The Liberal Betrayal of Israel Posted: 30 May 2010 08:08 PM PDT Over the last two weeks, a liberal scholar and pundit named Peter Beinart got a lot of attention by arguing that liberals could no longer be pro-Israel because the country and its people had moved too far to the right. The reality however is just the opposite. In every way, from national defense to the role of religion in public life, Israel has actually watered down its principles and liberalized. But it could not and cannot keep up with the pace at which liberals have slid far to the left.  The key factor in falling liberal support for Israel is not inside the country, but outside it. As liberals have become more radicalized, what used to be the left is now simply liberal. And the delegitimization of Israel is part of a larger package of radical beliefs which extends across the spectrum into every area of domestic and foreign policy. For example the anti-Communist liberal who was not at all hard to find in 1967 when Israel fought the Six Day War, is nearly extinct today. And liberals who support the War on Terror are an endangered species. And if they can't even support America's national defense, it's not surprising that they don't support Israel's own national defense. Beinart like other left-wing Jewish critics insist that Israel needs to go further to accommodate their support. But how much further is there to go? Israel has worked for 17 years to cut a deal with the Muslim terrorist gangs who employ a constructed identity as Palestinians to leverage international support for their killing sprees. It has withdrawn from large amounts of territory, provided weapons to their militias and even lobbied on their behalf. Will the left suddenly begin supporting Israel, if after offering East Jerusalem to them, Fatah and Hamas still refuse to make peace? We know better than that. No offer Israel could make would suffice to demonstrate its goodwill and the intransigence of the terrorist gangs. Beinart himself suggests that only when the Palestinian terrorists are happy, and Israel is transformed into an oasis of social justice, (and presumably all conservative parties are banned and the Russian immigrants who voted in Lieberman are deported back to Russia) will his compatriots possibly get on board with supporting Israel again. Which really means that their support for Israel is conditional on the Palestinian terrorists accepting Israel. That is not the way that people who actually ever have any intention of supporting Israel talk or think. It is the way that people who trying to strengthen the terrorists' hand argue. And of course that is the real aim of the left. The radicalization of liberalism also meant the growing legitimation of terrorism (particularly of those groups backed by the USSR and its left allies) and the delegitimization of those governments resisting them. The left routinely couches its political attacks on those governments in the language of human rights-- but human rights has nothing to do with it. The left hypocritically assails Columbia's Uribe on human rights, while giving Castro, Chavez and the rest of the Marxist gang a pass. Just as it assailed the condition of workers in the US, while giving Lenin and Stalin a pass on an agricultural and industrial system built on the murder of millions. Similarly the left jumps on every Israeli soldier who stops a suspicious Muslim at a checkpoint, while ignoring not only Fatah and Hamas' murder of Israeli civilians, but even their murders of their own citizens. None of this matters because the left doesn't believe in human rights. It doesn't care about human rights. It never has. Not when Stalin was paving roads with slave labor, nor when Saddam's minions were entertaining themselves in rape rooms. Anyone who seriously thinks that the left is actually outraged about Abu Ghraib because they care about the dignity of man, rather than because they are congenital liars and hypocrites who exploit any misstep by their enemies for propaganda purposes, has not been paying attention. The majority of regimes that the left wing has supported were non-democratic and routinely violate basic human rights. The left not only doesn't give a damn, it defends every one of their crimes. So let's put to rest the farce that there is anything Israel could do that would win over its left wing critics. The same people who control the dialogue in the press and the melding of minds at universities. To them it is not about justice or doing the right thing or human rights. Those are just words that they use as weapons. Paying attention to those words and trying to demonstrate your innocence only makes you weak and vulnerable. And then they redouble their efforts to cut you to pieces with them. That is what happened to America. It is what is happening to Israel. It is what happens to anyone who stands in the way of their red handed allies. Of course the left does have a special animus for Israel. And that animus came to the surface when liberalism gave way to the radical left. Because while liberals have been Zionist, the left has been notoriously anti-Zionist. The split goes back to 19th/20th century Europe, where left wing organizations competed with Zionist groups for Jewish support. Both had very different visions of the future. The left wanted to see Jews join in working to create Communism and Socialism in their home countries, before assimilating into them. The Zionists wanted a separate Jewish state. When the left won in Russia, they made Zionism into a crime and the entire Hebrew language was banned as "counterrevolutionary". Possession of a Hebrew dictionary could mean being sent to the Gulags. The USSR organized and armed entire Arab armies to attack and destroy Israel. And like Nazi Germany had done before it, the Commissars fed Anti-semitic propaganda to their allies in Europe. To their credit, some resisted. Even many French Communists who had seen what the Nazis did to the Jews were disgusted at being given cartoons and messages strongly suggestive of Nazi Germany with orders to incorporate them into their own newspapers. But that resistance is mostly history now. Left wing politicians in Europe think nothing of claiming that Jewish cabals control the government, refusing to publish the papers of Jewish Israeli colleagues and supporting genocidal Islamic groups and countries that vow to wipe out the Jews. That their behavior is an ominous echo of the Hitler era means less than nothing to them. Just as it meant less than nothing to the Nazis.  The left's opposition to Israel has nothing to do with human rights, but with its insistent belief that Jewish separatism is illegitimate and diverts recruits from their effort to build modern socialist states. Beinart indirectly makes the same case, insisting that support for Israel's survival must be subsidiary to the country's compliance with the left's political values. Because of course the same people who agitated against any overthrow of Saddam, when it comes to Israel make their support conditional on passing an impossible test, in which Israel either commits suicide to win their support, or survives and loses their support. I will only love you if you kill yourself . The left is determined not to allow any redefinition of Israel as legitimate. Its hijacking of liberalism means that once again it feels driven to win Jewish recruits by destroying any independent national and religious identity that they may have. By forcing liberal Jews to choose between their political allegiances and Israel, they are setting up a difficult choice for them. Having the Obama Administration attack Israel was only one of the many forms of strain introduced to create that breaking point. Even while pundits like Joe Klein and Andrew Sullivan relapse into rants against Israel that the editors of Der Sturmer would have run on the front page. This was what the left wanted all along. Consider the following "forecast" of a perfect socialist future from H.G. Wells
To understand Beinart and why the left really hates Israel, read that paragraph very carefully. This is why left wing anti-zionism is anti-semitism. It isn't that they want to wipe out six million people of semitic ancestry. They just want Israel and Jews gone. They would rather do it bloodlessly, with no "extermination" or "specific persecution", but if the Jews don't cooperate, they still intend to fulfill their goals. People who think this way are not going to be reassured that Israel is a good little country. To them Israel is unacceptable. It is unacceptable because they reject the idea of a separate Jewish national identity. And that robs them of manpower and ties in with all sorts of religious ideas they would like to get rid of, among both Jews and Christians. And so they delegitimize Israel as a country that has no right to exist. That has no right to defend itself. That has no right to survive. That always does everything wrong. That is an oppressor, that steals organs and is the neighborhood bully. An unjustifiable monster disrupting the entire world. If it sounds familiar, it should. The Nazis used those same arguments to justify a progression of persecution that eventually culminated in genocide. The left is using them today. And it may lie to itself about what its ends and means are, it may even believe in its claptrap about human rights, but blood always tells the truth in the end. George Bernard Shaw, that corrupt old socialist scribbler, said it simply enough: "Those Jews who still want to be the chosen race... can go to Palestine and stew in their own juice. The rest had better stop being Jews and start being human beings." The Beinarts still unconsciously echo Shaw like a dog howling for its deceased master. And the message remains the same, that a real world Jewish state is incompatible with being a liberal Jew. Liberal Jews can support the rights of any and every people to a state (assuming that the left approves of them) including that of the entirely mythical Palestinian people-- just not the Jews.  Liberals betrayed Israel by allowing themselves to be taken over by the left. Not against their will, but all too often they allowed their own political radicalization to occur without considering the long term implications. The further they went to the left, the more they turned on their own country, and other countries the left considered its enemy, such as Israel. And the left is busy indoctrinating their children against the homelands. The left does not hate Israel because of Ariel Sharon, but because of Moses and Abraham and King David. It wants Jews to forget that they are not merely cogs in a socialist state-- to forget that are the descendants of kings and warriors. The sons and daughters of the people who faced down Assyrian chariots and Roman legions, the children of a great civilization in a sea of barbarism that changed the world. They want us to forget, because a people that does not know its own power is already enslaved. In the last century, we remembered that we were the descendants of kings and warriors. Of queens and prophetesses. Sailors and scholars. That we had a better destiny than to escape prejudice by subsuming ourselves into the left's great dream of a universal socialist state. We remembered and we started to become those things again. The left fears this exodus from their power, as that ancient Pharaoh feared the loss of his Hebrew slaves. They want us to forget. To sink down again. To accept their brand of liberalism that denies our rights in the name of their ideology. Their lies are chains around our feet. Those who choose to be slaves will wear them proudly as iron badges of honor. Those who choose to break them will be forever free.  |
Friday Afternoon Roundup - The Buck Stops Somewhere Else Posted: 30 May 2010 01:44 PM PDT With the Ground Zero Mosque approval, it seems timely enough to run this satirical video of the Palestinian Minister of Uncontrollable Rage visiting the Great Muslim City of New York. Meanwhile America's greatest actual Muslim, after steadily avoiding any association with that giant mess in the gulf you may have heard of, Obama waited until the company he maligned seemed likely to fix it, to roll out his big "Savior of the Gulf" tour. This was cynical posturing from a man who spent so much time passing the buck that he even got called out for it by party loyalists like Chris Matthews and James Carville, who now wanted to get the credit for a solution he had nothing to do with. But this was also typical behavior from a man surrounded by PR people who had cut their teeth on spinning modern corporate failures. Rule 1 is to avoid being associated with the scandal, Rule 2 is to be associated with the solution. It's the same reason why Obama avoids the military, whether it's ducking out on Memorial Day or delaying a visit to Afghanistan for as long as possible once in office. Egotists only want the credit, never the blame. And the kind of people who surround Obama think in terms of "branding" not responsibility. But a year of this kind of game has made it a little obvious. The press corps over getting ignored. And even party loyalists can see that Obama doesn't do anything without expecting a PR payday. Forget Harry Truman's The Buck Stops Here, Obama's motto is, The Buck Stops Here, the Blame Stops Somewhere Else. But Obama's tour was not only ill timed, because the solution was not quite as instantaneous as his crew had been expecting, but because it seemed to be as much about ducking the Sestak accusations, as about plugging the hole. The dubious achievement here was that Clinton had managed to get involved in a political scandal without even being in office. But there's only so far this can go. The primary source for the claim is a Democrat wannabe Senator, who isn't about to bring down the Obama Administration just because they tried to suppress him in the primary. He may be bitter, but mostly he's maneuvering in an environment in which Obama has lost his golden halo, and has to hold off the possibility of an independent bid by Arlen Specter. Like a surprising number of Democratic Senators, he doesn't seem to mind screwing over Obama, but neither is he about to do any real damage there. But you can spot the return of the words Clinton + Scandal by the media as US News and World Report wonders "What Constitutes a Bribe?" Media Matters trips all over itself with one of its more convoluted headlines to date, "Right-wing media absurdly declare false Sestak "bribe" allegations "Obama's Watergate". Meanwhile the Washington Post helpfully informs us in an editorial that; "Ethics laws do not seem designed for this circumstance." Which is convenient of course. If only Gore were here to remind us that there's no legal controlling authority. So far the only winners here are Sestak and Issa, both of whom have leveraged this to raise their profile. But the Obama Administration has suffered another embarrassment, and each one serves to undermine its standing, not only with the general public, but with its own supporters. Even the Washington Post is being forced to argue that its whitewash of Sestakgate was complicated by the White House's lack of transparency. This reflects the underlying frustration of an MMS that wants desperately to give Obama favorable coverage, but is being shown a brick wall instead. But Republicans should be worried. As public frustration continues to grow, it won't just stop with the Democrats. Particularly if the Republicans score recognizable victories in 2010. There are troubling poll shifts in some elections already. Thomas Del Beccaro at Big Government argues that local races need nationalization, but that too may be a fundamental mistake. Critz didn't beat Burns on national issues, but on local issues. Just as Bill Owens beat Doug Hoffman on local issues. Senate races can be fought and won on national issues, but congressional fights are local. And trying to fight national battles locally is how NY-23 was lost. Critz won because he connected himself to Murtha's legacy, such as it is, trotted out his widow, and pretended to be fairly conservative on issues that mattered locally. Most voters just want someone to represent their community, and the Democrats have their majority thanks to the fraud of Conservative Democrats who pretend to believe one thing while doing another. But over in New Jersey, Governor Christie is teaching a master class in how to win locally by applying national conservative principles to local matters. Christie never has to mention Obama or a national deficit. Instead he attacks liberal arrogance and entitlement directly with common sense challenges. It's what Reagan did so well and had McCain done that, we wouldn't have Obama in office right now. And any Republican Presidential candidate who wants to run in 2012 had better master doing it now. Right now the Republican party does not have its house in order, and the Rand Paul and Haley Barbour messes are not helping. The only winning Democratic strategy has been to focus on Republican scandals, which is a win because they have a tame media in their corner. They played that card effectively enough once before. They'll be happy to do it again to sabotage a Republican congressional takeback. The Democrats have realized that focusing on tarring Tea Party activists directly is a losing hand, and they're slowly backing off that strategy, which only helped build the Tea Party's populist appeal. And so they're shifting for another go at Republican politicians. Rand Paul's win was a major victory for them, as it allowed them to put an ugly face on a movement by associating it with a politician who had little to actually do with it. Between the Paulestinians and the liberal media, the trap was neatly sewn together for Republicans by these two groups. And with the Maddow interview, plenty of them fell into the trap of defending Rand Paul. Which is the old strategy that Dick Morris formulated under the Clinton Administration. Winning requires being smart. Because it's very easy to be stupid. It's very easy to get bogged down in internal politics and rivalries, or sabotaged by people who seize the advantage to exploit the political chaos for their own benefit. Because of the media imbalance, Republicans will need to go forward with a clean house. If they can't do that, things will get very ugly, very fast. And the public will decide that both parties are hopeless, and that it doesn't matter who wins. Turning to the Ground Zero Mosque, Walid Shoebat has an article in which Imam Feisal admits he wants to bring Sharia law to America.
...and we are letting it happen. But never fear the Federal Government is keeping up its war on terrorists. Wait, no not on terrorists, on people who infiltrate and expose terrorist organizations.
Meanwhile in Peru, convicted terrorist Lori Berenson has been freed and her parents are working hard to get her "deported" to the US. Despite the fact that a Peruvian court convicted her of participating in terrorist activities. While the hard left has tried to turn Lori Berenson into another Rachel Corrie, a suffering martyr, the fact is that Berenson hates America, just as much as she hates Peru. Her own words are her best indictment
Lori Berenson is a hardened radical. She does not belong in the United States. She belongs in jail. People like her aid terrorists with the aim of bringing down all of society into ruin and rubble, and creating their own perfect dictatorship. And the people who have been taken in by her, who wrote letters on her behalf asking for her release made a terrible mistake. And before you say anything about her parents, her mother wrote a book about Lori Berenson. The foreword to it was written by Noam Chomsky. The afterword by Ramsey Clark. Whether it's Rachel Corrie or Lori Berenson, the enemy knows quite well that we are vulnerable to the sight of what seems to be innocent young girls suffering. But they are not innocent. They chose to affiliate themselves with evil. With murder and atrocity. They do not deserve any pity whatsoever. In the UK meanwhile Muslims are continuing their campaign against Jewish rights to our own history and identity
Of course no one is demanding that say Muslim schools stop mentioning their claims to Jerusalem or Mecca. And a Muslim demand to remove Israel from the values of a Jewish school is a direct attack on Judaism and the Bible, which is after all the story of G-d and the Jewish people as defined by the Land of Israel. There is no way around that. Square Mile Wife has her own take on my Liberalism's Obesity Obsession piece.
The number of responses to Beinart's smear continues to grow. Noah Pollak had the definitive response at Commentary, Ted Bromund has an interesting conclusion as well. (Via Love of the Land)
There is a good deal of truth to that, but there is one complication. Liberals are enthusiastically in favor of some states. They want a Palestinian state. They supported Saddam's right to massacre his own people. What they oppose are states that represent a particular set of values. Not merely nationalism, but the nationalism of civilized countries. And another addendum vis a vis a different foreign policy approach for Israel
To close wit , Rahm hears some truth, Noam Shalit still ready to sell out to Hamas in any way to get his son back and Caroline Glick on the importance of reclaiming our language from the left.
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