BETTER
DEAD THAN RED
Oh,
but this was just "liberal" fuzzy-mindedness, at best, fellow-traveling
subversion at worst: did we want to hamstring the Good Guys
and bring about their defeat? The Cold Warriors knew better,
of course: we were in a life and death struggle with the most
dangerous, most powerful adversary the US had ever known,
and practically anything – yes, even nuclear war – was justified
in pursuit of victory. "Better dead than red" was a decision
Cold War conservatives were more than willing to make on behalf
of the rest of us.
FREE
AT LAST?
When
the Cold War ended, however, these arguments went out the
window. The gulags were opened up, and emptied: the heirs
of Lenin and Stalin were humbled, forced to confess (if not
pay) for their crimes, and largely chased out of power. It
was no longer possible to cite the requirements of a life-and-death
struggle to justify and explain away the unfortunate "excesses"
of US foreign policy: the neocons could no longer get away
with the doctrine of "moral equivalence," which they had formerly
used to dismiss opponents of our foreign policy of global
intervention as tools of Moscow and Beijing. Now, finally
freed from the constraints imposed by the 50-year "emergency"
of the Cold War, the West is free to live up to its self-appointed
role as moral exemplar for the rest of the world: the US and
its allies are to be judged, at last, on the same plane as
all the other nations of the world, held to the same standards,
and the neocons can drop the rhetoric about "moral equivalence"
– because we're free to be our wonderful moral selves. Right?
THE
NEW HERETICS
Not
quite. Writing in David Horowitz's Frontpage, Ronald
Radosh denounces "The
New Moral Equivalence" in an entirely new context, and
brings back an old concept in a big way. In the bygone days
of the Cold War, he writes, pundits and the media would constantly
commit this heresy in regard to the Soviet Union, and now
they are committing a new but very similar sin, to wit:
"The
Soviet Union no longer exists, but the pundits still are engaging
in the same illogic – this time, however, the focus of their
analysis is the growing conflict between the free and democratic
state of Israel and the Palestinian Authority, led by Yassir
Arafat."
PARADIGM
SHIFT
And
so the parameters of the new paradigm are set from the start:
"democratic" Westernized Israel versus the Asiatic despotism
of Yassir Arafat and the Palestinian Authority. Never mind
that Palestinian homes are routinely bulldozed to make way
for Jewish settlements, or that the Israeli state is founded
on a religio-ethnic exclusivism entirely antithetical to the
free society: it is enough that Israel has elections. So what
if most of the original inhabitants of the land have been
driven out and, not having the "right of return," are ineligible
to vote? Still, in Radosh's view, this "democratic" character
elevates Israel so far above the Palestinians and their makeshift
Authority that any attempt to shift even part of the blame
to the Israelis amounts to an impermissible act of "moral
equivalence." Radosh writes of his outrage in viewing a television
report that seemed to him to embody this pernicious doctrine:
"It
was simple, we were told. Both sides were upping the ante
and resorting to unrestrained violence. As news footage was
shown of the moving funerals of some of the nineteen killed
in last week's Jerusalem bombing of a pizza parlor, including
the funeral of a New Jersey pregnant woman; the images shifted
to Palestinian mourners carrying aloft amidst throngs of cheering
crowds the photo of the suicide bomber who was responsible,
and the bodies of other terrorist leaders who were assassinated
by targeted Israeli missiles."
THE
ART OF PROPAGANDA
Selectivity
is the hallmark of the literary artist: he must home in on
details, choose one storyline over another, and selectively
represent reality to present a fictional world by means of
stylization. The same stylization is the mark of the propagandist:
he is very selective in his focus, choosing to highlight only
those factoids that support his own preconceived view. It
works with fiction, but is disastrous when it comes to writing
commentary or journalism. Radosh focuses on a single day's
events, which happened to include these two particular images.
But a wider focus could have easily yielded far different
images: say, the broken body of a 13-year-old Palestinian
boy, shot dead for throwing stones, or a bulldozer leveling
yet another Palestinian home.
SNAPSHOTS
In
the Middle East, there are more than enough atrocities to
go around. In order to make one side look like angels, and
the other like devils, it is necessary to narrow one's focus
down to a few hours, at most, so as to get a snapshot that
will reflect ideology rather than reality. As a tribute to
Radosh's skills as a propagandist, I note that here he employs
the snapshot technique so subtly that only the most critical
reader will notice.
A
MORAL EQUATION
According
to Radosh, what was so terrible about this particular television
report – and media coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian feud
in general – was that
"Each
side's actions, viewers were told, equally led to escalation,
and each revealed that both Palestinian terrorists and the
Israeli government's response to terrorist attacks were on
the same moral plane."
The
problem with this equation, Radosh believes, is that it puts
an equal sign where an unequal sign ought to be. Forgetting
that pre-teen boys, old men, and even babies, for God's sake,
have been the victims of Israeli "anti-terrorist" actions
and settler vigilantes – forgetting the long prelude to the
Intifada, and dropping the entire context of the present crisis
– Radosh tries to pretend that the Israelis have always gone
after "known terrorists" to the exclusion of all else, while
the Palestinians randomly target innocent civilians.
SINNERS
IN THE HOLY LAND
The
trouble with the snapshot technique, however, is that it is
geared to the typically short attention span of the average
reader. But to anyone who has followed this ongoing tragedy
for more than a week's time, one fact is beyond dispute: the
Holy Land is such an unholy patchwork of conflicting sects
and peoples – peopled, moreover, almost exclusively by sinners
of the most egregious and unrepentant sort – that any settlement
of claims and counter-claims must inevitably come through
war. Hatred seems to well up from the very soil, in place
of water, permeating the place like a poisonous fog. None
are unaffected, certainly not the Israelis, and anyone who
claims otherwise is an out-and-out liar.
IDEOLOGY
RUN AMOK
Aside
from the obvious point that there are haters on both sides
of this moral equation, it seems to me there is something
unsavory in this business of putting some on one moral plane,
and some on another, lower plane, due entirely to circumstances
of birth. What happens to the ordinary Palestinian mother
trying to raise a large brood of children in a refugee camp,
while her sons look longingly in the distance at land they
believe has been stolen from them? Why, the same thing that
happens everywhere and in every era to victims of ideology
run amok: they get bulldozed, run over by messianism, fanaticism,
and every other rampaging "ism," their lives crushed beneath
the sheer weight of history. Ordinary people have no place
in the grand designs of ideologues, whether they be Marxists,
democratic capitalists, Zionists, or advocates of Technocracy.
Their place is that of extras in mob scenes, as backdrop for
the dramas enacted by gods and heroes, the rulers and self-appointed
vanguard parties charged with enforcing and implementing the
grand blueprint.
IN
MYSTERIOUS WAYS
In
Israel, this blueprint involved a massive project of displacement,
population transfers, and an organized influx, the end result
of which was a formally "democratic" regime that took on many
of the characteristics of a full-fledged theocracy. That God
granted the land of Israel to the Jews is a dogma upheld by
Jews and many Christians alike: so who is this ordinary Palestinian
mother to stand up to the authority and majesty of God Himself?
What does her suffering or her fate matter, in the face of
God's will? Why shouldn't she suffer – if God wills
it? He, after all, works in strange and mysterious ways….
DIALOGUE
WITH THE DEVIL?
Israel
is being asked to show restraint, including by the US State
Department, and it just isn't fair, why, it's that
dratted "moral equivalence" syndrome again, because, writes
Radosh, what it boils down to is this:
"If
your home were attacked by criminals and, rather than call
the police, you were asked to enter into a dialogue with them,
would you?"
THE
PRISM OF IDEOLOGY
The
prism of ideology not only colors everything, but also has
built into it certain blindspots. Because it is a kind of
madness, an unbalanced obsession with order that distorts
all perceptions, the ideological mindset cannot imagine any
view other than the "correct" one. Let's widen everyone's
horizons, then, with a variation of Radosh's little thought
experiment, albeit one far more relevant to the true history
of Palestine.
A
THOUGHT EXPERIMENT
What
if someone came into your house, told you that God had given
them the deed to your home, and proceeded to kick you and
your entire family out on the street? Furthermore, what if
it happened not only to you, but to everyone on your block
– what would you do? Would you sit there and take it? Would
you say, "Oh yes, you're so right: God did indeed grant
you the deed to my home, and so I'll just be on my way, nice
and peaceful like – and have a nice day"?
TUNE
IN, TURN ON, TUNE OUT
Capitalism
is exploitation, race is all, scientists must rule, the proletariat
must rule, God gave Israel to the Jews, Allah is the only
god and Mohammed is his prophet: among these competing and
conflicting ideologies, none can allow the reality or humanity
of its rivals, or even of its own adherents. The benefits
these ideologies were supposed to confer on ordinary people
– Israelis, Palestinians or whatever – never materialized,
but such failures have long since ceased to matter. For the
ideology – and its physical manifestation, the state – is,
by this time, an end in itself, over and above that of any
individual, friend or foe. The problem, in the Middle East,
is that soured utopianism has turned murderous, and, what's
worse, its acolytes are so deluded, so drugged up by their
ideological vision, that they barely even notice the carnage.
They have long ago tuned out anything that might reflect badly
on Israel.
IT'S
DÉJÀ VU ALL OVER AGAIN
It's
funny that Radosh should bring up the old Soviet Union, and
the bygone days of the Cold War, in the context of how the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict is playing in the US. For the
response of American friends of Israel to any criticism of
Israel's rulers, even a plea to show a little restraint, is
akin to the ferocious response of the old friends of the Soviet
Union to any critical remarks directed at the "worker's fatherland."
As Radosh is all too well aware, the Left looked on critics
of the Soviet bloc and Cuba as traitors to the cause, and
it seems to me that anyone who dares to criticize Israel is,
today, treated much the same way – and by many of the same
people.
NEW
PREJUDICES FOR OLD
In
his book, Commies, a compelling autobiographical account
of his days on the Left, Radosh goes into great detail describing
the mental and political gyrations of leftists who sought
to rationalize the crimes of their overseas heroes in Moscow,
Havana, and Managua. Like many who write for Frontpage,
and who identify as neoconservatives, Radosh is an ex-leftist
who had "second thoughts" about the movement to which he had
dedicated his life. In Commies, he charts his own growing
disillusionment with the Left due to its peculiar blindspots,
its unwillingness to acknowledge the many crimes committed
in its name. The great irony is that, in having "second thoughts,"
it appears that Radosh has merely exchanged one set of blindspots
for another. The ideological mindset remains intact, in spite
of its ostensible transformation, except that, in this case,
the object of adulation and apologias has shifted from the
Soviet Union to Israel.
A
SOCIALIST LOBOTOMY
I
was struck, in reading Commies,
of the story Radosh tells of his trip to Cuba, when he and
his delegation of earnest Fidelistas visited a state mental
institution. Gee, doc, asked one of the delegates, how come
the patients are so, uh, calm? How do you manage to keep them
so well-behaved? It was a softball question, more than
a little obsequious, but Fidel's American fan club was shocked
to hear the doctor's proud answer: "Oh, we lobotomize them,"
he proudly informed them, "according to the latest scientific
techniques." Radosh and several others were horrified, but
one stalwart Commie defended the Cubans by loudly insisting
"we have to understand that there's a difference between a
capitalist lobotomy and a socialist lobotomy!"
ANOTHER
KIND OF LOBOTOMY
This
is what the partisans of every ideology are invariably required
to do: defend the indefensible. They inevitably take refuge
in contradictions: when they do it, it's an atrocity,
but when we do it, it's not only okay but an act of
heroism. This is what Radosh – a scholar of high intelligence
and great sensitivity, as evidenced by his books – is, in
the end, reduced to, as he tries to prove the moral superiority
of one brand of terrorism over another. Doing this requires
a kind of do-it-yourself lobotomy, the destruction of all
critical thought and adherence to a strict party line – and,
in Radosh's case, that is a sad sight, indeed.
A
DANGEROUS DOCTRINE
The
idea that the Palestinians and the Israelis are not "morally
equivalent" is a dangerous doctrine because it is so easily
misunderstood. As Radosh intended to mean it, the idea refers
to the concept that the Israelis are merely fighting a defensive
war, and that therefore their war aims and methods are
entirely justified. But this lack of moral equivalence can
also be taken to mean that Palestinians, for some reason,
just do not exist on the same moral plane as Israelis, and
that is why their claims are invalid. One could believe this
for a number of theological or political reasons, all of which
find no real audience outside of Israel, save with a certain
variety of fundamentalist Christian. But inside Israel such
a line has real resonance, and finds a receptive audience
among Zionist fanatics, particularly among the semi-militarized
government-subsidized settler movement.
KAHANE
VINDICATED
This
alleged lack of "moral equivalence" could also be taken to
mean that the Palestinians are lesser folk, they don't matter,
God gave the land to us, and therefore they should be expelled,
all of them. This was the program of the late Meir Kahane
and his fringe Kach movement, a view officially excoriated
by Israel's supporters as "extremist" – and yet, now, the
logic of Zionism impels its supporters to embrace Kahanism
in practice. Kahane truly believed that there can be no moral
equivalence between Arab and Jew because the latter are God's
Chosen People and the former little more than animals. While
I am sure that Radosh does not hold this view, I am also sure
that his arguments against "moral equivalence" could well
be employed in ways he would never endorse.
ISRAEL
– THE 51ST STATE?
I
do not valorize the Palestinians, or their leadership: my
view is that the US must stay well out of the conflict, and
must not be any kind of "broker," honest or otherwise. Our
intervention – billions of dollars per year in "aid" to Israel,
and unconditional military support – has created the problem
in the Middle East, and the region doesn't need more of it.
American supporters of Israel who claim that the defense of
Tel Aviv is as important to the US as the military security
of, say, Long Island, have yet to make a convincing case to
the American people. Yet we are funding the Israeli war machine
so lavishly that it may as well be the fifty-first state.
If this is "moral equivalence," then I hate to think what
a seriously unbalanced bias in favor of Israel would look
like.
WOULD
YOU LIKE SOME CHEESE WITH THAT WHINE?
Radosh
and Israel's amen corner in the US have conniptions at the
slightest implication that Israel may be playing just a little
rough when it cuts down stone-throwing children with real
bullets. If I were them, however, I would quit whining, and
keep a low profile: the American people have a real penchant
for underdogs, and they don't like bullies. If and when they
believe Israel has gone too far, the backlash will begin,
and all the clever arguments about "moral equivalence" and
even accusations of "anti-Semitism" will no longer suffice
to discredit Israel's critics. At that point, after the plug
is pulled on the foreign aid gravy train, I hope the Israeli
government is ready to go it alone: because it will have no
choice.
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