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February 13, 2012
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Menachem Wecker: Business Schools Teach Real Estate Despite Troubled Housing Market
February 10, 2012
Lisa M. Krieger: Man with defibrillator demands access to his own heart's information
David G. Savage: Why activists may not be in a hurry to have High Court rule on alternative marriage
February 9, 2012
Laura McMullen: 10 Least Expensive Public Schools for Out-of-State Students
Kimberly Palmer: How to actually enjoy -- relaxing, financially -- your vacation
February 8, 2012
Warren Richey: Why momentous Prop. 8 ruling might not satisfy gay-rights groups
Menachem Wecker: Though Controversial, LL.M.'s Can Lead to Specialized Legal Jobs
The Kosher Gourmet byDana Velden: Going to the bother of making soup? You know it better be good. This CREAM OF TOMATO SOUP certainly is! And it's a cinch to make, too (Includes techinques and serving secrets)
February 7, 2012
Frank J. Gaffney, Jr.: Caught off-guard? President's Super Bowl interview with Matt Lauer gives those who need a reason not to vote for him, a darn good one
Suzanne Bohan: Leaping lizards! Tiny reptiles advancing robot design
February 6, 2012
Jonathan Tobin: Iran Threatens Israel With Destruction, But the New York Times Doesn't Hear It
Jeffrey Fleishman: In newly democratic Egypt, tens of democracy activists jailed, to stand trial; their groups are 'threatening the stability of the homeland'
Julie Deardorff : Researchers say antioxidants may not be that effective and could do more harm than good
Mark Clayton: How did Anonymous hackers eavesdrop on FBI and Scotland Yard?
February 3, 2012
Edmund Sanders : Israeli official says Iran is creating missile that could reach East Coast of US
Victoria Kim: Immigrant-smuggling ring used black drivers to avoid racial profiling
February 2, 2012
Jim Carney: Wrong number call may have saved her life
Reza Kahlili : Ex-CIA spy in Iran's Revolutionary Guard: What Obama doesn't grasp about striking deals with Tehran
Tina Susman: For woodchuck rescuer, every day is Groundhog Day
February 1, 2012
Brian Bennett: US officials see increasing threat of domestic attack from Iran
Emily Brandon: How to Take Advantage of New 401(k) Fee Disclosures
January 31, 2012
January 30, 2012
Paul Richter and Ramin Mostaghim: Misreading Teheran's limits -- deadly and economically devastating as they may be -- is a risk administration, Europe seem willing to take
Suzanne Bohan: Warning: Nap-deprived tots missing more than sleep, study finds
Meg Handley: Banks Revamping Rewards Programs to Woo Customers
January 27, 2012
Caroline B. Glick: Obama: Of course I intend to prevent a nuclear holocaust . . . in a few months
Yochonon Donn: In liberal New York City, fervently-Orthodox Jews may soon be getting a district to call their own
Jeannine Stein: An inflated ego and thinking you're 'all that' doesn't just make others sick of you, it can make you ill
Katy Hopkins: New budget rules may affect how much money you get for college
January 26, 2012
Ed Koch: To the New York Times, calling for the murder of Jews by those capable of having their incitement taken seriously isn't news
Jeannine Stein: Mental illness struck one in five U.S. adults in 2010: Report
January 25, 2012
Richard Simon: House passes two bills endorsing the use of religious symbols at military memorials
Fred Weir: Putin: Multiethnic Russia cannot survive as a US-style 'melting pot'; must find its own way
Susan Johnston: 5 Sneaky Coupon Strategies Consumers Should Watch Out For
January 24, 2012
Carol Clark: The price of your soul: How your brain decides whether to 'sell out'
Caroline B. Glick: America lost most in 'Arab Spring'. Sadly, many voters still don't grasp the extent
Warren Richey: Drug criminal scores win in GPS ruling from conservative-leaning high court
Erika Bolstad: Black conservatives gather to talk about gaining strength
January 23, 2012
Melissa Dribben: Jewish voters to play a key role in Florida's Republican primary
Jordan Rau: In quest to grow, Catholic hospital system will announce this morning its break from church
Ali Safi: U.S. envoy gives Taliban terms for peace talks
January 19, 2012
January 18, 2012
January 17, 2012
Frank J. Gaffney Jr.: No-kidding red lines: U.S. response to an Iranian nuke may be bluster, but Israel's won't be
David G. Savage: They sued their principals after slandering them online --- now the cases are headed to the Supreme Court
David Francis: Where to Invest in 2012: With stocks expected to rebound, opportunity abounds for investors
January 13, 2012
Ben Lynfield: Israeli lawmakers move to annex Jewish Judea, one museum at a time
Alexia Elejalde-Ruiz: Thriving through touch: Gentle massage helps older people with low mobility improve in mind and body
January 12, 2012
Warren Richey: Landmark Supreme Court ruling a 'resounding win' for religious groups
Warren Richey: Supreme Court says no to new rule on eyewitness testimony
John Fauber : Statins found to raise diabetes risk in postmenopausal women
Katy Hopkins : Consider This Before You Pay for an Online Degree
The Kosher Gourmet by Joseph Erdos: This mushroom and barley soup has an intense -- almost nutty -- flavor that mixes robust with Middle East. It has creaminess without cream
January 11, 2012
Shari Roan: Millions of atrial fibrillation sufferers at risk for devastating, but preventable, stroke
Tom Hussain: Pakistan -- recipient of more than $21 billion in civilian and military aid -- speeds pursuit of Iranian pipeline, defying US
David G. Savage: High court signals it won't be loosening TV's 'indecency' rules
Stephen Ceasar: Oklahoma's Islamic law amendment can't go into effect, court rules
January 10, 2012
Reza Kahlili: From an ex-CIA spy: US must exploit new split in Iran's Revolutionary Guard
Karen Kaplan: Study: Nicotine replacement products ineffective when used in real-life situations
January 9, 2012
Michael Doyle: Put through legal hell over dream home, couple fought back hard --- all the way to Supreme Court
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Jewish World Review
Feb. 9, 2004
/ 17 Shevat, 5764
The Bones of Our Dead
By
Jonathan Tobin
The value of human life is at the crux of the Middle East conflict
http://www.jewishworldreview.com |
When it comes to mass murder, it seems that everyone is a pop psychologist.
Everyone wants to know why some people strive to become killers, even at the
cost of their own lives, as is the case with Palestinians.
For years, the talking heads on television and those who wrote about the
situation for mainstream publications parroted the same line: The Palestinians are
motivated by a sense of poverty and hopelessness that has made their lives
untenable. What else would you expect desperate people to do but explode
themselves on Israelis?
But after 311/2 years of a Palestinian war of attrition against Israel, that
argument doesn't hold up anymore. The majority of those who have committed
such crimes were not dispossessed or poor. They are just as likely to come from
educated classes — and to have a great deal to live for. The Palestinian woman
who last month faked an injury, then blew up solicitous Israeli soldiers at
the Erez checkpoint who tried to help her, came from a wealthy family and had
two children under the age of 3. And last week's atrocity on a Jerusalem bus was
perpetrated by, of all things, a member of the Palestinian Authority police.
It's no good pretending we can understand such people via the rhetoric of
compassion or the sort of inductive reasoning used by detectives on American
television shows such as "Law & Order." Instead, we need to try to begin
understanding the society that bred them.
But to even suggest such a thing opens us up to criticism for generalizing
about a people rather than discussing individuals. We are told that only racists
would even suggest such a thing.
Yet when it comes to Palestinian terrorists, focusing on the individual over
the group gets us nowhere. These terrorists are acting in accordance with
values that are lauded in their culture, and as part of a war that a particular
society is conducting against Israel. The suicide bombers and other terrorists
who kill Israeli men, women and children in cold blood are doing what their
state schools and religious institutions have been telling them is an honorable,
even saintly, deed.
So we must, albeit reluctantly, ask ourselves what sort of a society would
think it is a good thing to commit gruesome murders? Are Jews not considered
human? Are Palestinians truly barbarians, who, as historian Benny Morris recently
suggested, need to be penned up?
DEHUMANIZING THE FOE
In the past, even those who lived in enlightened liberal democracies have not
been troubled by generalizations about their enemies. Look at any movie made
in Hollywood during World War II and search in vain for a humanized portrait
of a German or Japanese soldier.
We can snicker at the crude chauvinism of that time, but what else were
Americans to think about people who had committed untold atrocities in Poland,
China and elsewhere? And the truth is, the screenwriters and the audiences of
those films actually didn't know a fraction of the horror that was committed by
the Nazis and their collaborators in the Holocaust, or in the Far East by the
servants of the Japanese empire.
Americans then assumed that the Japanese and the Nazis, didn't place the same
value on human life as we did. But by the time of the Vietnam war, Americans
were too sophisticated to buy into such reasoning.
So, too, when it came to depictions of their Arab foes, have been most
Israelis. Almost from the start of the modern Zionist movement, Hebrew popular
culture has done its best to depict Arabs respectfully. Most films and plays
produced in Israel have gone out of their way to humanize Palestinians, and to
anguish over the conflict and the loss to both sides.
The notion of sacrifice for the nation is part of Zionist lore. But even a
work such as Nathan Alterman's classic poem "The Silver Platter," in which the
slain heroes of Israel's War of Independence remind the nation that the Jewish
state was bought with their lives, does not glorify death or dehumanize the
enemy; it reminds us of the terrible price of even a just war.
Even today, at a time when Jewish blood has been spilled so readily, mindless
hatred against Arabs is still a marginal factor in Israeli society.
Not so among the Arabs. You need only read the translations from the Arab
press and television that are published by the Middle East Media Research
Institute (www.MEMRI.org) to understand that the delegitimization of Israel and the
Jews is an integral part of mainstream Arab culture.
Some will blame Israel for this, and claim its refusal to give in to
Palestinian demands and its insistence on fighting back against terror is creating
Arab hatred. But that assertion flies in the face of the fact that the current
war is one the Palestinians chose when they could have had a state. The goal of
the Palestinian national movement — Israel's destruction — remains unchanged.
MORE THAN A PHILOSOPHICAL QUESTION
Yet even in the middle of this desperate war, we saw last week the
willingness of Israel to trade hundreds of terrorist prisoners for one Israeli captive,
along with the bodies of three slain soldiers. Israel was reportedly willing
to release even more terrorists if only Hezbollah or any other Arab group would
hand over the long-sought Israeli prisoner Ron Arad, or at least his lifeless
bones. Recent reports in the Israeli press revealed that DNA tests proved
that a bone fragment that was received recently from Hezbollah (a down payment on
future trades?) was not that of Arad.
Why are Israelis so willing to trade so much for a single life when the
Palestinians are willing to expend their own so needlessly? I suspect that it may
be not so much a matter of devaluing life as it is the greater value they place
on the ultimate victory they seek.
This is more than a philosophical question, because if we think that Israel's
foes share our horror at the conflict, then we will always try to appease
them with concessions. If their goals are different from those of the Jews, then
a change in long-term strategy may be in order.
We may not understand why Arabs honor murder and Jews don't, but at this
point in history, we're forced to at least pose the question. If, rather than a
dispute about territory, something darker within Palestinian society is driving t
his terrible war, then every debate about the peace process is ultimately
moot. And that is a possibility very few of us wish to acknowledge.
Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in Washington and in the media consider "must reading." Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here.
JWR contributor Jonathan S. Tobin is executive editor of the Philadelphia Jewish Exponent.
Let him know what you think by clicking here. In June, Mr. Tobin won first places honors in the American
Jewish Press Association's Louis Rapaport Award for Excellence in Commentary as
well as the Philadelphia Press Association's Media Award for top weekly
columnist. Both competitions were for articles written in the year 2002.
Jonathan Tobin Archives
© 2004, Jonathan Tobin
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