Posted on 11/13/2002 4:24:46 AM PST by SJackson
Why does the left support the Palestinians against Israel?
The question is rarely asked. It is simply taken for granted that the left -- Europe, the Western news media, the universities, the liberal churches, the arts world -- supports the Palestinians and the larger Arab/Muslim worlds in their war against Israel.
But the question does need to be asked. For it is completely inconsistent with the left's professed values to side with Israel's enemies. Just about every value the left claims to uphold Israel upholds and its enemies do not.
The left speaks about its passion for democracy ("power to the people"). Yet it is Israel that is a fully functioning democracy, as opposed to all of its Arab and Muslim enemies. Yasser Arafat is precisely the self-aggrandizing, corrupt dictator-type that the left claims to hold in contempt.
The left claims to have particular concern for women's rights. Yet it is Israel that has as highly developed a feminist movement as that of any Western country. It is Israel that conscripted women into its armed forces before almost any Western country. At the same time, the state of women's rights among Israel's Muslim enemies is perhaps the lowest in the world.
The left's greatest current preoccupation is with gay rights. Yet it is Israel that has annual gay pride days, while Egypt and other Arab and Muslim countries arrest homosexuals.
It is Israel that has an independent and highly liberal judiciary. It is Israel that has a leftist press. It is Israel that has been governed more by leftist, even socialist, parties than by rightist ones. Israel's enemies have none of this.
So, why isn't the left out there leading pro-Israel demonstrations?
The answer is as important as it is contemptible.
In general, the left does not care about women, independent judiciaries, minorities, democracy, gays or almost anything else for which it marches. That is why the left opposed America's war in Afghanistan, which liberated women from being treated like animals.
Nearly all the causes the left speaks for are noble-sounding covers for its real agenda -- the overthrowing of Western, especially Judeo-Christian and capitalist, values. Remember the chant at Stanford, "Hey, hey, ho ho, Western civ has got to go"? That is what animates the left.
In psychoanalytic terms, it is antagonism to one's father and his values. In a commencement speech he gave this year, the former president of Dartmouth College, James O. Freedman, a man of the left, said that the purpose of a college education is "to question your father's values." Those of us not on the left believe that the purpose of a college education is to discover what is true and what is good.
America embodies all that the left dislikes. It is the most religious of the industrialized democracies (proudly and uniquely Judeo-Christian). It is also the most capitalist. And, what drives the left especially crazy is that with all this religion and capitalism, America is the most powerful force on earth -- economically, militarily and culturally.
Israel is Little America. It, too, is religious (though a secular state like the United States, it is proudly Jewish). It, too, celebrates capitalism. There are no demonstrations in Israel against McDonald's. On the contrary, even before McDonald's opened there, Hebrew replicas like "McDavid's" were established.
And Israel, like America, celebrates its national identity, not the "world" identity that the left affirms. The left loathes nationalism unless it is anti-Western, like Palestinian or Cuban. America does not jump to attention when world treaties are signed and Israel is the U.N.'s pariah, rendering America and Israel the left's "axis of evil," far more reviled than Iran, Iraq and North Korea.
The question, "Why does the left support the Palestinians?" is an extremely important one. At this time in history nothing so illustrates the left's nihilism as does its support of the Palestinians against Israel.
Since Jesus as the Messiah came out of Israel and the Bible shows how repeatedly the Jews were being pushed into near extinction except by divine intervention, then I think the evil demonic powers that were at work to destroy Israel back then is still currently at work in the world today through these 'leftist' types.
"the left does not care about women, independent judiciaries, minorities, democracy, gays or almost anything else for which it marches.The left also does not care about truth, liberty, freedom of speech, open-mindedness, freedom of inquiry, or liberalism. In fact, "Liberals" are contemptuous of such things.
"Nearly all the causes the left speaks for are noble-sounding covers for its real agenda -- the overthrowing of Western, especially Judeo-Christian and capitalist, values."And in the Information Age--thanks to the internet, talk radio, et al.--people are able to see through this facade and understand exactly what's going on.
"In psychoanalytic terms, it is antagonism to one's father and his values."This sounds like gobbledegook psychobabble, but think about it. The left is xenophilic. It hates the familiar and embraces the exotic, especially the bizarre. This is a denunciation and rejection of the establishment, established values, and, notably, "the patriarchy".
"Those of us not on the left believe that the purpose of a college education is to discover what is true and what is good."To the left, the purpose is indoctrination. "Liberals" do not want free speech and free inquiry. They want madrassas.
"America embodies all that the left dislikes. It is the most religious of the industrialized democracies (proudly and uniquely Judeo-Christian). It is also the most capitalist."And, what drives the left especially crazy is that because of all this religion and capitalism, America is the most powerful force on earth -- economically, militarily and culturally.
"Israel is Little America."Yes. Israel is an outpost of Western Civilization.
This is the reason for the strong support of Israel in the American Heartland.
It is not--as "Liberals" would love to have everyone believe--because of some spooky prophesy or because Christians are determined to convert the Jews or some such nonsense. That has nothing to do with it.
It is because the people of the American Heartland--Bush country--love America; love Western Civilization; and see Israel as an outpost of Western Civilization besieged by backward, benighted, determined, and dangerous enemies--enemies that have also attacked America and would, if they could, destroy not only Israel but America and all of Western Civilization.
This is why the Heartland supports Israel.
I had a "discussion" with a co-worker a few months back who insisted that the poor Palestinians had no choice but to blow up women and children because Israel was practicing genocide. He could not give one example, just kept repeating that phrase over and over. It actually gave me the kreeps.
Becki
BINGO!
So, why isn't the left out there leading pro-Israel demonstrations?Because Israel embraces free markets, and what the left derides as "capitalism", and rejects the tenets of Marxism or of Marx's competitor Baukunin. The left cares about that more. Unfortunately, too many American Jews seem to as well. They dance with the devil.
It is all about planned economies and "from each accoring to his ability, to each according to his needs".
Actually, I disagree. What animates leftists is power and the ability to exercise that power. The assault on Western civilization is primarily motivated by the understanding that the values of the West with respect to politica and economic liberty provide the world's best, if not its only, check upon the absolute power to which they aspire. Oh, many leftists believe the Marxist-Leninist claptrap, but the ones who end up wielding power in Marxist states are those to whom Power, not dialectical historical materialism, is the One True God.
His attempts to treat the opponents arguments as dishonenst instead of simply wrong are bad enough. Treating them as cover for psychological disorder is disgraceful. It's the worst - typical of the communists. He certainly knows better.
The irony is that Israel was initially established as a socialist state with collective farms (kibbutzim). The collective farms are probably a thing of the past though I am not certain of this. I am not sure just how capitalist Israel is, even now.
In the first half of the 20th century plus perhaps another couple of decades, it was very common for European Jews to be strongly represented in the vanguard of the hard left. This was true both in Europe and in the U.S. Anyone who reads the history of the communist party in the U.S. will be struck by this.
It simply is not entirely clear to me, even now, how Jews fell so out of favor with world leftism when so many were such strong supporters of it for so long. I still find this puzzling, and this article is only a partial explanation.
While everything Prager says about the Left is true, the reasons he gives do not explain why some on the extreme right share the Left's loathing of Israel. Does anti-Americanism and hatred of capitalism explain Pat Buchanan's hatred of Israel? I don't think so.
I agree with the poster who said there was a spiritual dimension at work. I used to think the Left behaved the way it did because they embrace nihilism instead of truth. But if nihilism was the answer, the law of averages would dictate that the Left would side with truth, justice and goodness at least occasionally, just as a broken clock is right twice a day.
But this doesn't seem to be the case. The Left always sides with the totalitarian regimes. It doesn't matter whether the rulers are hostile to religion (Communists), indifferent to religion (psychotic dictators like Hussein, Mugabe et al.) or religious fanatics (Islamic fundamentalists or ayatollahs). The Left only turns against a brutal totalitarian regime when it attacks another similar regime. The true believers on the Left were not troubled by the Soviet Union's insidious non-aggression with Nazi Germany. They were nonplussed and outraged only when the Nazis violated the agreement.
If the Soviets had not sided with the Allies, the Left would have sided with Fr. Coghlin and the America Firsters of the 1930s, just as the Nation and Justin Raimondo today find themselves in total agreement with Pat Buchanan and the fringe conservatives on the War with Iraq. Strange bedfellows? On the surface yes, but deep down, not at all.
The elephant in the room Prager didn't mention is that the Arabs in the Middle East are as rabidly anti-Semitic as the Nazis. The only reason the Arabs haven't taken their hatred to the level of pogroms and extermination camps is because Israel's military stops them.
Anti-semitism is the glue that unites the loony left and the fringe right on this issue. Anti-Semitism is not a political position, but rather a symptom of a spiritual disease. More precisely, it is the metaphysical refuse of a depraved soul.
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