The thinly veiled anti-Zionism of Stephen Walt

Stephen Walt is at it again. Writing in Foreign Policy magazine, his new essay, Treason of the Hawks, Walt, as he did in his book co-written with John Mearsheimer, The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy, blames Israel, and only Israel, for the failure to achieve a peace agreement with the Palestinians, and then bizarrely implies that his vitriolic attacks on the Jewish state is undertaken as an act of concern for its future. He then contrasts this "love" with what he audaciously refers to as the "betrayal" committed by Zionists, such as Prime Minister Netanyahu and Israel's supporters in the West who, he implies, are so war hungry that they fail to seize the opportunity to achieve a two-state solution - the only solution that would secure Israel's long-term survival.


First, here's a good reply to Walt's piece in Commentary Magazine.

http://www.commentarymagazine.com/blogs/index.php/tobin/64101

Now, a few of my own thoughts.

1. In order to advance this narrative of Zionists as pro-war and rejectionist, Walt minimizes the threat Israel faces from Iran, implying that fears of Iranian nukes are an intentional over-reaction...simply meant to provide rhetorical cover for Israel's hawkishness. He bizarrely quotes Richard Cohen as evidence that Iran's intentions towards Jews are benign, and is just implies that Ahmadinejad's repeated threats to wipe Israel off the map have been mistranslated. In fact, Ahmadinejad has been quoted dozens of times repeating some version of this threat - statements that are on record. Further, Ahmadinejad addressed the UN last year and advanced a classical anti-Semitic conspiracy theory that Zionists (i.e., Jews) control the world's financial markets, and the policies of most Western governments. He is anti-Semitic to the core, and for Walt to simply say that he has made "foolish remarks about the Holocaust" and leave it at that is incredibly naive or dishonest. Ahmadinejad didn't just make foolish remarks, he knows that casting doubt on the Holocaust can serve to legitimize his hostility towards Jews. After all, implicit in any Holocaust denial is the charge that Jews have acted conspiratorially to create this "fiction" in the minds of most people.

2. He also erroneously casts doubt on Israelis confidence in the Zionist Ideal, ignoring surveys year after year that show Israelis to be among the most patriotic citizens in the world (the number of Israelis who express love of country and a willingness to die for their country is even higher than that of Americans.) The fact that Walt quoted Ian Lustick is pretty telling - Lustick is a leftist Penn professor known for his hyper-critical essays about Israel. Here's an article about that survey I mentioned, which shows them to be the most patriotic nation in the West.

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull&cid=1137605866664

3. The greatest weakness, however, is how puts all the onus of making peace on Israel - assuming that if Israel simply wants peace it will happen - and ignores that there has been a consensus within Israel about a 2 state solution since the 90's. In fact, most Israelis are skeptical of the possibility of a peace agreement because of what happened when the left S. Lebanon and Gaza and what the result of such unilateral withdraws portends for any subsequent withdraw from the West Bank. I honestly don't know how Walt can write a long essay about "peace" w/o even once mentioning Hamas - both in terms of what they've created in Gaza, and in terms of the possibility that they could eventually seize control of the W. Bank after an Israeli withdraw. Indeed, I think the biggest problem the anti-Israel crowd makes is to ignore the Palestinians all together in their narrative, as if how they behave now, and how they will behave politically if Israel gives them a state, is not a huge factor to be considered.

I've supported the idea of a two-state solution for some time, but, like many Zionists, am increasingly skeptical of the Palestinians capacity for responsible self-government. While the status quo (Israel continuing to occupy the W. Bank) is a horrible situation, the possible alternative (another hostile Islamist regime bordering them on the East) could be much, much worse. And, as politics is often about the lesser of two evils, I think that the status quo is the lesser of the two evils.

(Finally, he's simply wrong to imply that Abe Foxman, and the rest of the organized community, doesn't support the peace process and the idea of a two-state solution. They always have, and continue to do so.)

My Editorial in today's Jewish Exponent

What Are They Really Asking When It Comes to Israeli Survival?

April 23, 2009

Adam Levick

Adam Levick

Jewish participation in the anti-Israel movement was front and center last month when a small Jewish group demonstrated against the Israeli "occupation" outside the opening night gala of the Philadelphia Israeli Film Festival.

As the world watches the bizarre moral inversion taking place in Geneva -- in which participants from the worst human-rights violators in the world vilify the liberal, democratic State of Israel at the international conference on racism called Durban II -- the sad phenomenon of Jewish participation in the anti-Israel movement takes on greater concern.

While such groups tend to be small, within the progressive Philadelphia Jewish community exists a sizable number of people who continue to advance a view of Israel's conflict with the Palestinians that is at best monolithic and at worst fully demonizes the Jewish state.

Such views -- which typically reduce democratic Israel to a cartoon villain and Palestinians to eternal victims without a hint of moral agency -- find expression in a variety of ways. They include Jewish participation in anti-Israel protests by far-left extremists; representation on anti-Zionist blogs like Phillip Weiss' Mondoweiss.com; and in openly anti-Zionist groups like the International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network, as well as in such benign-sounding local grass-roots organizations like Philadelphia Jews for a Just Peace and Bubbies & Zaydes for Peace in the Middle East.

While these individuals and groups often differ in their degree of radicalism, they are united in a belief that Israeli control of Palestinian territory following the Six-Day War in 1967 was and is at the root of terrorism and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and that, absent such occupation, peace would be achieved.

Yet such a view ignores the facts that contradict this claim -- namely, Israel's unilateral withdrawal from Southern Lebanon in 2000 and from Gaza in 2005.

In both cases, such moves only emboldened radical Islamist movements -- Hezbollah and Hamas, respectively -- which quickly filled the geographical and political void. In fact, they used their new territory to launch missiles at Israeli towns, abduct Israeli soldiers, and murder Palestinian and Lebanese civilians who didn't support their aims.

These Jews who routinely denounce Israel are strangely silent on the role of such radical groups in fomenting hatred, igniting war and preventing a resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict they supposedly seek.

The rhetoric used by such Jewish groups makes it clear that they're not content simply to make a rational case for Israel to withdraw from the West Bank as the basis for a peaceful two-state solution. Rather, they are intent on fully delegitimizing the Jewish state -- by suggesting, for instance, that Israel is an apartheid regime, and often insinuating that it is an inherently racist one.

Instead of a point-by-point rebuttal of these outrageous charges, consider this:

· You condemn Israel for building a security barrier to protect its citizens from suicide bombers and for striking at buildings from which missiles are launched at its cities, but you never offer an alternative. Aren't you practicing your own form of racism by denying an entire society the right to defend itself?

· Do Palestinians in the West Bank suffer as a result of occupation? Yes, they do. But can you deny that Palestinians in Hamas-controlled Gaza, who have been used as human shields, and who have suffered torture and extra-judicial killings as punishment for their disloyalty to the Hamas regime suffer far worse? Israeli society isn't perfect, but by any yardstick -- educational, economic, gay rights, women's rights, freedom of speech and assembly, legislative representation -- Israel's minorities fare far better than any other country in the Middle East.

· If you're really committed to a better world, why do you insist on using such incendiary and hyperbolic rhetoric? Vilification and vitriol is a blind alley that takes us nowhere. Your radicalism undermines the forces for peace in Israel and in the Palestinian territories. Many well-meaning people are working toward an agreement that recognizes the rights of both parties.

Finally, what would you say if your illusions about peace were shattered by the grim reality of implacable enemies who seek nothing less than the complete annihilation of the world's only Jewish state? Is there anything that Israeli Jews can do (absent national suicide) that will convince you that they are worth defending -- that standing up and unapologetically defending the rights of a tiny minority to live in peace is consistent with your most cherished, progressive ideals?

Adam Levick, a resident of Philadelphia, worked for the Anti-Defamation League's regional and national offices. He plans to make aliyah in May.

Warrior Jews, not Worrier Jews

This article by Gil Troy sums up much of my thinking about the moral elitism that many well-meaning American Jews especially, but not exclusively, in NYC suffer. At its heart is a stubborn refusal to acknowledge that no amount of Israeli good will or sechel (intellect) - of which, these Jews see themselves as possessing in massive quantities - by Israel's leaders can magically bring peace to the Jewish state, and that, as Troy states, is has become un-pc to..

"acknowledge [in regards to Hamas, Hezbollah, and other radical groups] that we are dealing with a different culture and a murderous ideology,"

an ideology, it should be pointed out, that doesn't share our assumptions about tolerance, pluralism, and peace.

But, Troy is also making a broader point about a Western Jewish world that has become so well-off, and lives in such freedom, comfort, and safety in the nations where they reside, that they have lost the sense of what it means to have to struggle for your existence, to have to take up arms and fight for your life, your family, your community, your nation, the right to live freely as Jews in a world (and certainly a part of the world) that is still hostile to such modest aims.

No matter how openly hostile Israel's enemies are to their existence, no matter how serious and complex the myriad of threats that they face are, such a disconnect results in an inability to empathize with such fears - the very real concerns of Jews whose lives aren't as easy as theirs.

Still, many of these Jews insist, they do indeed feel bad about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, do spend countless hours worrying about it, decrying the violence, and hoping for a resolution, to which Troy stresses,

"We need warrior Jews, not worrier Jews. Israelis should justifiably say: “don’t cry for us New York Jewry (and elsewhere). Our State, for all its challenges, is thriving. Our neighbors – and the world – need fixing.”

Further examining Naif Al-Mutawa's essay

Naif Al-Mutawa's central point, in his essay, The Many Shapes of Extremism (see published reply in my last post), is here:

"My intent was to advance the notion that extremism is nothing more than a bunch of neurotransmitters working overtime - or perhaps under time. It is not Islam or Judaism or Hinduism that creates extremism; rather, some people are predisposed to extremism and will pursue it in any faith."

Al-Mutawa may be correct to some extent. I'm sure certain individuals are indeed naturally (even, perhaps, biologically) more predisposed to extremism than others, just like some people are more predisposed to abusing drugs or alcohol. But, as with alcohol abuse, we wouldn't deny an element of choice involved in the behavior would we? Further, if certain cultures have a higher degree of alcoholism than other cultures it would be reasonable to ask why...what are the cultural and ethical norms that may contribute to this disparity. Naif Al-Mutawa refuses to acknowledge or address the fact that (while, again, the overwhelming majority of Muslims are not extremists), violent extremist acts are, when movtivated by religion, far more likely to be carried out by Muslims than by non-Muslims (Christians, Jews, Budhists, Hindus, etc.)

The point isn't to demonize Muslims but, rather, to make the point, as other writers have observed, that as extremism in our day is to a large degree a radical Islamic phenomena, it is incumbant for the Muslim community to acknowledge this problem, examine it closely, figure out the religious/cultural factors influencing such aborant behavior, and stop insisting (contrary to all the evidence) that other religions are also plagued with the same degree of extremism, and for the moderate forces in their community to do ideological battle with the extremists in their midsts...to win hearts and minds for an Islam in the future not compromised such radicalism.

Here's my reply, published in today's Philadelphia Inquirer, to an op-ed by Naif al-Mutawa.

Here's his op-ed:

http://www.philly.com/inquirer/opinion/42654992.html

And my reply:

http://www.philly.com/inquirer/opinion/42947647.html?page=2&c=y

Text below:

Naif al-Mutawa's op-ed ("The many shapes of extremism," April 8) advances the erroneous notion that extremism is equally distributed among the three major faiths.

While it is important to stress that the overwhelming majority of Muslims are not terrorists, the overwhelming majority of terrorist acts - according to data published online by the National Counter-Terrorism Center - committed by those inspired by religion are indeed (Sunni) Muslim.

While I understand that many well-meaning Americans would cringe at the suggestion that terrorists are far more likely to be Muslim than Jew, or Christian, the problem with extremism in our time is the radical, violent manifestations of specific faith traditions. Empirical data should never take a back seat to feel-good assumptions and platitudes.

At stake isn't merely the intrinsic value of truth and accuracy but, more specifically, the broader truism that we can't rally the civilized world to win a war - militarily or morally - against an enemy that we're not allowed to name.

Adam Levick