New at Reason

Julian Sanchez | May 24, 2005

When not taking his cues directly from the Almighty, President Bush sometimes has recourse to mortal political theorists for guidance; Cathy Young took a look at one of his favorites in our May issue.

Comments

|5.24.05 @ 11:59AM|#

Sharansky puts forth a manichean worldview which simply assumes that inherent goodness of the United States. We aren't told to protect our freedom and goodness, but to take them for granted. We are free and good, and therefore anything that promotes our power is a blow for freedom and goodness. This dovetails perfectly with Bush's degenerate version of Calvinist salvation, in which everything he and his "people of faith" want for themselves must be good, since they are by definition good people.

History is full of examples of great powers perpetrating the most horrific atrocities because of such shallow, messianic self-regard.

Jeff|5.24.05 @ 12:09PM|#

This sounds so much like the primacy-of-us dogma that Thomas Sowell ascribed to liberals in Vision of the Annointed. Ah, two-party politics.

|5.24.05 @ 12:33PM|#

Joe, I'm told Sharansky had a four hundred page "repeal the PATRIOT Act or the terrorists win" preface all ready to go, but the publisher cut it to save printing costs.

|5.24.05 @ 2:07PM|#

he argues that the real culprit in the Palestinians' suffering has been the corrupt and despotic Palestinian leadership and that no solution is possible until that changes; he also maintains that repressive Israeli measures must be seen in the context of the threat of terror.

and

Both assertions are to a large extent true.

Yeah, right. The ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians before and after the establishment of Israel was the result of palestinian terror. Cathy, are we in the mood of revisionist history today?


The plan to expel the palestinians and cause their suffereing was long before any palestinian terror. May be you should read Hertzel writings or look at statments made by the likes of Shamir, Ben Gurion, etc. Here is but a small sample :

In 1937, Ben Gurion stated:

The compulsory transfer of Arabs from the valleys of the proposed Jewish state could give us something which we never had, even when we stood on our own feet during the days of the First and Second Temple.

And in a letter to his son, also in 1937, he stated:

We must expel the Arabs and take their places and if we have to use force, to guarantee our own right to settle in those places ­ then we have force at our disposal.

And in early 1948 Ben Gurion wrote in his War Diary,

"During the assault we must be ready to strike the decisive blow; that is, either to destroy the towns or expel its inhabitants so our people can replace them."

|5.24.05 @ 3:35PM|#

a, I believe Young was referring to modern-day events, such as the checkpoints and the Wall.

|5.24.05 @ 3:51PM|#

a - before you start accusing others of revisionist history, perhaps you should put your citations in context.

In 1937, Palestine was in the midst of a full-scale Arab rebellion involving major attacks on Jewish settlements and British garrisons across the region and orchestrated by the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, among others. Ben-Gurion had reached the conclusion that neither peaceful coexistence nor the gradual acquisition by purchase of Arab-owned lands which had been Jewish policy during Ottoman and early Mandate times was going to work, and that forcible occupation and expulsion of Arab populations was the only way to establish a viable Jewish state.

By 1948, it was quite clear that the original 1947 UN partition plan (reluctantly accepted by the Jews, rejected outright by the Arabs) was not going to work in the face of escalating Arab- and Jewish-backed terrorism and the ineffectiveness of British attempts to maintain order. In that case, the Israelis decided to occupy as much defensible ground as possible prior to the May 1948 declaration of independence, because they knew that an invasion by the Arab states would be immediately forthcoming.

Deir Yassin was an inexcusable atrocity, and there's no doubt that the Haganah and the Jewish Central Committee planned for the expulsion of large Arab populations. Mr. Martin's analysis in Counterpunch, however either ignores or minimizes the role of Arab leaders and governments, in particular the al-Husseini family in precipitating this situation. His literalist interpretation of the PLO Charter also does a disservice to historical truth - if we are going to hold Israel accountable for violating human rights, how do we exempt Yassar Arafat for his words and actions throughout the 1960's and 70's?

One-sided pro-Palestinian tracts such as Martin's are as disingenuous as the pro-Israeli rhetoric of the neocon movement. If Israel was founded upon Jewish terrrorism, every Arab state, including the Palestinian Authority rests on terrorist foundations itself. In Israel, opposition voices to government policies can be heard, and at times even listened to; how many Arab states can claim that distinction?

|5.24.05 @ 4:30PM|#

The use of the terms "democracy" and "freedom" as though they were interchangable is becoming tiresome. Those of us who feel one is an end and one is a (possibly necessary but certainly not sufficient) means to that end will be spending many wasted hours writing comments such as this one to commentators who should know better.

|5.24.05 @ 4:46PM|#

Joe:
I believe Young was referring to modern-day events, such as the checkpoints and the Wall.

If that's what she means, she should say so. And in that case, I can claim that Palestinian violence is a response to early ISraeli attrocities.


Mark:

Read the section in Cathy's article that I responded to.
She agreed with Sharansky's statement that Palestinian suffering is either a result of Palestinian corrupt leadership or in Israel being forced to defend against palestinian terror. TThe early statments I quoted and many other from the founders of Zionism/Israel directly contradicts this. Hertzel statements were made years before major jewish immigration to Palestine and many years before the PLO came into existence.

In fact Israeli violence was not limited to Palestinians. Google the King David Hotel bombing in Egypt. The fact that the Israeli government recently honored those who committed this terrorist act speaks volumes.

Chap|5.24.05 @ 4:54PM|#

This speech by John Lewis Gaddis takes Young's analysis a bit further and might be of interest.

|5.25.05 @ 4:45AM|#

Claiming that Palestinian terrorism is response to Israeli atrocities is a little problematic in light of, forgive me for boring everyone, history.

Arab Intifadas, or killings of random Jews by Arab crowds, broke out in 1920, 1929, and 1936, all without Jewish response.

The first case of what can be claimed an Israeli atrocity would be Dier Yassin in 1948, during a war in which the Palestinians were joined by their Aran brethren in an attempt to throw the Jews into the Sea.

So you can claim all Palestinian terrorism is a result of Israeli activities, since this is a free country. But it doesn't make much sense.

|5.25.05 @ 7:34AM|#

a,

Arabs had regular pogroms against Jews for well over 1,000 years. Even when they weren't killing them, they were oppressing them in any number of ways. Of course, Europeans have treated the Jews horribly, as well. If Jews kill a few Arabs and Europeans, well, it's just a drop in the bucket compared to all of the Jewish blood shed throughout history.

|5.25.05 @ 10:06AM|#

Every butcher sharpening his bayonette has a story like that, Real Bill. You sound like a Serb militiaman talking about Muslims.

|5.25.05 @ 10:13AM|#

The first case of what can be claimed an Israeli atrocity would be Dier Yassin in 1948,

You might want to search for the terms "Irgun," "Stern Gang," and "Hagana" before making this silly claim. You might want to search for the "wanted" poster the British had for Shamir and Begin.

|5.25.05 @ 5:35PM|#

Hagana, looks to me like a defensive response to attacks by Arabs, as a previous poster noted.

It is interesting, though, that the Stern Gang wanted to alley itself with Nazi Germany.

|5.25.05 @ 5:40PM|#

Arab Intifadas, or killings of random Jews by Arab crowds, broke out in 1920, 1929, and 1936, all without Jewish response.

It seems the Jewish response was to form defensive militias, which later had terrorist splinter organizations. However, the Jewish terror orgs were short lived and much less active than their Arab counterparts (not to mention, a reaction to the terror initiated by the Arabs). It is understandable why a didn't link to "Hagana", it would undercut his argument.