Friday, October 04, 2013
Elder of Ziyon
On October 1, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addressed the UN General Assembly. His topic was, unsurprisingly, the Iranian nuclear program and the need for the world to act in order to stop it. “I want there to be no confusion on this point,” he told the assembled delegates. “Israel will not allow Iran to get nuclear weapons. If Israel is forced to stand alone, Israel will stand alone.”Read the whole thing. I edited out some caveats and counterexamples to keep this as brief as I could but it is really good.
Immediately, and again unsurprisingly, he was dismissed as a global spoiler...
In 2002, with Israel deep in the horrors of the second intifada and Ariel Sharon’s Operation Defensive Shield at last fighting back against Palestinian terrorism, international condemnation of the Jewish state reached a fever pitch. Then-UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan summed up the general attitude by asking, “Can Israel be right and the whole world wrong?”
This was a fairly ugly question in and of itself, given that there is something unseemly about the leader of an international organization pitting the entire world against a single nation. It is also worth pointing out that even a first-year philosophy student knows that truth is not determined by crowd size.
Yet few can deny that there was something in what Annan said. Israelis, Diaspora Jews, and people from all communities who harbor pro-Israel sentiments are constantly challenged by the fact that, quite often, it seems that practically everyone in the world believes Israel is wrong. One often has the sense that politicians, NGOs, intellectuals, artists, professors, students, activists, diplomats, and experts of all political stripes agree on only one thing: Israel’s policies, society, culture, politics, and even very existence are deplorable, offensive, or evil.
As an Israeli, and thus something of an object—albeit a decidedly minor one—of all this opprobrium, I can testify to the fact that it is not an easy thing to deal with. After all, if everyone in the world tells you that you are a horrible person, sooner or later you will probably start to believe it. However strong our convictions may be, we have all, at one time or another, found ourselves asking Annan’s question: Is it really possible, we wonder, for us to be right when everyone is telling us we are wrong or worse?
For myself, I was gratified to discover that this question had already been asked and answered over a century ago, when the State of Israel was still a dream in the minds of a small group of activists and thinkers. And in one of the acerbic little ironies history periodically throws our way, it had been asked and answered in Mr. Annan’s own words.
...In the 1892 essay entitled “Some Consolation,” Ahad Ha’am asked Annan’s question in practically identical terms. “Since everybody hates the Jews,” he wrote, “can we think that everybody is wrong and Jews are right?” And like today, Ahad Ha’am noted that the question could not be easily dismissed. “There are many among us Jews,” he wrote, “on whom a similar question half-unconsciously forces itself.”
Ahad Ha’am’s answer was a simple one, but he used a very singular proof to make his case—the blood libel. It was indisputable fact, he noted, that for centuries, the overwhelming majority of the non-Jewish world believed that the Jews held hideous ceremonies in which non-Jewish children were murdered and their blood used in unspeakable demonic rites. And it was equally indisputable that, throughout all those many centuries, every Jew in the world knew this was a deranged fantasy.
“Yes,” Ahad Ha’am concluded, “it is possible” for the Jews to be right and the entire world wrong. “The blood accusation proves it possible. Here, you see, the Jews are right and perfectly innocent.”
As the title of his essay suggests, Ahad Ha’am took “some consolation” from this fact, and with good reason. But there is a darker side to this consolation, because it also reminds us that, although we may know that we can be right while the world is wrong, it does nothing to prevent the world from continuing to believe otherwise.
Everyone reacts to this in different ways. In the Diaspora, it often means a perpetual struggle against those who believe that because “the whole world” believes the worst of Israel, it must be true. A small minority simply gives in and, effectively, joins the other side, concluding that “the world,” if only by virtue of superior numbers, must be correct. Others defy it outright, insisting instead that Israel is always right while the world is always wrong. Still others simply trudge quietly on, keeping their heads down and hoping for the best, occasionally making small and private expressions of their Zionism.
For those who support Israel publicly, it is rarely much easier. Activists and members of pro-Israel groups do their best to use reason, logic, and public relations to change people’s minds, often thanklessly. ...
But perhaps the harshest effect is on Israel itself. From the average man in the street to the prime minister’s office, Israelis are, for the most part, convinced that the world has never and will never accept Ahad Ha’am’s argument. This has resulted in one of modern Hebrew’s most popular but depressing expressions: kol ha’olam negdeinu. “The whole world is against us.”
...The role of the prophet is one of the most revered in traditional Judaism, and it is, of course, the role of the prophet to stand against social consensus, denouncing injustice, idolatry, and evil however powerful its practitioners may be. Many cultures have similar archetypes, but in Judaism it is notably, perhaps uniquely emphasized. Indeed, without becoming unduly mystical, it is difficult to ignore the fact that, for the entirety of its history, the Jewish people have tended to keep their own counsel, to be a people apart, to not apologize for being different, and to “go it alone” despite the opposition and even hatred of the rest of the world. Perhaps the hope that a modern Jewish state would not have to do the same is asking too much.
But it must be admitted that there is a heavy psychological cost to never being able to fully trust other people. And having to go it alone, however necessary, is a lonely fate.
I think that this dovetails with the previous link, about how Israel naturally has better intelligence on Arab matters than the US intel agencies due partially to the ability to have analysts who truly understand Arab language and, by extension, culture.
Now, Israel's critics could argue that paranoia can skew one's perspective as well. It can and does. However, as the joke goes, it is not paranoia if the world really is out to get you.
Obviously some in the international community are more sympathetic (and, more rarely, empathetic) to Israel's plight than others. The major point that Israel's well-meaning critics need to understand is that for them, being wrong is not an existential issue. For Israelis, it often is.
And that is true both when the decision is to act or not to act, whether to react or not, to decide whether a verbal threat is real or rhetoric. Israelis are keenly aware of the downside of going it alone; they have felt the consequences of their unilateral decisions for over six decades.
Critics consider Israel a cowboy, itching to pull the trigger, but they choose to forget that the calculus against action - and the international isolation that results - is factored in as part of the decision as well. Israel sometimes has to go it alone because only Israel has to suffer the consequences of choosing not to.
Conversely, critics conveniently forget that Israel sometimes chooses not to act, and it has paid the price for inaction as well. That is in Israel's DNA, but it doesn't make it into Western history books.
The antisemitic critics of Israel will never be mollified by whatever Israel does. The more friendly nations, along with organizations like J-Street, prefer to infantilize Israel as if Israelis aren't mature enough to understand the consequences of their actions, and therefore need to be pressured to do the right thing. These "friendly" critics choose not to realize that Israelis have thoroughly considered the next twelve chess moves while they are struggling to look past only one.
Israel has to think that far ahead in order to survive to the next match. And she can't choose not to play.
(h/t Yerushalimey)
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