The Redhunter

Maia Lazar has organized a "Jewish Blogburst". Stop over at the blogburst site where she has a list of those who participated and an excerpt from their post.

I will use this opportunity to discuss once more a topic that I believe to be vitally important; moral clarity and the Middle East.

In all of the areas of the world, of all the issues that we discuss, none is more clouded by moral confusion as that of Israel and the Middle East. It is a subject that to me seems so obvious, yet to so many others at home and abroad it is so clouded. It almost pains me to say it, but their moral confusion on this issue is evidence of problems with the entire concept of democracy, freedom, and the concept of "right versus wrong". Big stuff, but there it is.

The Confused

Here is what we hear from the confused on an almost daily basis:

• Israel stole land that belongs to the Palestinians
• Israel is one of the most repressive states on the planet
• Zionists are racists
• Israeli troops deliberately kill civilians
• "The Jews" control the banks, Hollywood, U.S. foreign policy, (fill in the blank with your favorite)

On and on it goes. Of all of the repressive regimes on our planet, tiny Israel receives more venom and hatred directed towards it than all of the others put together. It is regularly attacked in the UN General Assembly. It is despised in Europe.

The fact is, of course, that those who attack Israel so venemously know perfectly well what they are doing. They are not really confused at all.

A Perfect Example

The best example of moral confusion is in regard to Israeli military actions versus terrorist actions by Palestinian and other Muslim extremists.

Israel directs it's attacks at military targets, by which we mean people who are either armed themselves or directly part of a military-type structure aimed at doing harm. Sometimes civilians are killed during the fighting. However, they civilians are not only the ones not targeted, but the evidence is overwhelming that Israel, like the United States, goes out of its way to avoid civilian casualties.

Palestinian and other Muslim extemists, however, directly target Israeli civilians.

Why this difference is hard for some people to understand is utterly beyond me. My only conclusion is that they are so enraptured by leftist ideologies that they are beyond reason.


The Settlements

We're forever hearing that the settlements are standing in the way of peace.

To which I ask; if the settlements are the problem today, what was the problem before 1967?

The usual response; silence. Of course. They have no answer.

I wrote about this at some length in a previous post. My conclusion:

The main issues preventing peace are the following

1. Lack of Moral Clarity. I've written on this before here. Here are two of the essential elements of moral clarity lacking in some people:
   
1. Israel is an imperfect democracy, but it is a democracy. No Arab state is a democracy. This does not mean that Israel may do anything it wishes, but it does mean that we should give them the benefit of the doubt.
2. Israeli forces practice discrimination in warfare. That is, they only attack military targets. Civilians are sometimes killed as a byproduct, but the civilians are not the target themselves. Arab/Muslim terrorists deliberately target civilians. Why this is hard for some people to understand is beyond me.
2. Lack of Democracy among the Arab States. Natan Scharansky wrote about this in his excellent book "The Case for Democracy". Simply put, democracies do not fight each other. We in the west are partly responsible for the current state of affairs, since in the past we did not pressure Arab governments to reform.
   
3. Palestinian terrorism - until the Arab states and/or the PA put and end to terrorism by organizations such as Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and the others there will be no peace.
4. The expansion of the settlements should stop. Ok, I know I said earlier that "the settlements per se" are not the problem. And that is true. But it is also true that in my opinion Israel does not need new settlements, and by expanding them they give Palestinian extremists a propaganda message that is useful in recruiting terrorists.

1. 
   

Onwards to Democracy

There will not be a permanent peace in the Middle East until the Arab states start to embrace pluralistic forms of government. This includes the Palestinian Authority.

Natan Sharansky wrote about this in his book "The Case for Democracy". Sharansky said that agreements such as the one at Oslo were a mistake because they did not require that the Palestinians reform themselves, and I believe that history has shown him to be correct.

While some doubt that democracy is possible among Muslims, Sharansky (and I) disagree. Many once thought that democracy was not possible for people in the former Soviet Republics and Eastern Europe. History has proven them wrong.

Stand up for Israel

So in the meantime we must stand up for Israel, for to do so is to stand for democracy. We do this not because of some misguided notion of "Israel right or wrong", for Israel is not always in the right. But it is more right more often that it's enemies, far more, in fact. And we also stand up for Israel because, strange as it may sound, to do so is to stand up for democratic change in the Arab world, for they deserve to live as we do also. |