The Disproportionate People

During the first stage of Israel's war against Hizbullah, when everybody agreed that the Israeli response to the new, deadly round of unprovoked Arab aggression was "disproportionate", I suddenly realized that Jews, in every respect, are an extremely disproportionate nation. Although only one in 400 people on earth is Jewish, we exert so much influence on everything that's happening on this planet that most people sincerely believe we control the world through some imaginary, evil Zionist conspiracy.

Jews have been disproportionately overrepresented in practically every human endeavor, from the list of Nobel laureates, to the gas chambers of Auschwitz. Our contribution to the well-being of this planet has been grotesquely disproportionate; and even more disproportionate has been the hatred the planet pays us back with.

In recent days, months and weeks, there have been a slew of cases when Jews were accused of murdering Arabs who were, in fact, murdered by other Arabs. For example, does anyone still remember the Arab family that was killed in an explosion on a beach somewhere in Gaza? It happened just before the last round of war began in earnest. During the few days it took to prove beyond any doubt that the explosion was not caused by an Israeli artillery shell, mankind was enthusiastically mourning yet another batch of innocent civilian victims at the hands of those bloodthirsty Jews. As soon as it became clear that the explosion was caused by a mine left on a public beach by Arabs and, therefore, Israel was innocent of that particular murder, the planet promptly forgot both the incident and the victims.

Since that episode was anything but unique, it must be clear why Jews, rather than anyone else, killed Jesus. Even today, if someone managed to prove that Jesus was killed by Arabs (or North Koreans, or Cubans, or the KGB, or the Khmer Rouge, or the Hutu, or anybody at all except Jews - like, for example, the Romans), Christianity would end. Within a week, nobody would remember who Jesus was, no matter how many tables he had overturned at the Temple. Anybody can kill, but those (allegedly! allegedly!) killed by Jews automatically become martyrs, saints and, in some rare cases, especially when the victim happens to be Jewish (you didn't think Jesus was an Episcopalian or a Russian Orthodox, did you?), other people's gods.

But let's theorize a little. Let us imagine that, instead of trying to please anti-Semites, Jews decided to react proportionately to every offense. The worst Jew-haters, the most avid murderers of Jews in the modern world are Muslims. They outnumber Jews approximately 100 to 1. Therefore, if we want to stick to that proportion, every time a Muslim hurts a Jew, we have to hurt 100 Muslims.

For example, when Arabs destroyed the Tomb of Joseph and murdered Rabbi Lieberman, who was hoping to salvage some of the books that had been kept at the site, Jews should have destroyed 100 mosques of similar historical significance and murder 100 mullahs. That, in addition to taking the Tomb of Joseph back and making sure that no Arab could ever again approach within shooting distance.

In retaliation for the recent terrorist act in Seattle, we should have forced our way into 100 Muslim organizations in the United States, killed 100 Muslim women and injured 500 others, 300 of them critically.

How should Israel have responded to the murder of a Tali Hatuel, a pregnant Israeli woman, and her four daughters, Hila, Hadar, Roni, and Meirav? By putting to death 100 pregnant Arab women along with 400 of their cute little children?

When the cannibalistic mob in Ramallah literally tore apart two Israeli reservists, Vadim Norzhich and Yosef Avrahami, Israel sent a helicopter to bomb the police station where the murder took place. As usual, the Israeli response was criticized as disproportionate, although the cowards in charge made sure that the building was empty at the time of the retaliation. What would be a proportionate response to that murder? Round up 200 young Arab men from the area, tie them up, line them up next to each other on the main street in Ramallah and slowly roll a bulldozer over them. If you think that's inhumane, give them some Novocain before you start the bulldozer.

Sounds terrifying? Relax, my dear readers, I am not really suggesting you do it. You are Jews. When you decide to take justice into your own hands, you write an anonymous letter to the proper authorities. I am suggesting something entirely different. I am saying that a truly proportionate response to Arab atrocities would have had an effect similar to that of the two atomic bombs dropped on Japan, minus the radiation. It would have forever ended the Arab war against Israel and, therefore, should have been the policy of the Israeli government since the day Arabs promised to destroy Israel. By the way, a few - very few - applications of that terribly bitter medicine would, in the long run, have saved many thousands of both Jewish and Arab lives, just like Hiroshima and Nagasaki saved an estimated one million American soldiers and up to three million Japanese civilians.

In response to my perfectly obvious reasoning, I am anticipating a small avalanche of e-mails calling me a Nazi and unfavorably comparing me to various VIPs of the Third Reich. Here's what puzzles me: Why do the letter-writers never turn their righteous anger against those who openly work to make the next Holocaust happen? How terribly disproportionate of them!

And, speaking about the Holocaust that has already taken place, what do you think would have been a "proportionate" response to that?

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

Our Declaration of Independence separates us from terrorists.

We Americans believe that man, in fact all mankind, has an expectation, a right, to life. We believe this is an “unalienable right,” in fact a sacred right not granted by man but by a higher power, our Creator and incapable of repudiation. The right to life cannot be taken by another man.

The terrorists don’t believe we, or any man, apparently, has an expectation to life. The terrorist have shown that they can commit, intend to commit and are committed to intentional, indiscriminate killing of innocent strangers.

What greater disparity could there be in the beliefs between the terrorists and ourselves?

Americans see themselves as men with rights “endowed by their Creator.”

Terrorists see America as “the Great Satan.”

There is a gap, in fact an abyss, in values and moral mindset between America and the terrorists.

What makes this so devious, so desperately troubling, is this. A part of the terrorist movement has, will have or wants to have nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction (WMD). The actions of the terrorists to date tell us that they are released from our inhibitions to kill indiscrimately by using nuclear weapons and other WMD.

And the terrorists are being encouraged, fueled and even driven toward the use of WMD by the likes of Iranian President Ahmadinejad, various imams, mosques, madras’s, political activists and others. In fact, throughout Pakistan and other Moslem nations, terror has superseded a religion.

....

To put this in a nutshell, Israel, has been using a conventional military force bound by restrictions on the indiscriminate killing of civilians, to find and kill people lobbing unguided rockets into their civilian population with no restrictions on their use of indiscriminate killing; a kind of asymmetric warfare of the most heinous sort.

The UN and the media view the opposing forces through one single prism of values: both are brother nations of the world. In fact, there seems to be a media bias toward Hezbollah (not a nation at all). And Kofi Annan wasted no time in saying Israel “intentionally” killed UN observers during the conflict.

The terrorists, media and the UN tend to handcuff the west within its own values even more, while the other side feels empowered. Reuters news service participated in the chicanery last week by publishing doctored photos detrimental to Israel.

http://peace-and-freedom.blogspot.com/

There is an ongoing discussion at NRO concerning the President's remarks. I think Andy McCarthy is spot on, and thought you might like to follow the discussion:

John, in Denial [Andy McCarthy]

John, perhaps you ought to read what the President says before you embarrass yourself with a hysterical diatribe. Here's more yesterday from the president who supposedly doesn't call Lebanon a democracy (this is just yesterday, mind you — I won't belabor this with the numerous times other administration officials have said the same things about Lebanon ... and Iraq ... and the Palestinian territories — which the President and the Secretary of State have recently taken to calling "Palestine," just like the Organization of the Islamic Conference does).

... Syria supports Hezbollah because it wants to undermine Lebanon's democratic government and regain its position of dominance in the country. That would be a great tragedy for the Lebanese people and for the cause of peace in the Middle East. ... So we've launched a forward strategy of freedom in the broader Middle East. And that strategy has helped bring hope to millions and fostered the birth of young democracies from Baghdad to Beirut. Forces of terror see the changes that are taking place in their midst. They understand that the advance of liberty, the freedom to worship, the freedom to dissent, and the protection of human rights would be a defeat for their hateful ideology. But they also know that young democracies are fragile and that this may be their last and best opportunity to stop freedom's advance and steer newly free nation to the path of radical extremism. So the terrorists are striking back with all of the destructive power that they can muster. It's no coincidence that two nations that are building free societies in the heart of the Middle East, Lebanon and Iraq, are also the scenes of the most violent terrorist activity. ...

There is something disturbingly Leftist about your penchant for shrill, uninformed criticism that scorns the interlocutor rather than dealing in a mature way with the substance of his arguments. I am not mocking the President. I believe he is wrong, that the mistake he is making has tragic implications for our security, and I am saying so. His remarks yesterday were not forthright. We just spent several weeks watching what he calls "Lebanon's democratic government" aid and abet Hezbollah. Yet, yesterday, he gave Siniora & Co. a complete pass — only Iran and Syria, according to the President, are sponsoring Hezbollah. It was not Iran and Syria that objected to an international force under rules of engagement that would allow the dismantling of Hezbollah. That was Lebanon. But Lebanon — which chooses to support Hezbollah — is somehow immune from criticism ... because it is a "democracy" and, according to what passes for logic here, by definition it cannot be facilitating terrorism.

The basic thing you and those who agree with you insist on as an article of faith — namely, that "of course terrorism and democracy are irreconcilable" — is demonstrably wrong. Whether you like it or not, terrorists have great popular support in Lebanon. It may not be majority popular support, but it is at least substantial popular support. The same is true in the other "young democracies" in the Middle East. As long as the administration continues to confound popular elections with democracy — which is exactly what it is doing, whether you admit it or not — we are going to see this.

The gross irresponsibility here is staggering. While insisting on that which is contrary to the overwhelming evidence, the champions of the Democracy Project have hurled us into this experiment — at a great cost of lives and money — with absolutely no analysis (in fact, with juvenile attacks on anyone with the temerity to suggest that there should be an analysis) of the core question: are Islam and anything we would recognize as democracy reconcilable? You don't want to go there, but you want the rest of us to close our eyes, cross our fingers and hope while you pretend the problem is "terrorism" and "tyranny."

Meanwhile, apostates are sentenced to death in the new Afghan democracy (completely consistently with the Constitution we helped draft, which maintained Islam as a pillar), homosexuals are under assault in Iraq (ditto), and the emerging democracies in Lebanon and the Palestinian territories bide their time for the next challenge to the "Zionist entity's" existence.

Imagine if the United States refused to allow Muslims to enter New York and Washington. That would be so unfathomable in a real democracy — i.e., one based on liberty and equality — that it is virtually impossible to imagine. Yet, non-Muslims are not permitted to enter Mecca and Medina. That's not because some tyrannical government has capriciously imposed its will. It is because Saudi Arabia has given in to the will of its Wahhabist population, which would revolt if non-Muslims, whom they view as lesser beings, were given access. This is a position that enjoys overwhelming support in the Islamic world.

Now, you claim that this culture — which believes that non-Muslims are not equal to Muslims; that women are not equal to men; that man has no authority to make law inconsistent with the dictates of Islamic law (which, by the way, is not merely a religious corpus but purports to be an all-purpose social system); that apostates, homosexuals and adulterers (among others) should be (brutally) killed; etc. — will democratize. I say you have not done a single thing to prove that this is the case. In place of analysis and evidence, you offer slogans — and you frame those who differ with you as if they were all realpolitic lackies.

What is variously called "radical Islam," "militant Islam," "political Islam," "fundamentalist Islam," "Islamo-fascism," etc., is not a fringe cult. It is a highly developed system the history of which traces back centuries and which counts among its adherents many highly educated, highly intelligent people. It rejects fundamental premises of Western democracy — indeed, it blames Western democracy for the ills of the world.

Now, here's what you don't seem to get: it's not just terrorists who believe this. The terrorists are the ones willing to fight over it, but there are tens of millions who agree with their beliefs and aims even if they are not willing to kill to see them actualized. That is why terrorism is not irreconcilable with democracy, but Islam may well be.

You can keep pretending, if you'd like, that the problem here is "tyranny" and "terrorism" and that things would turn around if only we injected a little freedom into the equation. But that is not going to deal with the "root cause," and it is not going to make Muslims like you better (as we are seeing in Iraq on a daily basis). You insult these millions of Muslims profoundly because the logic of your argument is that no one who was truly free would choose the life they sincerely believe God has commanded. You are stuck in a pre-1979 mindset which refuses to acknowledge that a religion-based revolution is possible, and that the millions of people are freely choosing a belief system that opposes Western democracy.

I'm not going along. I've spent lots of time with our enemies and I respect them. That's why I know they have to be defeated, not courted.

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