That there exists animus
towards Israel far in excess of any reasonable consideration of the
conflict’s magnitude is self-evident. Place the Israeli-Palestinian
conflict in comparison to nearly any of the twenty odd conflicts raging
around the globe to make clear the glaring inconsistency between calamity
and scrutiny. The most potentially catastrophic conflicts are between
India and Pakistan or China and Taiwan, not in the Holy Land. As we
speak, Arab janjaweed militias backed by the government of Sudan are
carrying out ethnic
cleansing, according to both the United Nations and major human
rights groups. One might think the following brutal arithmetic would
dictate moral urgency: just over 4,000 have died in Israeli-Palestinian
fighting since September 2000. Meanwhile, Nicholas Kristof of the
New York Times reports
that, “the government of Sudan is engaging in genocide against
three large African tribes in its Darfur region here. Some 1,000 people
are being killed a week, tribeswomen are being systematically raped,
700,000 people have been driven from their homes, and Sudan's Army
is even bombing the survivors.” People fear famine,
and relief is being blocked.
The “world community”
should pay attention – it’s a lot worse than home demolitions,
suicide bombings, gunfights and fences. Even as the United Nation's
own Sudan coordinator, Mukesh Kapila, calls it “the world's
greatest humanitarian crisis,” the issue of Sudanese ethnic
cleansing – a member-state in the Arab League, incidentally
– wasn’t even broached for weeks in the amoral General
Assembly. Nor has their responsibility for massive crimes against
humanity stopped the Khartoum regime from sponsoring a UN resolution
to criticize Israel for rejecting the UN Fact-Finding Commission in
Jenin, which was to investigate a massacre that never even happened.
(Later, a UN committee would clear Israel of the malicious and false
charges.) When Sudan received the chairmanship of the UN Committee
on Human Rights, the U.S. walked
out to Sudan’s taunts.
*************
In
the Israeli-Palestinian conflict both sides fight, but not for the
same reasons. Israel fights to preserve its democracy, Hamas fights
to establish theocracy. Israeli politicians seek support through promises
of solutions and calm, Palestinian leaders seek support through promises
of martyrdom and struggle. Israelis are saddened by violence committed
by their army in their name and prosecute its soldiers who violate
the law. Palestinians greet atrocity carried out in their honor with
public embrace, rationalization, and fireworks (or, as on 9-11, pass
out sweets). If Israelis march in the streets, it is almost always
to appeal for peace; if Palestinians pour into the streets, it is
most certainly to demand vengeance. If there wasn’t a profound
cultural asymmetry, how can you explain that there exists not one
pro-Israel group among the Palestinians, or in any Arab countries
for that matter? Why do only 2 out of 22 Arab states recognize Israel
diplomatically? Why was “I Hate Israel” a major pop hit
in Egypt, while the reverse could never be true? Why is it that the
chief imams in Saudi Arabia vent racist hatred against Jews on a weekly
basis, calling them “the sons of pig and monkeys,” but
the chief rabbis in Israel never reciprocate? What explains this lovely
gesture from Egypt?
Last
Saturday, 150,000 Israelis marched
in Tel Aviv under the slogan “get out of Gaza and start
talking,” again demonstrating that a substantial portion of
Israelis seek peace with the Palestinians. (See Tel Aviv rally at
right. Compare with rally of a different sort above). Activists were
joined by key members of Israeli political and military establishment
like Shimon Peres, two-time former Prime Minister and recent Minister
of Foreign Affairs, former Shin Bet chief Ami Ayalon (the Shin Bet
is Israel’s FBI), and a former Israeli general. Can anyone imagine
a leading politician or former security official or general from any
Arab country calling for reconciliation with Israel and living to
tell about it? Where are the Palestinian peace marches? Is it that
Palestinians have nothing to apologize for, nothing to concede and
no Israeli justice to recognize? What is their dream?
*************
The
matter of terrorism illustrates the political-cultural chasm as well
as any other. Even if one felt that terrorists were just as legitimate
combatants as uniformed soldiers – despite that only the former
target unarmed civilians, and despite the fact that such a belief
has no precedent in international law – it would be hard to
deny the pathology in naming stadiums and schools after suicide bombers
or hanging posters of them on the walls of youths as is practiced
in Palestine. Israeli youngsters do not pin up pictures of Israeli
generals or Apache pilots because violence to them is distressing,
not inspiring. Who will deny that there is something pathological
in Intifada
sticker albums? The student gunfights
at a Nablus university demonstrate how the praxis of violence is tearing
away at Palestinian society.
At the gravesite of Baruch
Goldstein, the one and only Israeli terrorist, who murdered 29 Palestinians
in February 1994, supporters left a tombstone that echoed the way
Fatah or Hamas describes their fallen: “Here lies the saint,
Dr. Baruch Kappel Goldstein, blessed be the memory of the righteous
and holy man, may the Lord avenge his blood…His hands are innocent
and his heart is pure. He was killed as a martyr of God on the 14th
of Adar, Purim, in the year 5754.” Now, consider the reaction
on the Israeli side: the Israeli government, along with the entirety
of Israeli society, immediately condemned the act. Then in 1998, the
Knesset passed a law forbidding the erection of monuments to terrorists,
which is why, in 2000, it destroyed a shrine built around Goldstein’s
gravesite.
This
obvious asymmetry does not itself justify Israeli policy, whether
one considers it right or wrong. But it does call to attention the
fact that the roots of violence run deeper than border disputes or
refugee resettlement. It is fair and accurate to say that Israel oppresses,
occupies and forces daily indignities upon the Palestinians. But that
does not mean its citizens can be slaughtered with impunity, and it
does not mean that if terrorists attempt this, that Israel will not
retaliate swiftly and harshly. Occupation cannot explain the phenomenon
of suicide bomb campaigning, because there are many oppressed peoples
in the world today and not all of them embark upon sustained campaigns
of suicide terrorism or construct elaborate cults of martyrdom. Not
all Palestinians support terrorist attacks against Israel, but polls
consistently show 60-70 percent. Let this percentage grow. A few weeks
ago, in a sign of moderation, a group of prominent Palestinians signed
a petition calling for non-violent resistance to Israel, a strategy
which, had they chosen earlier it, would have already brought them
a state.
Read "When
should we stop supporting Israel," by Victor Davis Hanson,
March 28, 2004 from his website -- www.victorhanson.com.
