Victor Davis Hanson: When Should We Stop Supporting Israel?

VDH ^ | March 28, 2004 | Victor Davis Hanson

[HenryLeeII]

When Should We Stop Supporting Israel?

How about when the Arab world:

1) quits murdering innocent men, women, and children and learns to live in peaceful co-existence with a nation that does not conform to its religion (yet still allows more freedom to its Arab citizens and does more to protect their rights than basically any Arab country does for its own);
2) does not inflict its youth with rabid anti-Jewish/anti-Israel rhetoric in lieu of education;
3) does not give money to the families of those who murder innocent men, women, and children;
4) does not try to invade Israel (although they seem to have given up that idea after the last few attempts haven't turned out so well);
5) adopts official positions of recognizing Israel's right to exist, rather than calling for its annhilation;
6) gives up the silly and ignorant notion that there was once a country called 'Palestine' and accepts the fact that the Arabs calling themselves 'Palestinians' were sent out of their homes in the UAR and/or Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, and Egypt, then weren't allowed to return when initial attempts to crush the fledling state of Israel failed.

So, in other words, probably never.

[Tolik]

Your only hope is to ask Admin Moderator to edit that thing out, because you will feel the wreath of VDH fans coming on you, and you will have to cry mia culpa for the next year. :)))

[Paulie]

Admin, please edit out post #34. Thank you.

[Brian Allen]

When should we stop supporting Israel?

The recent assassination of Sheik Saruman raises among some Americans the question—at what point should we reconsider our rather blanket support for the Israelis and show a more even-handed attitude toward the Palestinians? The answer, it seems to me, should be assessed in cultural, economic, political, and social terms.

Well, we should no longer support Israel, when…

Mr. Sharon suspends all elections and plans a decade of unquestioned rule.

Mr. Sharon suspends all investigation about fiscal impropriety as his family members spend millions of Israeli aid money in Paris.

All Israeli television and newspapers are censored by the Likud party.
Israeli hit teams enter the West Bank with the precise intention of targeting and blowing up Arab women and children.

Preteen Israeli children are apprehended with bombs under their shirts on their way to the West Bank to murder Palestinian families.

Israeli crowds rush into the street to dip their hands into the blood of their dead and march en masse chanting mass murder to the Palestinians.

Rabbis give public sermons in which they characterize Palestinians as the children of pigs and monkeys.

Israeli school textbooks state that Arabs engage in blood sacrifice and ritual murders.

Mainstream Israeli politicians, without public rebuke, call for the destruction of Palestinians on the West Bank and the end to Arab society there.

Likud party members routinely lynch and execute their opponents without trial.

Jewish fundamentalists execute with impunity women found guilty of adultery on grounds that they are impugning the “honor” of the family.

Israeli mobs with impunity tear apart Palestinian policemen held in detention.

Israeli television broadcasts—to the tune of patriotic music—the last taped messages of Jewish suicide bombers who have slaughtered dozens of Arabs.

Jewish marchers parade in the streets with their children dressed up as suicide bombers, replete with plastic suicide-bombing vests.

New Yorkers post $25,000 bounties for every Palestinian blown up by Israeli murderers.

Israeli militants murder a Jew by accident and then apologize on grounds that they though he was an Arab—to the silence of Israeli society.

Jews enter Arab villages in Israel to machine gun women and children.

Israeli public figures routinely threaten the United States with terror attacks.

Bin Laden is a folk hero in Tel Aviv.

Jewish assassins murder American diplomats and are given de facto sanctuary by Israeli society.

Israeli citizens celebrate on news that 3,000 Americans have been murdered.

Israeli citizens express support for Saddam Hussein’s supporters in Iraq in their efforts to kill Americans.



So until then, I think most Americans can see the moral differences in the present struggle.

If the Palestinians wish to hold periodic and open elections, establish an independent judiciary, create a free press, arrest murderers, subject their treasury to public scrutiny, eschew suicide murdering, censure religious leaders who call for mass murder, embrace non-violent dissidents, extend equal rights to women, end honor killings, raise funds in the Arab world earmarked only to build water, sewer, transportation, and education infrastructure, and pledge that any Jews who choose to live in the West Bank will enjoy the same rights as Arabs in Israel, then they might find Americans equally divided over questions of land and peace.

But all that is a lot of ifs. And so for the present, Palestinian leaders shouldn’t be too surprised that Americans increasingly find very little in their society that has much appeal to either our values or sympathy. If they continually assure us publicly that they are furious at Americans, then they should at least pause, reflect, and ask themselves why an overwhelming number of Americans—not Jewish, not residents of New York, not influenced by the media—are growing far more furious with them.

[hershey]

Once more it's a privilege and a pleasure to read V.D. Hanson's thoughts. Thanks so very much for posting this.

[Salem]

'Ping!'





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[lainde]

bump and thanks!

[Utah Girl]

Ping

[tubavil]

When Israel vows "Death to America" and promises more 9/11s are in store for the Yankee colossus.
=== === === === === === === === === ===
Excellent point.

[upcountryhorseman]

Basically, I agree with you; However, the situation has
degenerated into total hatred on both sides. I think it is
beyond "peaceful efforts". The scale of the area is so small
it is impossible to have two adjacent states functioning in
a normal manner. Don't forget the million or so Palestinian
refugees sitting out there in the dessert waiting to return.

[normy]

There could be an argument made by liberals that is in our interest to not support Israel now. If we decided to destroy Israel and give the land to Arabs our problems would subside greatly. Our interests should be in doing right, even if it causes us trouble.

Aside from the US, Israel is the only nation willing to what is right without being prodded by someone else.

[general_re]

That's an argument about what exactly our interests are, not that we shouldn't pursue them, whatever they may be. Personally, I would argue that simply turning over Israel to radical Islam will only embolden them and encourage them to continue their proclaimed path of Islamizing the world. It will allow them to turn their attention away from the Middle East, and concentrate more on us as the Great Satan.

I never argued that it wasn't in our interests to support Israel now, or in the future, only that if is should come to be so, we shouldn't support them.

[normy]

"radical Islam" is not the only one who wants to destroy Israel. All of the middle east wants this done. I mean come on! You can't say if given the opportunity Egypt, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Libya, Iran, Jordan, and even Kuwait would not join to defeat Israel if we were not in their way.

That is one of the lefts arguments, we shouldn't take sides but be an honest broker. The fight against terrorism could be fought with the help of most Arab nations if we stopped supporting Israel because they see us as an enemy because we do support Israel.

To put it this way, if we stopped all support for Israel and let happen whatever happens in return for full support by Arabs in defeating all groups hostile to the US do you think they would agree?

[general_re]

"radical Islam" is not the only one who wants to destroy Israel. All of the middle east wants this done. I mean come on! You can't say if given the opportunity Egypt, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Libya, Iran, Jordan, and even Kuwait would not join to defeat Israel if we were not in their way.

I'm concerned about the ones who want to destroy us. Since there appears to be significant overlap between them and the ones who want to destroy Israel, I think it's in our interests to support Israel for the time being.

To put it this way, if we stopped all support for Israel and let happen whatever happens in return for full support by Arabs in defeating all groups hostile to the US do you think they would agree?

Even if they did promise such a thing, would anyone with a shred of common sense believe them?

Like I said, I think we should should support Israel as long as it's in our interests to do so. And only as long as it's in our interests to do so, because I'm not about to write the Israelis a blank check that says we'll always and forever support them no matter what. Sorry, I just can't support such a thing - I put American interests ahead of Israeli interests, and if the two should be in conflict someday, I'll support America over Israel. For what it's worth, I wouldn't expect the Israelis to write us a blank check either, and I would expect that they will pursue their own interests, even when those interests conflict with American interests. That's what nations are for, after all.

[normy]

Well I guess we will have to dissagree on that. I think the reason they want to destroy us is because we support Israel and the reason they want to destroy Israel is millenia old. We intjected Israel in their little world that injected our influence into the middle east to a much larger degree than it ever was.

[general_re]

I think the reason they want to destroy us is because we support Israel...

I'm sure that's part of it, but if Israel disappeared tomorrow, I think they'd still hate us and want to destroy us. I don't think we're too much in disagreement, in the end ;)

[Austin Willard Wright]

Hanson never met a war he didn't like.

[normy]

they probably would want to destroy us unless we kissed much butt.

[general_re]

Pretty much. And I'm not much interested in that, either ;)

[quidnunc]

Austin Willard Wright wrote: Hanson never met a war he didn't like.

Hanson is after all a classsicist and historian specializing in military issues.