Left and Right in Israel: Math for Dummies

GAMLA: News and views from Israel ^ | July 23, 2006 | Zvi Lando

[Challenge]

Left and Right in Israel: Math for Dummies Zvi Lando

July 23, 2006

In the Israeli media, during normal days, there are three political "views": The left, the center, and the "extreme right". In these "normal days", it is hard for "normal" people to understand the difference between these groups of political thinking. But in "abnormal days", like these days of war in Gaza and Lebanon, with WWIII looming up ahead, the distinction that I have always used in my talks, is becoming clearer.

Today, in the Hebrew "Yidiot Aharonot", veteran Israeli author and left wing "prophet" Yoram Kanuik writes an interesting article. I sent it on to a friend, and said that a psychologist should analyze the article, with the aim to try to understand the Israeli "leftist".

Kanuik's article is to be expected. To anyone who has gone through several Israeli wars, such as myself (and I am only 48 years old....) it was only a matter of time. Whenever we find ourselves in this situation, a few "leftists" write these articles, telling us in one breath how even though they have been leftists since the cradle, they support "this war".

As expected, Kanuik writes:

"I was against the occupation before there was an occupation"...

which means that before 1967, they protested against lands that were taken by the state from Arabs, some of them for building, some of them for IDF use.

In short, this is sort of like someone who says that he saw Bob Dylan at Gerdes before he became famous.... Kanuik is telling us: I am THE leftist. And I believe him, no doubt.

Now, letting us know who he is and was, Kanuik goes on to tell us that he was invited to come to the "left-wing" demonstration against the "crimes of Israel in Lebanon", and he asks: "What crimes?" and he goes on to explain to us why he supports this war.

Some strong (and naive!) words are thrown onto the page:

"The spiritual leader of the left, Naom Chomsky, came to the Hizbollah - an extreme, murderous, and nationalistic group - and saluted them. The left wing fascism - like that of the right - do not believe in the correctness of the other side. They think that there is only one truth. We remember them from their support of Stalin."

Which brings me to ask again: what is the difference between left and right?

Mr Kanuik: I write to you here in black and white: The only difference between "left" and "right" (and you can call me extreme all you want) is those who believe that the Arabs want to live with us in peace, and those who do not.

You obviously do.

I do not.

I am a computer professional. There are programs where you enter in one piece of data, and it changes all remaining data in the column, like in a spreadsheet. But, you can also do the opposite.

When I look at what is happening in the middle east, and indeed throughout the world, there is no way for me to understand what is happening if I believe that the Arabs want to live with us in peace.

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[MNJohnnie]

Remember the Kapos? Jews who collabortated with the Nazis in running the Death Camps? There are their intellectual grandchildren.

[Candor7]

Yidiot Aharonot in Hebrew means Idiot Aeronaught or Idiot Airhead in English, what else needs be said?

[TheGeezer]

Useful idiots have always provided services for their torturers and conquerers, I suppose.

I am without coffee so far this morning, and I am rather thick sometimes, so help me to understand the article.

Is the left wing author a fabrication, a metaphor for the left in Israel? In the light of your information, that is the only way I can understand the article, which is very apropos for the American left as well.

If I had taken three credit hours in Yiddish in college instead of three credit hours of educational psychology, I would have learned something useful.

By the by, I love your witty tagline.

[satchmodog9]

I was looking at his name thinking the same thing.

[Challenge]

He is real, but could fit the specs for the usual Israeli leftist, "artist" etc.....


From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to: navigation, search
Yoram Kaniuk (born 1930) is an Israeli writer, painter, journalist, and theater critic. His books are translated into about twenty languages and he received many international literary prizes.

[Steely Tom]

When I look at what is happening in the middle east, and indeed throughout the world, there is no way for me to understand what is happening if I believe that the Arabs want to live with us in peace.

When I was younger, and my friends were younger, and I had liberal friends who were younger, and these liberal friends were not at careful about explaining to me why they harbored the beliefs they did. And what it came down to was this: they do not want to understand what is happening. They think that no one can ever understand what's happening. They think that anyone who tries to understand what's happening is an arrogant egomaniac. They think that the quest to understand is evil because it leads to judgementalism, and black/white thinking, and, ultimately, war.

Now the left has matured, and they no longer are so willing to explain themselves so clearly. But I am convinced they still think exactly the same.

[Rocko]

Bumpitttt.

[Candor7]

The magazines name is "Idiot Airghead." but I guess the difference boils down to this major difference:

Israeli Left: Thinks that the Palestinians can co-exist with Israel in peace, and that the Palestinians are capable of peaceful co-existance ( just like in the old days. so there is also some romance and historical truth to the notion.)There is a corresponding denial that the peaceful Sunni Muslim movement is being slowly eclipsed in the Iddle East for socio-economic reasons , that the Shias are being financially supported by wealthy Arab and Iranian oild money , and Western nations who provide weaponry to hasten the evolution, and maintain lucrative oil exploration and supply contracts ( China and Russia). Israeli Right: Thinks that peaceful coexistence with the Palestinians is not possible, because they see the basic nature of the Palistinian to be illogical, and dedicated to violance and war instead of the rational approach in government necessary to peaceful coexistence. The willingness to fight and die rather than to compromise and coexist is a Palestinian fact since the beginning of the 20th Century.This is paralleled by a continuing rise and financial support of radical shiism by wealthy Arab states for the forseeable future, according to the Israeli Right. So there you have what I have seen in the article, but there is probably a lot more I missed.Its the old problem of Utopians ( heaven on earth now) versus those whose reality tends to be rooted in pragmatism, such as Ronald Regans in his dealings with Russia.Utopianism is a disease which has weakened our own nation severely, and still infects our liberal socialist MSM in the West.

[ModelBreaker]

Remember the Kapos? Jews who collabortated with the Nazis in running the Death Camps? There are their intellectual grandchildren.

They are much worse than the Kapos. The Kapos operated under extreme compulsion in circumstances that break souls. The Israeli leftists are just fashionable academics drinking their espresso and being fashionable.

[ModelBreaker]

When I was younger, and my friends were younger, and I had liberal friends who were younger, and these liberal friends were not at careful about explaining to me why they harbored the beliefs they did. And what it came down to was this: they do not want to understand what is happening. They think that no one can ever understand what's happening. They think that anyone who tries to understand what's happening is an arrogant egomaniac. They think that the quest to understand is evil because it leads to judgementalism, and black/white thinking, and, ultimately, war.

How do you think that meshes with their notion that they should be given power to run everything and that they everything should be centrally run by smart guys like them? Is this the difference between the old and new left? If so, why are they part of the same political movement if their worldviews are 180 degrees opposed.

I personally think the core fallacy of the left is a set of unrealistic beliefs about human nature--a rejection of Original Sin if you will. From that, all else flows and explains why the new and old left are soulmates.

[Steely Tom]

How do you think that meshes with their notion that they should be given power to run everything and that they everything should be centrally run by smart guys like them? Is this the difference between the old and new left? If so, why are they part of the same political movement if their worldviews are 180 degrees opposed.

This is a very good question.

The simple, flip answer is that it doesn't mesh, and the fact that it doessn't mesh does not in itself bother the typical lumpen-leftist. They're world-view rejects logical consistency as a bourgois construct of the white European patrio-kakistocracy. And although that answer is flip and trite, it is not (in my belief) fundamentally untrue.

A more serious, realistic answer is that movements of the left only turn violent and dictatorial, demanding "power to run everything and that everything should be centrally run by smart guys like them" (as you put it) when the movements they touch off are hijacked by ruthless, cold-blooded, power-hungry monsters who pay lip service to the high-sounding platitudes of the left while they are making the romantics and the idealists and the intellectuals line up in neat formation at the edge of the pit. The left, and socialism, needs its legions of useful idiots who disarm and anaesthetize a culture before the guys in the black uniforms move in.

(steely)