Moral Styrofoam The elite s problem

Yes, I wish it were possible that we could recall the prize," Hanna Kvanmo told the Agence France Press. Ms. Kvanmo serves on the five-member committee that gave Yasser Arafat the 1994 Nobel Peace prize. She's not alone in her sentiments. "I cannot hide my deep disappointment and despair," committee member and Oslo bishop Gunnar Staalsett lamented, agreeing that the Peace prize should be withdrawn. Odvar Nordli, former Norwegian prime minister and another committee member, concurred.

Of course, none of these people are referring to Arafat. They sigh with the contentment of an artist gratified by a work well completed when they contemplate Arafat's blood-soaked paws stroking the prize: "Ahhh," they seem to be saying, "we at least got that one right."

No, Ms. Kvanmo's "wish" is that Arafat's corecipients, Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres, would return their prizes. Well, not Rabin, since he's dead. But Peres should give it back, say these moral titans, because he has remained in Ariel Sharon's government while it manages to stop kamikaze bombers from blowing up the citizens who elected it.

My views regarding the European political and intellectual elite have gone from mere contempt to palpable disgust.

Even the glow of the synagogues burning on soil already well fertilized with the viscera of Jews is paled by the bonfire of hypocrisy now raging in capitals across Europe. Recall last December, when France's ambassador to England, Daniel Bernard, referred to Israel as "that shi**y little country," asking, "Why should the world be in danger of World War III because of those people?"

The United States might have asked a similar question when Hitler's army marched into France for a lunch eagerly served by a nation of waiters. Indeed, if we had asked such a question all those years ago, France might have been able to indulge its well-documented enthusiasm for sending Jews to concentration camps to such an extent that there would be no Israel left for Bernard to despise (Mr. Bernard has never apologized for, or denied, the comment).

When 19 Islamic fanatics killed thousands of Americans, to the cheers of the "streets" of the Islamic world, the president of the United States repeated over and over what has now become at best a well-intentioned, but ultimately fatuous, cliché: "Islam means peace." When synagogues in France were set ablaze by Arab brown shirts, Prime Minister Jospin regretted that it would be "extremely difficult" to protect French Jews wherever they gather in large numbers. And when French authorities captured three Moroccan-born fire bombers, the prosecutor explained that the "confused" youths "had been drinking quite a lot" and were simply "acting based upon what they had seen in the news." Poor kids, someone sing 'em a few bars of "Officer Krupke" in French-accented Arabic and send them to bed without croissants and Turkish coffee.

With prosecutors like this, no wonder the French find it "extremely difficult" to protect Jews where they gather. Indeed, as the Wall Street Journal recently pointed out, that's probably how they feel in Tel Aviv these days too — not that the French or the Nobel committee give a damn.

WHAT IF THIS WERE A WAR MOVIE? I do not believe that being anti-Israel is synonymous with being anti-Semitic. In fact, in a perverse sense I wish open and honest Jew-hatred were the sole culprit here. That would at least make it easier to separate the good guys and bad guys.

No, the problem with intellectuals and activists — on both sides of the Atlantic — is the inability to understand what the difference between good guys and bad guys is. Not just in the Middle East, but in the world in general.

I keep imagining how people would react to a movie about the events of the last year. An incredibly rich madman — enormously popular throughout the Middle East — orchestrates the mass murder of thousands of Americans. The day it happens, news cameras catch men and women joyously celebrating in various parts of the Arab world. In response to the most successful (but not sole) attack by the madman's well-financed and committed terrorist organization, America responds by attacking the villain's mountain stronghold, liberating the oppressed nation we find there.

Meanwhile, Israel — a staunch ally of the United States, and the only democracy in the region — is besieged by suicide bombers who have been brainwashed by fanatical cults. These terrorist groups load up glassy-eyed teenagers with explosives, nails, and bullets and convince them to seek out large clusters of women and children. This is all permitted — and sometimes orchestrated — by a veteran terrorist strongman who had in the past helped to orchestrate the murder and kidnapping of Israelis and Americans, including the Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics. Moreover, in America's last war, this would-be tyrant supported our enemy, Iraq, which now gives cash bounties to the families of suicide bombers.

And — just to really flesh out the nefariousness of this secondary villain — he also sucked up to the Soviets during the Cold War. And (for those of you who like historical dramas) his predecessors cheered for the Nazis — and, even today, Nazi-inspired literature is churned out by his aides for the indoctrination of young children. It may sound over the top, but truth is stranger than fiction.

Much like the Americans who traversed the globe to defend themselves, the Israelis are eager to do the same in their own backyard. And while Osama bin Laden slipped away from his bunker in Tora Bora, the Israelis have their enemy cornered.

So, here we are, halfway into what on paper sounds like a predictable Jerry Bruckheimer flick. You'd think it would end with America opening up the arsenal of democracy for some full-tilt boogie for freedom and justice. You'd certainly expect the Israelis to wipe out the terrorist cells in their country and then, with a jaunty nod, join up with their American friends to finish the job.

However, the Europeans and our own lefties have been shifting in their seats uncomfortably and shaking their heads. They don't like some of the "simplistic" messages in the film. They don't like the "cowboy diplomacy." They don't like the script and, quite frankly, they really don't like America or Israel. And so they're taking over the rewrite.

Their story line is much more "nuanced," their tale much more "complicated." And while it doesn't involve a starving poet discovering his muse by having a bisexual love affair with two anomie-ridden clerks at a used-book store, it's no less typically "European." In their version, the terrorists have "reasons" for what they do. And, you see, if you smoke filterless cigarettes and receive checks from the government for not working, you are more likely to believe that "reasons" and "excuses" are the same thing.

In this new version the villains — like other European icons such as Che Guevara or Fidel Castro — are actually heroes. These heroes challenge the dominant paradigm. They make America look bad. And they trade in the true coin of the realm in the EU — white, post-colonial guilt — and with it buy an unending supply of sympathy.

MORAL STYROFOAM I know that life isn't a movie. But life, like movies, benefits from moral clarity. The war on terrorism began with it and it is now melting away. There is certainly room and reason to be critical of Israel. But, for the most part, the arguments used to denounce Israel and cheer Arafat strike me as little more than moral Styrofoam, holding the form and shape of an argument but actually crushable with very little effort.

Few arguments marry self-righteousness and absurdity so magically as the one that says Israel must be in the wrong because more Palestinians are dying than Jews. "First, there is a number; the number is 1,200 and counting of Palestinians dead. There's a number of Israeli dead, 420…" exclaimed Rashid Khalidi of the University of Chicago on NPR's Talk of the Nation last week. "That is the number of people who have been killed. Now maybe the Arabs are not human. Maybe the fact that Arabs are being killed by Israelis is completely coincidence."

It's not a coincidence, it's the logical consequence of the fact that the Israelis have built a better army than the Arabs have. They did this because Arabs kept attacking Israel, trying to destroy it. Equating every dead Palestinian gunman with every murdered Israeli is absurd. Sure, Israelis kill innocents from time to time. But it isn't intentional. When the Israeli Defense Forces accidentally killed the family of a leading suicide-bomber recruiter, thinking he would be in the car instead, the IDF apologized. Can you imagine Hamas apologizing to a senior Israeli officer when it killed his family? Of course not. Because Hamas aims for the families. When they succeed, they celebrate.

Regardless, it is a tragedy that anyone is dying — but only those who have made guilt a religion, or the sand-poundingly ignorant, would believe we keep score this way. Might may not make right, but that doesn't mean lack of might makes right either.

Germany lost more people in World War II than America did. Does that mean America was wrong and Germany was right? Somali casualty rates were something like 50 to 1 in the "Black Hawk Down" incident. Does that mean the Somalis were 50 times more "right"? Such inverted moral logic is the triumph of guilt over reason. I don't know if cops kill more criminals or criminals kill more cops every year, but either way, I am not confused about who are the good guys and who are the bad.

The Palestinians aren't criminals and they aren't necessarily bad guys. But the people "leading" them, specifically Yasser Arafat, are. They're bad guys. Period.

Which is why the next Styrofoam argument is so intellectually offensive. "How is Yasser Arafat supposed to stop suicide bombers when he's holed up in his compound?" Lord, how many times have one of Arafat's enablers asked some version of this question?

The answer is, "Who cares?" When we put a mob boss in jail, we don't whine to the prosecutor, "How do you expect Don Corleone to be able to stop the Mafia from killing people from jail when he can't even use his cell phone?" This bizarre bending of the moral space-time continuum assumes that it's wrong to punish or constrain evil people who do evil things because it will make it more difficult for them to stop further evil from being done. We put the Holocaust to an end by chasing Hitler into his bunker, not by letting him out and cutting him a check. Similarly, the Israelis have stopped the suicide bombings for the moment, but you can be sure that if Arafat is released, they will begin again.

If this movie is too simplistic for your tastes, walk out to the lobby and smoke a Gauloise with your art-house friends. You'll know when to come back when you hear the applause from the Nobel Prize committee.

Re #4

European left was vehemently against anti-semitism. After all, anti-semitism was the cornerstone of National Socialism and other fascisms. That was the tool to purge ultra-rightists in Europe. At the same time, Israeli/Palestine conflict was viewed by them as anti-imperialist struggle, a fight for "National Liberation". As you said, Arab/Israeli conflict was fashioned a long time ago in late 60's by recruiting likes of Arafat and training them as bona-fide terrorists. The New left of the West embraced this cause with gusto. It has become so much part of them that it couldn't leave their psyche. In Soviet Union, this was perhaps merely an geopolitical exercise. But not in the minds of New Left in the West. Those leftists in the West are more sentimental and unrealistic because they always dream about socialist utopia but never lived in real communist countries. So in their mind, that cause still resonates, which is passed down to the next generation in some water-down fashion. All Nazi's were dead. The cause of anti-semitism is not really useful anymore except to some old lefties like Lionel Jospin.

60's New Left has become many of prime ministers and cabinet members of Europe now. It is clear how they would react. They used to say they were dismayed by actions of European terrorists against Israelis, who participated hijackings of Mogadisheu and Entebbe with Arab terrorists. But they do not seem to be horrified by more viscious suicide bombings. To them, these bombers are like those "little" Vietnamese fighting Yanks.

Ideology tends to be shaped by their defining moments. The New Left's mind is blinded by this link to past history. The New Left put a lot of idelological capital into PLO/Israel conflict. So they want to see their side prevail, oblivious of what the consequence will be.

The Palestinians have no homeland or nation or military so they use homemade bombs and terrorism

The Cajuns have no homeland or nation or military, either. Why is it that they don't "use homemade bombs and terrorism" (a shorter way to say this: "murder innocent people")?

This all must confuse you greatly.

Are the "Palestinians" special in this respect?

Here's an idea: Why not let's view the Palestinians as what they really are, which is: human beings resopnsible for their own damn actions.

the nation of the occupying army,

The Israeli army is "occupying"..... Israel? For shame!

This is not an "excuse" for terrorism. It's the "reason" for it.

I'm glad you know the difference. I was starting to worry. In any event would you kindly tell us why listing this "reason" for murdering innocent people is supposed to be enlightening?

"Reasons" are a dime a dozen. Charles Manson had his "reasons" for inducing impressionable young girls to murder movie stars (he thought it would start a race war and that the blacks would win due to their physical superiority, whereupon they would turn to him for leadership). Hitler had his "reasons" (his views on race and Jews are well documented). The crazy man who stands on the corner shouting obscenities and eating his own feces all day has his "reasons", too (he ain't right in the head and he thinks evil demons are after him).

I don't give a rat's ass about the "reasons" of murderers. They are less interesting to me than the immediately necessity of stopping them from murdering. Get it?

So no, it's really not that "nuanced" or "complicated". Pointing out to us like a bright little schoolkid that Murderers Have "Reasons" For Murdering is not helpful.

Y'see, everyone has "reasons" for doing everything that they do. But so what? You may as well tell us that these guys have blood vessels. Duh.

They're still murderers, and still must be stopped.

[the plight of the Cajuns] Um, because they want to be part of the U.S.

They do? All of them? Are you sure? You speak for all Cajuns, do you?

and we didn't subjugate them with military might?

And what do you reckon our response would be if they started blowing up a bunch of innocent people, hmm?

Honestly, your comparison is laughable.

I'll take your word for it. Personally what I find to be laughable is to make excuses for a bunch of murderers. Or to think that "they have no nation" is to be considered a rational reason to murder a bunch of innocent people.

I will grant you that it is a reason, of course, it's just not a rational one.

[the Israeli army occupying Israel] And where exactly do "Palestinians" come from? Check your history maps.

What's a "history map"? I know both of those words but that phrase has no unambiguous meaning.

The "Palestinians", as I understand it, are people who are not Jews and live in a part of what is now Israel. I don't know about "history maps", but that's what maps say. So any way you slice it, it's silly to object to Israeli security presence IN ISRAEL.

You may as well object to the fact that the U.S. is "occupying" what some people call "Aztlan", the presumed Aztec land. (Actually, some people do... will you side with them too?)

[why "reasons" for murder are important] Oh, I don't know, because I assumed that carefully considering complicated political situations from all angles was supposed to have an "enlightening" effect on the truth. Guess not.

Indeed not. After all "carefully considering complicated political situations from all angles" is such a vague, nebulous phrase that it could mean practically anything. It sure sounds nice and sensitive though, I bet you could get your letter published in Newsweek.

Why don't you get down to specifics. A teenage girl is given a bomb to strap to herself, and then she walks into a restaurant and blows up herself and a bunch of other people minding their own business. Now here's the question:

How many "angles" are there to this situation?

["reasons" irrelevant compared with stopping murderers] Well, gee, how do you stop something if you don't fully understand how it came to be in the first place?

You see a fire in your home, you don't know exactly how it started, but luckily you have a fire extinguisher in your hands. But you don't just use it to put out the fire, because after all, "how do you stop something if you don't fully understand how it came to be in the first place"?

You're alone in the forest and a bear is charging you; you're not sure whether it came from the north or south, but it is almost upon you now. You have a shotgun in your hands, but of course you don't pull the trigger. Why not? "How do you stop something if you don't fully understand how it came to be in the first place?"

Come on, you can't be this dumb.

[They're still murderers, and still must be stopped.]As is the Israeli army.

You don't understand the meaning of the term "murderer", that's the problem. Duh. You apparently lack the necessary tools to distinguish between right and wrong, good guys and bad guys. I can only assume you would call the Allied Powers in WWII "murderers" as well. There is no real way to draw the line.

This moral blindness is precisely the problem Goldberg complains about in this article. Why don't you read it.

I'll go out on a limb and say that most of them do, because if they didn't, they would've collectively kicked up a ruckus when Louisiana became a state and that state came into the Union, comprendez-vous?

Non, je ne comprende pas. I am talking about Cajuns (=people who exist and are alive today). You insist that you know what "they" "would've" done.... back when Louisiana became a state.

Surely you are aware that no Cajuns alive today were around when Louisiana became a state?

So we are back at square one. Apparently you know for a fact that all Cajuns want to be part of the US. The reason you "know" this is reduced to - I can only presume - the evident fact that they don't blow themselves up and murder people in the process. (At least, none of them have yet, as far as I know.)

But this, in turn, appears to operate from the assumption that the most natural reaction in the world to a nationalistic impulse - a desire to have a separate "nation" or "homeland" or whatever - is to strap bombs to oneself in order to murder other people.

But that's just sick. That's not a rational or even tolerable expression of the nationalistic impulse, and ought to be condemned in no uncertain terms. Seriously, don't you know that?

The bayou country has been part of the US for generations, now. Not so with the Palestinians. See the diff?

Yes, the "Palestinians" have been murdering innocent people. Not so with the Cajuns (AFAIK). The difference does not sway my sympathy towards the "Palestinians", as you can imagine.

[I will grant you that it is a reason, of course, it's just not a rational one.] Yes. Vengeance is rarely rational.

Au contraire. Vengeance can be very rational. I don't know what this has to do with some "Palestinian" teenager murdering a bunch of grandmas having Passover dinner. Why was she taking "vengeance" on those grandmas? What did they to do her? Answer: nothing. Conclusion: It sure as heck ain't "vengeance" we're talking about.

And before you throw back some examples of IDF killing certain Palestinians, try to keep in mind that the IDF doesn't try to kill grandmas, whereas killing grandmas is essentially the goal of the suicide bombers. It's a "subtle" and "nuanced" difference, I know....

"History" is a noun. Here it functions as an adjective, a not uncommon construction in English.

Fair enough but it was ambiguous at the time, as I'm sure you can figure out on your own: A "history map", after all, could be a Map Of History, whatever that would mean.

But, since you have difficulty in detecting nuance, I'll say "historical maps".;

Thanks. It's not that I have difficulty detecting "nuance", you see, it's that I have difficulty comprehending English when written as if it is not one's native tongue.

Might makes right, huh?

Well I seem to recall there was a war in 1967 or so. Who started that war, by the way? And who won, now that I mention it?

So please go and consult your History Map. (Not, not a historical map, a Map of History.) Try to see if you can discover a pattern regarding winners and losers of wars. Do winners of wars tend to gain, or to lose, territory?

Ok: The US gov't isn't forcibly "occupying" Phoenix or Santa Fe with the military over a unwilling people. See the diff?

Perhaps I see the difference, but again, you are mysteriously presuming to speak for a large group of people and I don't see how. I'll bet there exist at least some "Aztlan" aficionados, yes some of them in Sante Fe or Phoenix, who do indeed feel "occupied" by a hostile government they would rather be rid of. (I can try to dig up some nasty propaganda sites on the 'net if you insist on pretending to disbelieve this...) So, what of them? Suppose some of them start killing people. You'd pretty much have to remain silent, I gather.

[suicide bombing teenager] Depending on the circumstances, there are anywhere from a "few" to "many". Think about all the different ways to look at this. Go ahead. I promise it won't hurt.

Ok. I did. The girl was wrong and committed evil. The people who gave her the bomb and brainwashed her are evil.

Hmm, sorry, still only adds up to one "angle".

[stopping problems] Once you put out the fire or elude the bear, you definitely should ask yourself, "What caused this in the first place and can I avoid it again?"

Sure. By all means. But, that has simply not happened yet. So, till then.....

Um, I have to ask if the Pali's don't have a nation or homeland, then how can they be occupied. I realise its a nuanced question, but since we are dealing in nuance perhaps not inapproppriate? You do seem to be trying to honestly grapple with the difficulties of this situation but um..you make a few assumptions in your argument that are faulty.

First, it is beneficial to examine root causes, once you have defeated Evil. Clearly to use Germany as an example, the root causes for WWII lay partially in the humiliation of WWI. Why do you think we rebuilt Germany under the Marshall plan? And second, the Evil of building murdering factories is just as perverted as the Evil of Building murdering atomatons out of one's own children, inciting them to hatred so profound they will vaporise themselves since they can take more with them that way. The Western mind cannot wrap itself around those concepts, and we should not.

Now to be fair, perhaps the most just solution to the problem of Europe's collaboration and winking at the destruction of the Jews might have been more justly addressed by carving out a large part of Germany, say and declaring it a homeland for the Jews. But neither the Jews nor the Europeans would have liked that and we could have conceivably created in Europe the situation that is obtained today in the Middle East. Rather than talk about hypothetical situations with the Cajuns, this would have more meaning in the context of history.

So in a way, the establishment of a homeland for the Jews in the historic land of the ancestors was a neat and probably cynical way for Europeans to purge themselves of the guilt over the "Jewish" problem, and to put the issue safely away in a land that no one really knew what to make of, or cared much about. Pretty arrogant and probably one of the "root causes" everyone is wringing their hands over now. That of course, is neither the Israeli's nor the Palestinian's fault, but they both must deal with that reality. It is also part of the cynical fabric of the European response to the Isreal's desperate battle to survive. They simply haven't been able to kick the habit of entreched anti-Semitism and they will only tolerate so much from the Israeli's since they thought they had found the final solution in the old "send them back to where they came from" idea.

Having said that, Clearly there are injustices of a historical nature, such as the displacement of the Palestinians and the Israelis have made a great effort to come to terms with that. The Evil arises from the Palestinian's complete dedication to one end, which is again the destruction of the Jewish state. Keeping one's people poor, maladjusted, propagandised and hopeless fuels that goal. Using your people's own children to kill themselves is perverted. Fighting a just war(boy is that term going to twist your knickers) is not an atrocity, nor is being a "freedom" fighter, if one is willing to lay down one's cell, phone and candle, stop whining to the world and pick up a gun and come out to die oneself. I am a Westerner and I think that way. The Jews want to fight a war to win the right forever to stay where they are now, and accomodate the Palestinians. The Palestinians want to destroy Israel. Clearly innocent people will suffer, and the Israelis will cause some of it, but to label those things atrocities is in itself waaay to nuanced for me.

But moral equivilancy is a very popular horse to bet on now, its just nice to examine some of the "root causes" as to why Europe is being so judgemental now. We being who we are, bumkins and moral absolutists are a bit late to the dance, tho some such as yourself can play the music and make it sound passable. That is the problem with equating the Israeli's actions with the Palestinian's, it lets everyone off the hook except those who live there. Will WWII never end?

regards

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