|
|
|
Jewish World Review June 17, 2003 / 17 Sivan, 5763 Jews and Anti-Jews By RUTH WISSE
http://www.jewishworldreview.com |
JERUSALEM The day after Israel's failed assassination attempt on Hamas
leader Abdel Aziz Rantisi, a "deeply troubled" President Bush let it be
known that he did not think such attacks helped Israeli security. He was
concerned lest the strike undermine the momentum he is trying to create
for a "two-state" solution to the Palestinian crisis, part of his larger
effort to extend peace and democracy in the Middle East. In response, the
Jerusalem Post declared itself deeply troubled, too -- by the failure of
the said operation to eliminate the man who directs terror operations in
Gaza. The Post believed that the American president would have done better
to recognize the threat Rantisi represents to American security.
The Jerusalem Post has a point. President Bush may understand more clearly
than his predecessors the nature of the threat to Israel's security. The
attacks of Sept. 11 brought home to him the similarities between the two
democracies. Along with most Americans, the Bush administration now grasps
how the freedoms of an open society leave it vulnerable to assault. If
America is duty-bound to strike the bases of those who threaten its
security, no matter how far they are from its shores, then Israel, too,
which constitutes the fighting front line in the war against terror, must
root out the terrorists within and along its borders.
Unfortunately, the Arab war against Israel is no more a territorial
conflict than was al Qaeda's strike against America, and it can no more be
resolved by the "road map" than anti-Americanism could be appeased by
ceding part of the U.S. to an Islamist enclave. From the moment in 1947
when Jewish leaders accepted and Arab rulers rejected the U.N. partition
plan of Palestine, the Arab-Israeli conflict bore no further likeness to
more conventional territorial struggles. Arab rulers defied the U.N.
charter by denying the legitimacy of a member state. Arab countries
refused to acknowledge the existence of a single Jewish land. Arab rulers
did not object to Israel because it rendered the Palestinians homeless.
Rather, they ensured that the Palestinians should remain homeless so that
they could organize their politics around opposition to Israel.
President George W. Bush by fax: (202) 456-2461, (Andrew Card, Chief of Staff)
or by e-mail.
Dr. Condoleeza Rice, National Security Advisor, FAX (202) 456-2883, PHONE (202) 456-9491
Mr. Elliot Abrams, the Director for Near East and North African Affairs, at FAX (202) 456-9120, and by phone through his secretary Joanna, (202) 456-9121
Donald H. Rumsfeld, Secretary of Defense, 1000 Defense Pentagon, Washington, DC 20301-1000 or by e-mail form:
http://www.defenselink.mil/
Paul Wolfowitz, Deputy Secretary of Defense, 1010 Defense Pentagon, Washington, DC 20301-1010 or by e-mail form
http://www.defenselink.mil
At any point during the past 55 years, Arab governments could have helped
the Palestinian Arabs settle down to a decent life. They could have
created the infrastructure of an autonomous Palestine on the West Bank of
the Jordan and the Gaza territory that Egypt controlled until 1967, or
encouraged the resettlement of Palestinians in Jordan, which constitutes
the lion's share of the original mandate of Palestine. Rather than fund
the Palestine Liberation Organization to foment terror against Israel they
could have endowed Palestinian schools of architecture, engineering,
medicine and law. What Israel did for its refugees from Arab lands, Arabs
could have done much more sumptuously for the Palestinians displaced by
the same conflict. Instead, Arab rulers cultivated generations of refugees
in order to justify their ongoing campaign against the "usurper."
This is hardly the first time that the Jews have served as the pretext for
a politics of opposition. To cite only the most notorious example (whose
outcome President and Mrs. Bush witnessed during their recent tour of
Auschwitz), Hitler used the supposedly illegitimate presence of the Jews
as the excuse for tightening control over all the instruments of state.
His promise to rid Germany of "the Jewish vermin" ushered in an assault on
democratic culture that gained popular support by targeting an unpopular
minority. Anti-Semitism camouflaged the Nazi will to power and the
imposition of totalitarian controls: In the name of limiting the
"influence" of the Jews, Hitler delimited the power of the courts, the
media, and the educational system. As a young German named Sebastian
Haffner noted at the time, "[the Nazis] provoke a general discussion not
about their own existence, but about the right of their victims to exist."
Suddenly, the Nazis had everyone debating the question of the Jews rather
than questioning the legitimacy of the discriminatory laws against them.
In almost identical ways, the autocrats who govern Arab societies have
used the "Zionist entity" to deflect attention from the worst aspects of
their rule. The unwanted presence of the Jews became the rallying point
for internal dissatisfaction with the mounting problems of Arab regimes.
The drumbeat against Israel invited the world to debate the iniquities of
the Jews rather than question the legitimacy of the attacks against them.
This comparison is not intended to equate the Germans with the Arabs,
except in the ways that both exploited anti-Semitism to achieve broader
political goals. Both used the alleged threat of "the Jews" to excuse
their own failures. Anti-Semitism in both situations linked otherwise
warring groups of the Left and Right.
The problem with anti-Semitism in its older and newer varieties is that it
seems to serve its patrons so well. Without question, Arab rulers
successfully deflected attention from their offenses by their decades of
war and propaganda against Israel. Even the liberal Western media that
might have been expected to support a besieged fellow democracy have long
since focused on alleged Israeli abuses instead of on the abuses of their
Arab accusers.
But, just as happened in Europe, the Arab obsession with Israel grew
increasingly destructive not only of its Jewish targets but also of the
sponsoring regimes. Attacking Jews consumed energy that should have been
directed at alleviating the misery of Arab subjects. Blaming the Jews
postponed democratization, which begins with people taking responsibility
for themselves.
Moreover, anti-Semitism metastasizes very quickly; its culture of hatred
and its appeal to violence cannot be contained. Although Arab governments
tried to direct the war against Israel according to their political needs,
Islamist and nationalist groups espousing the same ideology sprang up
independently, sometimes in defiance of government control. Anti-Semitism
morphed into anti-Americanism -- not because America supported Israel but
because America represented the same challenges of an open, democratic,
competitive society. The Jews' function as a bulwark of democracy was
determined by the despots who tried to crush them. America did not so much
fight on the side of the Jews as find itself forced to tackle the
anti-Jews.
It goes without saying that President Bush must subordinate other
considerations to America's security and interests. And Americans
obviously would be better served if there were no conflict in the Middle
East. Yet until Arab leaders give up the crutch of anti-Semitism they can
make no real progress toward responsible self-government, and it is futile
to pretend that obsession with Israel is compatible with Palestinian
independence. Rantisi greeted the "road map" by organizing major attacks
against Israel, which he calls "our land, not the land of the Jews."
America can't hope to win its war against terror while ignoring some of
its major perpetrators and propagandists.
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 Ruth Wisse, a professor of Yiddish and comparative literature at Harvard, is the author of "If I Am Not for Myself: The Liberal Betrayal of the Jews" (Free Press, 2001). Click here to comment on this column. © 2003, Ruth Wisse. This column first appeared in The Wall Street Journal | |||||||||||||
