wing group B’Tselem, Jews have not built new settlements in the West Bank since 1993. Meanwhile, a handful have been dismantled. There are fewer West Bank settlements today than 20 years ago.
Rachel’s understanding of the situation seems completely oblivious of the Oslo process and subsequent events. It’s as if the years 1993-2006 never happened. She’s put forward so many factual errors and mischaracterizations that I just don’t have the energy to correct them.
What I find most remarkable is that after presenting Palestinian “despair” as a moral justification for continued attacks on Israeli civilians, she refuses to grapple with her own moral calculus. I doubt she’d accept that justification for any other conflict, and it’s hard to understand why she accepts it here.
It is axiomatic that another person’s intelligence, wisdom, etc., is directly proportional to how closely they agree with you. :-)
They’re working on the settlements. See here: http://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/israel-advances-new-settlements
And what’s this about? http://forward.com/articles/199044/israel-pushes-palestinian-villagers-out-as-settlem/
iWc, if you don’t understand the importance of the settlements, go read about it. It’s an act of aggression. It isn’t going to lead to peace, and everyone knows it.
What other factual errors? Let’s get this straightened out.
I’ve specified that “despair” is an explanation, not a blanket justification for hostilities. Once Israel invades, it does seem like some response may be justified, but I have clearly stated that I don’t understand all the military details of the present engagement and thus can’t weigh all the prudential questions. I definitely condemn terrorism. Hamas is an ugly organization with much innocent blood on its hands. I would be happy to see them fall.
But I think it’s wrong to suppose that Israel’s hands are clean in this affair. Wrong to suppose that the Palestinians have no legitimate claims of justice to levy against Israel and the West. Very wrong to suppose that ordinary Palestinians deserve their present misery, or that their circumstances were ever at all enviable. Those have been my main contentions throughout and I still stand by them.
Oh, I understand the importance of the settlements. I have lived in them. I was not being aggressive.
Peace comes from ONE SIDE WINNING. If Israel does not act like it has won, then the Arabs will not realize they have lost. And the conflict is perpetuated.
The settlements are part of the solution for peace – but in exactly the opposite way to the way you see things. Once Arabs realize and accept that the Jews are not going anywhere, they will quit fighting. It is when Jews rip up their own homes in failed attempts to placate a bully that the Arabs are emboldened.
Israel’s retreat from Gaza LED to this conflict. If they had stayed in Gaza (and continued to settle it), it would be a much nicer place, and there would be no present conflict.
One thing that really bothers me about this is the way my perspective (on this and a few other threads) has been so violently dismissed, by many people, on the grounds that I’m biased by my experiences with Palestinians. Now, we can all be biased, and I tried to be up-front about my associations from the start for that reason. This is indeed an emotional issue for me, thinking of friends and good people I knew in Gaza, none of whom seemed to be prepping their kids for terrorism camp or revving them up for some Jew-killing. (I’m not saying those things never happen. But the depiction of Gazans as bloodthirsty killers almost to a person seems wildly exaggerated to me).
But we’ve gotten lots of perspectives from Israelis here, which have been accepted as expert testimony, despite the fact that they obviously have a very emotional stake here as well, more so than me. So their firsthand experience makes them reliable, mine makes me untrustworthy? Think about that.
I’d also point out that I could easily have sold my reflections to some liberal publication or other, rather than posting them here. That would have gotten me money, and also a much more positive reception, but I didn’t want to do it because I don’t want to feed the anti-Israel pile-on. And, really, I didn’t want this particular topic to be a money-making project; I preferred to write on it just out of a sense of fairness, correcting for the sake of my Palestinian friends what I see as mistakes and injustices in the conservative narrative. You know me here, so you know how much respect I have for Judeo-Christian tradition. Also that I’m not some Spaniel-like lover of all things Islamic. Knowing all of that should, I would think, earn my impressions some sort of respectful hearing.
None of that obliges you to agree with me, but it’s unfortunate that people accept Israeli testimony so gladly, but accuse me of unworthy motives, even though I’ve actually quite rarely been less self-interested in my writing.
I am not accusing your motives.I am attacking your assumptions, what you erroneously think are the facts, your logic, and your conclusions. I am also accusing you of not being able to see this conflict in any perspective with regards to the rest of the world and the rest of human history.
Does that make me a better person?
I freely admit that there is a minority in Gaza who did not vote for Hamas, or who voted for Hamas because they felt they had no choice.
But unless and until those people are willing to risk their lives to fight for what is right and good, then evil will prevail.
In times of crisis, numbers never matter. The only people who matter are those who stand up for what they believe in.
Are your friends in Gaza confronting Hamas? If not, then during this crisis, they are merely bystanders, however nice they might be as people.
iWc, are you a Likud-supporting Israeli Jew? That would make more sense of our conversation; I should have asked sooner. If I may ask, do you believe that God intends for Israel to control the full land west of the Jordan, and that permitting Arabs to have autonomous control of any part of that land is contrary to divine will?
Rachel, I am astonished at the assumptions that make up your question. I don’t think you even are hearing yourself.
In answer to your questions: I am Jewish. I am not Israeli. I am not even a Zionist, though I dabbled in the past.
I think the world is what we make it, and that G-d has given us that responsibility. The only part of Israel that I know is Jewish, and meant to remain so for time immemorial, is the part that Avraham bought: Hevron.
Biblically, Gaza was Philistinian (not to be confused with Palestine, which is a Roman name) land, and always a source of war and pain.
Though I would add that I believe that it is an awful, terrible thing that Israel gave the Temple Mount to the Arabs to continue to desecrate. I certainly believe that the Temple will be rebuilt, and in my lifetime.
Sorry for making “assumptions” whatever those might be, but there does seem to be a very Zionist cast to your perspective. In any case, I cannot tell your personal intentions in living in a settlement, and I know the housing arrangements are sometimes set up to make it advantageous for people to live there, but many Zionists build and live in them for a reason that mirrors the reason the Arab states didn’t absorb refugees: they want to make it more difficult for Palestinians to have their own state. They know how much harder it is to move people who are already planted. It really is “occupation” in the most literal sense, living on the land to prevent the Palestinians from getting it.
You notice in the West Bank that settlements tend to be strategically located in the most militarily significant points. Hilltops etc. Palestinians notice this too. The territorial intention is fairly clear. Building more settlements makes peace less attainable, but the Israelis are going ahead with it anyway, mostly (as far as I can tell) for revenge. To make the people further feel the sting of occupation.
Everyone in that part of the world has suffered so much that sometimes anger and wounded pride take over. Stability then becomes less attainable and everyone suffers. On both sides, I find it understandable, but, the longer-term consequences are tragic.
This much I will agree, though. Gaza has been ever a source of war and pain (Samson!), and still is. In no place I have ever lived have such a huge percentage the inhabitants yearned to be elsewhere.
Israel has always been willing t accept a Palestian state as part of the peace process. This criticism is without basis.
I actually think these settlements are one of the smarter negotiating tactics Israel has tried.
The Palestinians leverage comes from their ability to kill civilians. Israel now has leverage by showing that the longer the Palestinians hold out trying to get more and more, the less land will be available for them in any future deal.
Frank, why does the Likud’s charter say that there can never be an autonomous Palestinian state, if Israel has “always” been willing to accept this? And, you do realize, right, that there are many people, a large number of the settlers among them, who see the idea of a Palestinian state as a violation of Israel’s sovereign right over the Holy Land? Maybe in Gaza (which as iWc says, is Philistine land) but they don’t want to give up the West Bank. This really is a contentious issue, whether you realize or not.
I was in Israel from 06 July through 29 July (almost entirely in the Tel Aviv area) on a pre-aliyah (pre-emigration) “pilot trip” for job-search-related networking in advance of the actual move (from the US to Israel), which I hope will take place around the October-November timeframe.
(“Pilot trip” is a bit of a misnomer, as I’ve lived in Israel before — the longest stretch being 1995-1996, which saw the Rabin assassination, the first wave of major Hamas homicide-bombing campaigns, and the accession of the first Netanyahu-led government; I’ve also made a number of other visits to Israel.)
I’m also a supporter of the views of Jabotinsky (the avatar kind of gives that away) as well as an admirer of Menachem Begin — albeit I am highly uncomfortable with the precedent Begin permitted in the Camp David accords whereby “Land for Peace” became a viable formulation in and component of subsequent discussions and negotiations between Israel and Arab interlocutors.
In any event, I’m laying all this out here as prefatory information so that my “emotional” stake in the welfare of the Jewish State, its governance, and its contours are clear.
(continued from my #113 comment above)
First, let’s clear up the claptrap Rachel posits re whether Likud-charter tenets militate against good-faith negotiations between a Likud-led Israeli government and some legitimate Palestinian entity.
The Likud charter quite simply speaks to the geographic configuration of the Jewish National Home as understood from the San Remo treaty that has continued in force since the early 1920s.
This certainly encompassed at a minimum the West Bank, and indeed it really also encompassed a fair-sized piece of real estate that the British government wasted no time in handing off to the Hashemite dynasty.
This territorial payoff to (Trans-)Jordan was consistent with Britain’s serial violations of its Mandate responsibilities from the time of General Allenby straight through to 1948 — violations which included inventing excuses to freeze Mandate-legitimated Jewish immigration on-and-off across 3 decades (so as not to “provoke” the mysteriously burgeoning Arab populations [many of whose members got to serve as the local gendarmerie and pass weapons to their confreres arriving surreptitiously from the Syrian and Egyptian hinterlands]).
From the Brits through Bunsche, illegal, appeasement-oriented territorial loppings-off were a near-nonstop phenomenon.
(continued from my #114 comment above)
In short, the Likud tenets aver that Zionism, properly understood at a pragmatic level, encompasses the attainment by the Jewish people (as a matter of national self-determination) of a “facts-on-the-ground” state of affairs whereby the Jewish State by itself (i.e., via its own power and means) ensures — and is concomitantly accorded international recognition/acknowledgment of — the State’s:
1) existential legitimacy;
2) political sovereignty;
and
3) territorial integrity.
The San Remo treaty deeded to Britain, in trust, the Jewish National Home and charged Britain with responsibility as midwife in the birth of the actual Jewish State meeting the above criteria — and again, the physical contours of that trust (the Mandate) were both clearly established and also never since controverted, notwithstanding subsequent near-infanticidal violations.
The Balfour Declaration’s own formulation does *n0t*, incidentally, offer up a corresponding Arab National Home — it simply mandates that the civil/political rights of other, non-Jewish groups in the area not be compromised.
Note as well that Jabotinsky expressly favored such relations of coexistence, both within and across the borders of the future Jewish State, assuming prudent security.
No Palestinian ever offered the equivalent.
I’m also aware that the Likud controls 20 out of 120 seats in the knesset. I’m still further aware that every Israeli prime minister has gone on the record as being willing to accept a Palestinian state.
But while we are talking about charters, you are aware that Hamas’ charter (who controls 74 out of 134 seats on the Palestinian legislative council) calls for the destruction of Israel right?
There is no useful equivalency here. The most extreme factions in Israel are benign when compared to “moderate” Palestinians.
Israel has not been the hold up for a lasting peace. No one can deny that if the Palestinians stopped the violence, Israel would never again initiate any violence against them.
(continued from my #115 comment above)
Moving on from San Remo, manufactured Likud charter-related controversies, and the like, I’d like to add a word about settlements and hilltops.
(I.e., I’ve already covered the legal background to Israel’s ownership of Judea and Samaria.)
As a pragmatic security matter, Israeli control of the Samarian mountain ridge is essential — if a Hamas rocket, lobbed from somewhere in Gaza, and landing a mile away from Ben-Gurion Airport on a house in suburban Yehud, can provide a fantastic shakedown opening to a malignant narcissist in the far-distant White House, imagine the opportunities on offer to someone with a Stinger launcher in, say, Qibya — even if that person doesn’t have a provable affiliation with the DNC.
There’s also the mountain acquifer in Samaria, which is constantly being placed at contamination risk by massive untreated sewage seepage from Arab populations in this West Bank zone; subterranean permeability — from this specific acquifer into other locations in Israel due south and southwest — may in fact mean that drinking-water resources considerably beyond Samaria are being placed at progressively greater risk (e.g., of polio exposure) thanks to Palestinian malign neglect.
At Ricochet we reject the idea that someone is right merely because they are “offended” by the thoughts,words or deeds of others. Yet this seems to be the justification for attacking Israel.
Understanding Likud by its charter is like using the GOP platform to explain the GOP. It tells you something, but in the end, very little, and not what its opponents would have you believe. (It calls to mind those sitcoms where the space alien thinks he knows about Earth because he watched Earth’s TV signals.) Likud is Israel’s center-right mainstream party. In the ’90s, it picked up a lot of votes among religious voters who were turned of by the National Religious Party’s focus on settlements. It lost voters in the 2000s when Sharon founded his personality-driven Kadima party; after Sharon’s incapacitation, Kadima fizzled, and most of those voters returned to Likud. They left again when Likud was perceived as too conciliatory to the PA, and picked them up again when Netanyahu delivered stability. Then in the last election, NRP (rebranded as “Jewish Home”) shed its emphasis on settlements and picked up socially conservative former Likud voters.
What do you consider “large”? I’ve spent quite a bit of time interacting with quite a few settlers. First, as a matter of numbers, most of them are not religiously observant. The proportion of religious is greater than in Israel as a whole, but it is still a minority.
Second, they separate their religious hopes from their political expectations. Famously, the late Lubavitcher Rebbe made a scathing denunciation of ceding West Bank land to the Palestinians. It was famous because he framed his case not as one of Jewish sovereignty, but of Jewish security. That is, the religious value at issue is that of protecting life, not protecting land.
Most settlers I know would be willing to live in Jewish towns in a Palestinian state, just there are Arab villages in Israel. The problem is that mainstream Palestinians (not just some bad apples) insist that such a vision can never come to be–Palestine must be Judenrein.