I prefer the company of those who are proud of their country, and proud of their religion—the African Americans have it right, the American Liberal Jews are wrong; there is neither beauty, utility nor safety in identification with one’s oppressors.
Liberalism is a religion. Its tenets cannot be proved, its capacity for waste and destruction demonstrated. But it affords a feeling of spiritual rectitude at little or no cost. Central to this religion is the assertion that evil does not exist, all conflict being attributed to a lack of understanding between the opposed.
Well and good, but this does not accord with the experience of anyone.
People have differing needs. The notion that an honest exchange of views will solve all problems is an article of faith; which, like many another, is suspended in our daily lives.
It is fine for the uninvolved to say of everything, “The truth must lie somewhere in between,” but who on the Left says so, for example, of Abortion? The Israelis would like to live in peace within their borders; the Arabs would like to kill them all. I do not see where there is a middle ground.
The divorcing husband would like to retain some money and visiting rights to his children, the betrayed wife would like him dead; anyone ever involved in a fight or a lawsuit knows that some conflicts cannot be settled peaceably. The Liberal attitude to our war with Radical Islam is a preference for that action which would end the conflict immediately, and without rancor. That action, unfortunately, is surrender.
American Liberals do not wish to surrender their particular country, but many wish Israel to surrender hers; they wish to have someone else (the Israelis) pick up the cost of their own psychological upset:40 if the Victim is Always Right, and if the Arabs, being darker and poorer, must be the Victim, then Israel must be wrong; further, this being so, the Arab démarches of “land for peace” must be a legitimate attempt to solve the problem, for the victim is always right. It matters not that every Israeli swap of land for peace has resulted in increased Arab attacks. To the Liberal there must be a peaceable solution, and the good-willed (though not the Israelis) see that that solution must be further negotiation, which is to say further concessions from Israel.
The essence of socialism is for Party A to get Party B to give something to Party C.
The Liberal West would like the citizens of Israel to take the only course which would bring about the end of the disturbing “cycle of violence” which they hear of in the Liberal press. That course is abandoning their homes and country, leaving, with their lives, if possible, but leaving in any case.
Is this desire anti-Semitism?
You bet your life it is.
16
THE VICTIM
Just as the Santa Claus myth is a reiteration in the vulgate of the Christ story, so the Love of the Victim is an attempt at a nondeist recreation of religious feeling. It may be found in its everyday, popular face, in the Woman-in-Jeopardy film.
Here the audience experiences vicarious worry and fear for the lot of the defenseless woman (or child), pursued by implacable Evil.
But with these slice-and-dice gothic and horror films, as with the Plight of the Palestinians, the interchange, in order to please, must be inconclusive. The weak, though they may momentarily triumph at the conclusion of any one film, must be available in their intrinsic state of powerlessness for the next go-round.
The woman’s victory over the ax murderer is not a portent of her change from victim to nonvictim, but merely a chance, momentary suspension of that state.
For, in our love of Women-in-Jeopardy films, and in the Left’s love of the Palestinians, there is something of the sadomasochistic. (If one truly deplored the fact of an alleged injustice, one might actually do something about it, but the West sees the Middle East conflict as entertainment; and part of our polymorphous enjoyment of the ending is that though the woman prevails, we know that she is exploitable again next film.)41
We confuse news with reality, and so do the news organizations. They are selling entertainment, and, like any good entertainer, will stress the facts likely to please the audience, and structure the rather confusing and nonconclusive nature of day-to-day existence as a drama.
Six houses were destroyed in the Israeli Army’s incursion into the Arab town of Jenin. It was described by the Western news as “The Rape of Jenin,” and a photo showing a supposedly wounded Palestinian child cradled in his mother’s arms went around the world.
Of less currency was the photo taken from an only slightly wider angle showing the mother and child completely surrounded by photographers, arrayed around the now obviously staged shot.42 But that second shot, though a better depiction of the actual state of events, had less entertainment value as part of an enjoyable spectacle of misery; to call attention to this would be as irritating to the consumers of “outrage” as would a film buff in the next seat at a horror movie explaining, shot by shot, how the effects were produced and that the woman screaming on the screen was actually an actress in no danger at all.
To do so would have lessened the viewer’s enjoyment of the Rape of Jenin.
For one of two things must be true, in the West’s abandonment of Israeclass="underline" either it is known, at some level, that the Palestinian claims are insoluble, exaggerated, unjust, or skewed; or that the audience, in truth, does not actually care. For if they cared, they would do something, and as they do nothing, one must assume that action would put an end to their enjoyable position as viewer.
Michelle Obama famously declared that America is a “mean, mean country,” of which she was never proud until it nominated her husband for President. But this “mean, mean country” sent soldiers from the North to eradicate slavery (an action, I believe, unique in the history of the world), in a war fought at shocking cost, which would confer upon those who willingly risked their lives no benefit other than their participation in a cause they knew to be right. More than 360,000 Union soldiers died freeing the slaves. This is an actual abiding and permanent legacy of slavery. They died to extinguish evil.
Many in the West enjoy not the suffering, but the contemplation of the suffering of the Palestinians.
For a film one buys a ticket. What is the ticket one buys to enjoy this other spectacle? Its price is the indictment of the State of Israel, in contravention of history, of facts, reason, international law, and affinities, national, cultural, and traditional.
Just as at the movies we would resent the fellow in the next seat explaining the effects, so actual information about the Middle East conflict is considered an intrusion and a distraction from the spectacle. One has made one’s choice (bought one’s tickets) and would like to be left in peace to enjoy the show.
In films the villain is identifiable because he wears the black hat; in the Middle East spectacle he wears a yarmulke.
In 1895 Theodor Herzl was sent by his paper Neue Freie Presse to cover the trial of Dreyfus. Herzl’s cultural awakening came in seeing Dreyfus stripped of his badges of rank while the crowd screamed not “death to the traitor,” but “death to the Jews.”
It was a better story that way in 1895, and it is a better story that way today. But it is just a story.
The question, “Excuse me, what has Israel ever wanted except peace within its borders?” is greeted, largely, in the West, by the response: “Shut up, I’m watching the news.”