The Israel enigma

http://jewishworldreview.com/0706/hanson070606.php3 ^ | Victor Davis Hanson

[croak]

What explains most of the world's dislike of Israel?

Since Israeli settlers withdrew from Gaza in 2005, Palestinian terrorists have replied by consistently shooting homemade Qassam rockets at civilian targets inside Israel. Just recently, they've kidnapped a soldier and a hitchhiker (who has been killed) — and promised to do the same to others.

You'd expect these terrorist attacks on Israel to be viewed by responsible nations as similar to the jihadist violence we read about daily around the world — radical Islamists beheading Russian diplomats over Chechnya, plotting to do the same to the Canadian prime minister or threatening murder over insensitive Danish cartoons.

But that isn't the case at all. Israel is always seen as a special exception that somehow deserves what it gets.

Other states can retaliate with impunity, brutally killing thousands of Muslim terrorists, while Israel is condemned when it takes out a few dozen.

[Jeff Chandler]

'I know we are the chosen people, but once in a while can't you choose someone else?' -Tevya.

[libertylover]

What explains most of the world's dislike of Israel?

Too many liberals.

[TalBlack]

Nothing complicated about it: Kill the Jews and you kill The Torah. Kill The Torah and you kill God--His Son included.

[tkathy]

Israel, just like the republicans, seems unable to play the politics of victimhood.

[Tolik]

Victor Davis Hanson:

...Oil explains some of the weird discrepancy in how the world views certain countries. It warps policymaking. Take away Iranian and Arab petroleum - and thus the risk of another oil embargo or rigged price hike - and Western fears of Middle East oil states would diminish. Naked self-interest determines the foreign policy of most nations.

The size of Israel factors in here as well. Israel has a population of not much more than 6 million and is surrounded by nearly 350 million Muslim Arabs. Most of the world counts heads - and adjusts attitudes accordingly.

The old anti-Semitism is, of course, another ingredient that accounts for the animus shown Israel. Even sensitive, multicultural Westerners care little that Arab "allies" often portray Jews as "pigs" and "apes" in their state-run media. Odious tracts like "Mein Kampf" still sell briskly in Palestine, and Iranian and Gulf money subsidizes a mini-industry of holocaust denial.

Finally, as we know from our own southern border, anytime a successful Westernized nation is adjacent to a poorer Third World country, primordial emotions like honor and envy cloud reason. Rather than concede that Western-style democracy, capitalism, personal freedom and the rule of law explain why a prosperous, stable Israel arose from scrub and rock, Palestinians fixate on "Zionism," "colonialism" and "racism."

No wonder they do. Otherwise they would have to grapple with intractable and indigenous tribalism, gender apartheid, militias and religious fundamentalism, while building an open society based on the rule of law.

In some ways, Israel's values and success most resemble the United States.

And that raises a final question: Is Israel hated by the world for supporting us - or are we hated for supporting it? Or is it both?

    Victor Davis Hanson Ping ! 

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[RoadTest]

"Is Israel hated by the world for supporting us - or are we hated for supporting it? Or is it both?"

Israel is God's and the Jews are God's people. God's people are also those believers in Jeshua Hammashiah (sp.?) who love God and follow Jesus.

The world hates God and, since it can't get to Him, takes that hate out on His people. The United States has been a haven for the victims of that hatred for more than two hundred years,

That's why Israel and the United States are treated so shabbily by the world.

[goldstategop]

The world's dislike of Israel is explained by the fact the world is uncomfortable seeing Jews in positions of authority. Its a radical change for a people that spent most of the past 2,000 years as a powerless minority. The sight of Jewish prime ministers, policemen, soldiers, civil servants, clergy, businessmen, farmers, artists, doctors and teachers wielding normal roles as the leading segment of a society takes getting used to. Even for Jews, it comes across as something completely different to find out that for Jews in Israel, behaving as a majority is a completely normal affair. Its the rest of the world that's still not adjusted to the reality of Jewish power and Israel's unique treatment can be explained by the world trying to treat a sovereign Jewish State the way it has always treated Jews: as inferiors who ought to do what they're told. And trying to change such an ingrained age-old mindset to treating the Jews as equals takes a great deal of time and effort. So Israelis know they have the power to decide their own fate and this alone bestows on them a certain sense of reassurance even if the rest of the world is prejudiced on the score of Jewish power. For the first time in 2,000 years, what happens in the Jewish future will be determined by what Jews in one small country do and not by the actions of others around them. Therein lies the revolutionary significance of Israel's existence in a world that still doesn't quite understand her on her own terms.

(The Palestinian terrorist regime is the crisis and Israel's fist is the answer.)

[freedomfiter2]

What explains most of the world's dislike of Israel?

Is it because they are Jews or because they often support the US?

[Convert from ECUSA]

Amen and right on!

[Convert from ECUSA]

Hit the nail on the head ping!

[Tolik]

From the Q&As section of Hanson's website, Questions Log for June 2006:

You suggest that the CIA should be silenced and go along with the rants of the President. No sir. I want to know and have a voice in policy setting — it has been slated pro-Israel far too long which is why we are in these wars. Congress likes “status quo” and in this case I favor the whistleblowers.

Hanson: Where did I write that? So you start out poorly by stating an untruth. What I wrote was that freelancing individual operatives are lionized by the Left in the way such mavericks used to be demonized when their Cold War message was that we are too soft on communism rather than the welcomed mantra "George Bush is an idiot"

I'm surprised it took you three sentences to get to blaming Israel, a common bogeyman with the current crop of former CIA analysts who grab headlines. Yes, you must be a genius to have figured the secret plan of the Middle East, and we are supposed to think something like the following?  Democratic Israel is behind the Iranian bomb; Israel's system of the rule of law is behind the al Qaeda killing in Iraq; Israel and its independent judiciary put Syria into Lebanon; Israel and its free press stop poor Hamas from getting international support; and loyal and supportive Israel caused 9/11.  Yes, the first and best democracy in the Middle East is the real problem.

[maica]

The very idea of what Israelis have accomplished on that strip of land beside the Mediterranean in the past 60 years, is received as a body blow to many people. Their answer to this irrefutable evidence of what can be done with Rule of Law, cooperation, industriousness, etc is to wish it gone.

When the Palestinians were left the physical structure of the Gaza strip last year after the departure of the Israelis, instead of continuing with the industries established there, greenhouses for example, they destroyed them. That is irrational, yet indicative of the mentality of the people who have only one goal in life. Eradication of Jews.

How they think their lives would improve if there was no Israel, is unanswerable.

[Convert from ECUSA]

Ain't it the truth! Some people still believe that the forgery called the "Protocols of the Elders of Zion" is true!

[Enterprise]

"What explains most of the world's dislike of Israel?"

Well what's to like? Other than they're a religious, clean, intelligent and hard working people. Unlike most of the world.

[dennisw]

But that isn't the case at all. Israel is always seen as a special exception that somehow deserves what it gets.

Because much of the world considers Israel's founding and existence to be illegitimate and a theft from the wonderful people known as Muslim Arabs. You can find all kinds of educated Europeans who feel this way. The Palestinian are poor because they are stupid undeucated chaotic and bloody minded. But the world blames Israel for their sorry state. In other words these Palestinians would have very nice lives if not for the Jews of Israel.

[Edit35]

I believe that other people's are jealous of Israel's long (written) history, and it's people's unity, perserverence and tenacity.

Others are subconsciously jealous of Jew's moniker (is that the right word?) as God's "chosen" people.

In my way of thinking, the world would be much worst off both intellectually, technologically and spiritually if the Jews were not here.

[SJackson]

If you'd like to be on this middle east/political ping list, please FR mail me.

Articles on Israel can also be found by clicking on the Topic or Keyword Israel.

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[Edit35]

Not to mention the fact that Christ could only have come from the loins of Israel.