More bloodshed in Israel. Once again I sit in anguish as I read the reports such as the one in the JTA about a suicide bombing in the old Tachana HaMerkazi of Tel Aviv. This time it was Islamic Jihad. But does it really matter? Islamic Jihad... Hamas... or any other Islamist group... they are all the same. And what did the governing body of the Palestinian parliament say? They did not condemn it. They said it was an act of self defense! Imagine that someone blows himself up for the sole purpose of killing innocent civilians and the elected officials of an entire people call it self defense.
How in heaven’s name can any sane person call it self defense even if their cause were just? (...which it isn’t!) And what’s worse is that there are sane American's who actually buy into this argument. The liberal mindset (with very few exceptions) buys into the argument that Israel is an oppressive occupier of the poor Palestinian underdog and that that is the root cause of the problem. How utterly stupid such thinking is.
But that is ultimately the way that kind of thinking works. Liberals do not look at all factors which give rise to conflict. They look at the situation only in the isolated myopia of the moment. They see a strong Israeli superpower and a Palestinian underdog and that automatically makes Palestinians more sympathetic in their eyes. They then come up with all kinds of justification or “understanding” for the most immoral of acts... the murder of innocent people. But it doesn’t stop with just an expression of sympathy. In some liberal circles it often becomes fodder for the worst kind of condemnation of the Israel government and even Jews.
Why? Not because of any real or justifiable reasons, but because of the overly simplistic analysis of the liberal thought process. The thinking goes: the underdog is always the victim and deserving of sympathy and support. The Palestinian is the underdog and little if any real thought goes into how just their cause really is. All that matters to a liberal is that he is the “oppressed” one. And the oppressors are the Israelis! And what makes this even more aggravating is that the much of such liberal thinking is on the part of Jews. Witness the likes of Rabbi Michael Lerner, or Noam Chomsky or playwright Tony Kushner. These people never waste an opportunity to paint Israel in the most negative light. Why? Because they look at the Palestinian as the poor oppressed underdog whose cause needs to be championed.
Liberal thinking has not always worked against us. It worked well for Israel when they were the underdog. Before 1967, when Israel was a fledgling nation of holocaust survivors surrounded by Arab nations vowing to drive them into the sea, the cause of Israel was championed by Liberals. When Jews were being slaughtered in the holocaust it was the liberal camp that spoke out the loudest. But it is the same people (or their spiritual heirs) that condemn Israel now.
I generally do not classify myself as politically liberal or conservative, although I tend to lean to the conservative point of view. But I take a liberal view on some issues. So I cannot be accused of being a "right wing" basher of liberals. But I cannot understand how any human being of any political stripe can ignore the savage butchery of the Islamist mindset which so dominates much of Arab culture in the Middle East. How can anyone “understand” a suicide bomber? How can they ignore the context of the conflict which must consider the history and religion of the two peoples in order to have a fair analysis? How can any sane person pay lip service condemnation to the suicide bomber and then immediately go on an extensive rant about “root causes” (translation: Israeli oppression of Palestinians)?
I don’t know the answers to these questions except to say that some people are just plain stupid! But that doesn’t help me sleep any better at night.
