Posted on 07/31/2007 9:15:42 PM PDT by goldstategop
On Saturday in Jerusalem, I participated in a moving religious service to honor one of Israels most celebrated heroes from last summers war against the Hezbollah terrorists.
Lieutenant Eli Kahn, 23, led a unit of elite Paratrooper Commandos advancing against heavily defended Hezbollah positions in the Southern Lebanon town of Maroun al-Ras in the early days of the fighting. The Israelis, hoping to knock out Katyusha rockets that had already taken a bloody toll on civilian targets, drew unexpectedly intense fire from the enemy and sustained heavy casualties.
While tending to one of his wounded paratroopers, Lt. Kahn saw a terrorist run toward them and throw a grenade that landed at their feet. Rather than jumping out of the way and abandoning his comrade to certain death, Lt. Kahn immediately picked up the grenade and threw it directly back at the Hezbollah fighter --- killing the terrorist and turning the tide of battle. For his leadership and quick thinking, he received the Medal of Valor Israels equivalent of Americas Medal of Honor. The young heros father, Howie Kahn, remembered that his boy played Little League before the family immigrated to Israel from the United States and suggested that his skills as a slick-fielding shortstop paid off with that one fateful and well-aimed toss on the field of battle.
Hearing the story of Eli Kahn, most Americans would feel gratified and inspired but the service I attended at the lieutenants Orthodox synagogue nonetheless serves to highlight the deeper, unspoken reasons that Israel provokes such visceral hostility from the international left.
The Middle Easts only democracy has recently enjoyed spectacular economic progress and unprecedented success in blocking and deterring terror attacks from its many Islamo-Nazi adversaries. Why, then, the increasingly shrill demands from politically correct activists throughout Western Europe and from college campuses in the United States for boycotts, UN condemnation, sanctions and diplomatic isolation aimed at punishing the Jewish state?
Why does the death of a few dozen Palestinians (mostly gunmen or racketeers from Hamas and Islamic Jihad) provoke more international indignation than the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of innocents in Darfur, or the butchery of additional thousands by Muslim terrorists in Pakistan, Indonesia, India, Algeria, Yemen, the Philippines and even Thailand?
The common explanations for singling out Israel for international denunciation make no sense when placed in any reasonably well-informed historical context.
For instance, leftist critics like to suggest that Israel deserves the worlds hostility because of its long-term occupation of lands captured in defensive wars. But the Jewish state has already withdrawn from the overwhelming majority of the disputed territory it ever controlled, hoping to demonstrate its eagerness to trade land for peaceabandoning the vast area of the Sinai Peninsula in 1978, its South Lebanon Security Zone in 2000, and all the Gaza Strip in 2005. Moreover, in the remaining zone of occupation in the West Bank, the results of Israeli rule can hardly count as brutal: according to UN figures, by all measures of economic prosperity, public health, and standards of living before the Second Intifada broke out in the Fall of 2000, West Bankers did better than their fellow Arabs in neighboring countries like Syria, Egypt and Jordan.
The historical record makes clear that Arab fury against Jews in the Middle East bears no connection to any occupation policy or to the plight of refugees, since this murderous rage claimed countless victims long before Israel occupied a single square inch or territory and before a single Palestinian had fled his home.
A brief history of the early conflict (published by the indispensable Israel Pocket Library) offers a necessary reminder of Palestinian terrorism as long ago as 1929. In that year, the bitterly anti-Semitic Grand Mufti of Jerusalem (who later traveled to Berlin and spent most of the war years at Hitlers side) claimed that the largely unarmed and loosely organized Jewish community harbored secret designs on Muslim holy places, and launched bloody attacks on the Jews of Jerusalem. As the grim story unfolded, The violence spread to other parts of the country. On Sabbath, August 24, the Arabs of Hebron fell upon the small, defenseless Jewish community in the town and slaughtered some 70 men and women. Old people and infants were butchered; the survivors, numbering several hundred, being evacuated to Jerusalem.
Attacks on Tel Aviv and the Jewish quarter in Haifa were repulsed, but on the fifth day of the riots an Arab mob killed 18 Jews and wounded many more before the Jews could take refuge in the police headquarters while the mob ransacked and burned the historic Jewish quarter. In Beer Toviyah all the settlers held out in a cowshed while the mob plundered and destroyed the village. Huldah, too, was destroyed after the Jewish defenders held out for many hours against thousands of Arabs and were evacuated by a British army patrol.
A mere eight years later, in 1937, unprovoked Palestinian violence broke out once again with even bloodier results: 415 Jews were killed by the terrorists in the period 1937-39, over half of them between July and October 1938.
The most striking revelation in these all-but-forgotten chapters of Middle East history involves the brutal, determined, vicious nature of Palestinian terrorism before Israel occupied any territory whatever, or caused the departure of any refugees (the Palestinian population went up sharply never declining for even a single year as Jewish return to the ancient homeland intensified). As a matter of fact, the devastating riots of 1929 and 1937-39 (not to mention other deadly attacks in 1921, 1926 and 1936) occurred long before the state of Israel even existedmaking clear that Palestinian violence against their Jewish neighbors arose from fanatical Jew-hatred, not any objection to the specific policies of a non-existent state.
Clearly, the same deep-seated anti-Semitic instincts help to explain some of the hostility to the Jewish state today, especially among purportedly enlightened Europeans.
Theres also the undeniable factor of worldwide anti-Americanism Israel earns contempt as one of the closest, most reliable allies of the Superpower labeled by many leftists (including Michael Moore in his previous America-bashing film, The Big One) as the real Evil Empire. But other nations (like Britain, Canada and Australia, most obviously) align themselves equally closely with the United States and even more enthusiastically embrace Americas reviled culture, without provoking the animus that faces Israel in many corners of the globe.
One of the secrets of the world-wide suspicion and resentment toward the Jewish state involves the unmistakably prominent, even dominant, Israeli role for two institutions loathed by leftists everywhere: religion and the military.
While two-thirds of Israelis describe themselves as secular, the increasing popularity and influence of Orthodox religiosity remains an undeniable factor in Israeli society. Meanwhile, even the states famously agnostic and atheist founders made regular reference to Bible in urging their compatriots to return to Zion. The fact that Israel counts as the Holy Land to the worlds more than two billion Christians also provides a religious flavor and perspective to the nations existence that makes secular purists distinctly uncomfortable.
Meanwhile, the military continues to play a huge and necessary part in the life of the perpetually embattled nation. Some 75% of young people still do three full years of military service after their high school graduation, and continue with yearly reserve duty for 25 years after that. Even the leader of Israels leading party on the left (former Prime Minister Ehud Barak) is a one-time war hero and the most decorated soldier in the countrys history.
In other words, for trendy liberals who feel profound, instinctive distaste for the influence of armies and organized faith in human life, its only natural to feel somewhat uncomfortable with Israel.
The same attitudes, by the way, help to explain some of the fashionable anti-Americanism thats taken hold among European and other international elites. Religion remains a vastly more potent force in the US than in any other Western nation, and our military remains far larger, more potent and more revered than the armies of other major nations. Those who love to denounce the impact of militarism and organized faith will inevitably find much to dislike about America and about our close ally in the Middle East.
This US and Israeli devotion to both armed forces and religious institutions brings me back to the synagogue celebration I witnessed for Lt. Eli Kahn. Called to the Torah before a clapping, singing, admiring congregation, the young war hero chanted the weekly Haftorah (a passage from Isaiah) and received a good-natured pelting of candy tossed at him from all directions by his friends and neighbors. This treatment had little to do with his battlefield exploits of exactly one year earlier, but actually reflected his status as the communitys next bridegroom: in Jewish tradition, all young men receive similar honor on the Sabbath before their weddings. (Lt. Kahn stands under the wedding canopy with his bride tomorrow night, Thursday).
In Israeli eyes, theres no contradiction between love of God and admiration of the military between celebrating the beginning of a loving new family along with the courage and dedication of a battle-hardened soldier. Both religious and military institutions exist to promote life, not death; to facilitate peaceful communities and growing families, not bloodshed and martyrdom.
Americans and Israelis understand the connection between our soldiers and our survival, between faith in a compassionate God and the maintenance of military strength that allows decency and kindness to flourish. And of course, much of the rest of the world that believes that theyve already moved on beyond such outmoded relics as organized religion and mighty armies, hates us for our decidedly different perspective.
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
bump!
bump!
BUMP
“Leftists have never been comfortable with God Talk or men and women in uniform bearing arms.”
The problem with that explanation is its failure to account for the leftists cozying up to Islamists, who are full of both God talk and militant zeal to slaughter the infidel in holy jihad.
Ping
A good point. The real problems are: (1) the Bible, which sets moral standards leftists don't want to feel guilty about violating; and (2) military force to defend America from the internationalists who would see it destroyed.
Thus, military force directed to advancing communism is not a problem for the left. Religion directed to destroying America is not a problem for the left.
What remains of America is still the biggest barrier to the left's ultimate goals, a worldwide, anti-Christian, totalitarian state, run by the left. And that's why they hate us and ally with jihadis.
Makes perfect sense....bump.
terrific article...thanks for posting it...
thanks for the PING, SoCal...
The Islamic horde wins Leftist admiration under the "Noble Savage" rule. Perversely, for the Left, Muslims seem eligible for the same "intellectual" consideration as remote New Guinea cannibals.
I'll wager that few Leftists would volunteer to to proclaim their belief systems in Saudi Arabia.
“In Israeli eyes, theres no contradiction between love of God and admiration of the military between celebrating the beginning of a loving new family along with the courage and dedication of a battle-hardened soldier. Both religious and military institutions exist to promote life, not death; to facilitate peaceful communities and growing families, not bloodshed and martyrdom.”
A strong military is simply a requirement of a great nation. Our nation’s success in war has been absolutely central to our overall success. Further, our appearance of strength is the ONLY deterrent to those who’d harm Americans around the world.
Those who favor weakening our military are as anti-American as any of the host of others who constantly seek our country’s harm.
the exception that proves the rule...
perhaps.
t
buying up land and evicting tenant farmers seems all legal under the auspices of a fair trade and free market... complaints that someone is actually following the rules of law to forward an agenda should fall on deaf ears...
taking measures to right assumed wrongs by butchering and killing is not bulls***.
teeman
Very interesting article - ping!
“the exception that proves the rule...”
Or a contradiction that makes the rule self-refuting, which is the more straightforward reading. There is no generic aversion to military values on the left - - just military values in defense of institutions and ideas they wish to destroy and, like the secular European rulers building their nation-states from 16th to 18th centuries, today’s leftists are quite willing to ally themselves with “enemies of their enemies”, e.g., the Islamic Ottoman empire in those earlier centuries, and the Islamist promoters of a New Caliphate now.
“European Jews who were buying up land and evicting tenant farmers”
Yes, buying it, not stealing it as today’s Palestinian rewriters of history would have it. And, putting it to much more productive use than the former owners, which is what really grates on the failed polities of the neighboring dysfunctional states.
The Jews and Israel are not hated for their failures or sins but for their successes and virtues. Envy is a powerful emotion not often stated as a motive. The goal of envy is usually to destroy the envied object. Melanie Klein wrote a small book about this.
Jealousy is quite different.
In Medieval times Christians tried to live by avoiding the seven deadly sins--pride, envy, gluttony, lust,anger, greed and sloth. In the "Parson's Tale" Chaucer correctly pointed out envy is the only sin that did not have a normal referent. We need to have self-confidence, food, sex, assertiveness, money for basic living and periods of rest. We have not use for envy and Chaucer thought it the worst of the deadly sins.
regards
Apparently you have a problem thinking straight and telling the truth.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.