It's All Morally Relative - End Support for Israel

It's All Morally Relative - End Support for Israel
An Analysis of the After Effects of the Terrorist Attack
by R. Alexander
September 19, 2001

Many of us were surprised to hear responses coming from both U.S.citizens and our so-called allies suggesting the U.S. somehow deserved the terrorist attack. With righteous moral indignation, these enlightened critics, suddenly experts on terrorism, lecture us, claiming "this would not have happened if the U.S. hadn't been intervening in the Middle East." This criticism is said with a straight face by Americans who see no problem driving an oversized SUV that gets 12 miles per gallon, while condemning the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 1990 which assured them the continued use of their environmentally irresponsible gas guzzlers.

What angers Middle Eastern terrorists most about U.S. involvement in the Middle East is U.S. support of Israel. A 2001 State Department report on global terrorism stated that the goal of Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda terrorist organization is to expel Westerners and non-Muslims from Muslim countries and overthrow non-Islamic regimes. Without U.S. support, which includes money, weapons, and aircraft, most political and military analysts agree that Israel would cease to exist, or at best, disintegrate into tiny pockets. The U.S. gives aid to many of our allies to support democracy and protect our security interests throughout the world. Israel is just one of many democratic countries the U.S. believes is necessary to arm in order to protect our own security interests. There is strong evidence that Israel's cooperation in the "strategic consensus" against the former Soviet Union helped bring the Soviet Union down.

After the terrorist attack, it seems even more imperative to continue to protect our security interests by giving aid to Israel. Unfortunately, there are those who would conclude otherwise. The thousands of Americans killed in the attack has given critics of U.S. aid to Israel the chance they need to use people's emotions for their own political purposes. The terrorist attack is viewed by them as evidence the U.S. is supporting Israel to its detriment. There are already many signs that support for U.S. aid to Israel is dwindling. One is the prevalence of anti-Semitism. Anti-Semitism has long existed within the U.S. and subtly exists within its media. Although the Jewish lobby is powerful, anti-Semitic sentiments are deeply entrenched in society. The recent U.N. conference on racism, expected to be taken over by anti-Semitic discussion, resulted in the U.S. only sending a low-level delegation which walked out midway in protest. The conference adopted arguably anti-Semitic language criticizing Israel but not the Palestinians for hostile relations in Israel, ongoing evidence that the leadership in the rest of the world condones anti-Semitism and is pressuring the U.S. into withdrawing its support for Israel.

Standing up for Israel is much more difficult done all alone. The U.S. no longer enjoys a position of moral leadership in the world, as evidenced by its removal from the U.N. Human Rights Commission earlier this year. Instead, known human rights violators Libya, Syria, and the Sudan have been given seats on the Commission within the past two years. This strengthens the argument of moral relativists that the U.S.' position supporting Israel and stamping out terrorism is not necessarily any more morally defensible than the terrorists' position towards the U.S. and Israel.

Are the moral relativists right? Is the U.S.' democratic government, with its selfish security interest in Israel, no more morally correct than a terrorist? One obvious way to analyze the moral righteousness of a nation's government is to look at how it treats its own ethnic citizens. The U.S. is home to more nationalities than any other nation, yet its citizens live in peace alongside each other, unlike in many ethnically diverse nations. Arabs live next door to Jews. Arabs vote and campaign for Jewish candidates, and vice versa. A former Arab roommate of mine nonchalantly explained when we first met that she was Palestinian Christian, not Jewish, "but we're all pretty much the same thing." Ironically, since the U.S. is home to so many different nationalities, including many refugees who moved here to avoid ethnic strife in their own, undemocratic homelands, the terrorists not only killed "Americans" but killed Americans of Arab descent.

Eliminating support for Israel will be tempting to Congress. It will save taxpayers money (critics of U.S. aid to Israel generally fail to point out that the U.S. also sends large amounts of aid to Arab countries, particularly Egypt, Jordan, and the Palestinian Authority). It will allow Congress to appear, in a morally relative way, as being "fair" to both Jews and Arabs. After all, superficially, it appears as if Israel and the Palestinians are both equally to blame for initiating bombing and terrorism in Israel. The U.S. media does a good job of presenting it this way. But which religion's holy book encourages killing by teaching that young men who are killed in the name of Allah are rewarded in paradise with 72 virgins to be their sex slaves, and are then allowed to invite 72 of their friends to join them in paradise and receive their own 72 virgins? Not to mention 28 pre-pubescent boys for their pleasures also. With values like these, it is understandable why the parents of terrorist suicide bombers celebrate their sons' deaths.

Last week's terrorist attacks have forever changed the geopolitical balance of power, but not in the way naïve U.S. conservatives hope for. Sadly, the world is not going to rally around the U.S. as the U.S. stamps out terrorism. Over the last decade, ever since the global threat of communism was eliminated with the fall of communism in the U.S.S.R. and Eastern Europe, the U.S.' reputation as a unilateral superpower has all but disappeared. This is no doubt thanks to former President Clinton, whose foreign policy in the 1990's consisted of smiling and shaking hands with all types of world leaders at numerous accords, conferences, meetings, etc., desperately attempting to create a legacy, while accomplishing nothing but meaningless words on paper.

Under Clinton's leadership, America's response to terrorism has been weak. Afraid of another Vietnam, America under Clinton has been too afraid to commit its troops, afraid of the sight on TV of American troops being killed. When Bin Laden's al Qaeda bombed the World Trade Center in 1993, the U.S. retaliated with a paltry, unsuccessful attack on Iraq. When the al Qaeda killed American troops in Somalia in October of 1993, Clinton hurriedly pulled our troops out, sending a signal to the world that the U.S. would rather flee from terrorism than risk any American lives. In 1996, Bin Laden's organization bombed a U.S. housing complex in Saudi Arabia, with little ramification. Later that year, according to the State Department, Bin Laden issued a fatwa, or religious order that said, "it was the duty of all Muslims to kill U.S. citizens civilian or military and their allies everywhere." When Bin Laden bombed U.S. embassies in Africa in 1998, the U.S. responded with a paltry missile assault on Bin Laden's training camp in Afghanistan and on a suspected chemical weapons plant in Sudan. Bin Laden's followers have been tied in the past to plots to assassinate former President Clinton and blow up American 747 airliners over the Pacific Ocean. His organization is considered responsible for the bombing of the USS Cole in Yemen last year. Yet there has been no serious effort by the U.S. to eradicate him or his followers, and U.S. retaliation has been no more than a slap on the hand.

The world watched as Clinton and the Democrats greatly reduced our military defense, smugly confident of our peacekeeping abilities. Just weeks ago, the liberal Reverend Al Sharpton, who is currently running for President, stated on Fox News for all the world to hear, "In a time that we no longer have a Cold War, there is no real threat to American security." The message the U.S. has sent the world in the last decade is that we are weak. The U.S. government is afraid of committing troops in another ghastly Vietnam quagmire, aware that hunting down Bin Laden and his numerous followers may end up as guerilla warfare in Afghanistan. Although most Americans are presently in favor of sending our troops to Afghanistan, as time goes by and Americans realize they will be sending their own sons and daughters, their fervor for retaliation will diminish. They will question why it is important to retaliate, and whether the U.S. should even be present in the Middle East. Inevitably, they will question U.S. aid to Israel.

Recently, conservatives and Christians in the U.S. have emerged as the strongest supporters of Israel, probably because of the recent leadership in Israel of hawkish, conservative former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. This association of Christianity with Israel is an irritation to the current fad of enlightened, moral relativists in the U.S., who dislike Christianity because it has moral absolutes. The Bible commands, “Thou shalt not kill.” Since Christianity, as well as Judaism, teach that killing is wrong, their adherents are accused of being "intolerant" of other religions such as Islam, which is interpreted (probably incorrectly) by radical Muslims that killing in the name of Allah is a virtue. In our newly enlightened era of moral relativism, which pervades the halls of Congress as well as public opinion and the media, every viewpoint is equally valid as any another. This attitude is reflected in the response of the U.S. critics, who cannot discern that the terrorist attack was clearly wrong nor that it is imperative to punish and stop the terrorists, because they have elevated “tolerance” over teaching that killing is wrong. The U.S. critics conclude that the cost of the terrorists taking more lives is not as important as appearing tolerant and not stepping on anyone’s toes, and so they will bog the U.S. down in petty discussions over what might possibly, remotely happen. Any forceful retaliation is labeled by them as initiating violence – conveniently forgetting that the terrorists started it. Meanwhile, the terrorists will continue to kill and maim, wholly unconcerned with "tolerance" for non-Muslims.

Consequently, it is just a matter of time before U.S. leaders take the easy way out and desert Israel, hoping by demonstrating their “tolerance” they will escape the wrath of the equally morally correct terrorists.

The author can be reached at ralexand@krl.org

Suggesting that there are reasons why people around the world hate the US is not the same as blaming the victim, nor is it the same as suggesting that we should not take action against the perpetrators.

In the current context, it is. Think of it this way, we've just be raped. Now some would start questioning the nature of the victim, was she loose? Did she bring it on herself?

Aren't you curious _why_ so many people want to kill us?

The so "many" you refer to is a group of terrorists. I personally don't care what terrorists reasons are, they must simply be exterminated for the criminals they are.

My! My! The world treating the German state unfairly after WWI led to their aggression in WWII, also placing blame for their economic situation on their Jewish citizens. The world, in protecting their oil interests, through British Petroleum and Britain, plunked down this new state of Israel, with the world's assent, but not the assent of the people who lived there since their origins, as Canaanites, etc. OBVIOUSLY, the Palestinians should not aquiesce, no matter the size of the muslim world. Or should the rest of the world deign to carve out a nation in the midst of our country for African descendants, the Japanese who were the ancestors of three of our American tribes, plus of course a country for all our Indian tribes? The Jewish people invaded the Arab world from Africa, why not have seen if their homeland would accept them? Because it did not have oil or a strategic position on the Gulf. So what if they formed a democracy It is not a true democracy, with equal rights for all its people. And why not let all countries determine their own destiny unless there are SERIOUS human rights violations. Respect others' differences. They often are based on wisdom we haven't a grasp of. Hypocritically, we condemn them, while a flurry of PC people bask in their feigned right positions, which disrespect us all. The boundaries of nations and empires have changed because the people themselves have fought for their lands, but when uninvolved nations determine others boundaries with their own selfish interests in mind, why should we want or expect them to stand? Lokk at MacArthur's treatment of Japan as the better model.

Our nation has almost unlimited oil reserves if we get on line a new method of cold-process extraction, in the meantime using our other known reserves. Let's undo our harm based on our own interests, not the Arab world's; and fight Israel, if they do not allow an East Jerusalem Palestine or an international Jerusalem as a home for all faiths, and a Palestine state in the Gaza, etc, at the least. I will critique the very fallible article later.

Aren't you curious _why_ so many people want to kill us

You are under the mistaken impression that if WE changed, the Arabs would love us.

I think that's naive. Islam (even moderate Islam) has been warring with the West for centuries, in one way or another. They resent the progress made by the West; ALL major advances that benefit mankind have come from the West.

Take the oil out of the Gulf States, and the Arab world would look like sub-Saharan Africa.

Once again the wisdom of George Washington rears its ugly head. A too passionate attachment to one country to the detriment of one's own country. These people care more for Israel then they do for America. It is a shame and they call others anti-American.

Yes, the Jewish people occupied Palestine 2000 years ago and they were deported due to their revolutionary activities and, more importantly, their disobedience to God. I guess it was acts of godliness when the Israelis of the Irgun and Stern gangs bombed and murdered innocent people. I guess it was for America's own good that Israel bombed and strafed and killed 34 American sailors on the USS Liberty. A plainly marked and identified US Naval vessel.

Yes, the Palestinian terrorists have committed atrocious acts but it was not done in a vacuum. They didn't wake up one morning and say 'I hate Israel' or 'I hate America'. There are reasons for these things and we have to look at those reasons in order to know how to deal with the problems. Or maybe it is simpler to send a poor Jarhead running down the road to attack a target and get killed while you all stay in your nice homes and see how your stocks are doing.

we must accept that there are, sadly, always going to be "progressive" thinkers (self-appointed and long winded), who ALWAYS look for the EASY way out

Sorry, but you're the liberal in this case, bub. George Washington reminded us to "avoid foreign entanglements", and you'd do well to heed his word, instead of advocating to unconstitutionally spend American tax dollars to support a socialist state like Israel.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.