« I Think I'm in Love | Main | Standards of Victory »
August 15, 2006
Exactly Backwards
Nadim Shehadi, in an editorial in Ha'aretz (hat tip: Pajamas Media), is completely off-base:
What is the logic that will emerge from this war? If Israel can exist only by destroying the neighborhood, then it's time to declare it a failed state. The Zionist dream has turned into a nightmare and is not viable. If the future holds more of the same, then the time has come to reconsider the whole project. Every state has a duty to defend its citizens, but also it has a duty to provide them with security and the two are different. The prospects are for more destruction, fanaticism, violence and hatred. No unilateral separation can isolate Israel from this, nor can the region or the world live with the consequences. This seems to be the only choice, and Israel must do itself and others a favor and go away.
This is yet another example of twisting terms out of all meaning for political ends. The term "failed state" specifically is used to refer to a state (that is, the government of a country) which is unable to govern its nation (that is, the people and territory). This is clearly not the case with Israel. Indeed, if this were the standard to be applied, that conflict with neighbors invalidates a state, then almost every state must have been a failed state for most of its existence. That clearly makes no sense.
No, it is the rest of the paragraph that sets out Shehadi's true political agenda: Israel's only legitimate option, per Shehadi, is to cease to exist. Again, he turns language on its head: "Every state has a duty to defend its citizens, but also it has a duty to provide them with security and the two are different." And so, of course, per Shehadi, any state that has enemies determined to kill it has already failed — indeed cannot but fail, as any conflict invalidates the state. Having enemies is in and of itself, Shehadi implies, sufficient to make a state "failed", unless that state can unilaterally solve the problem of its enemies (without, apparently, fighting them, as that would clearly involve "more destruction, fanaticism, violence and hatred"). Of course, Shehadi only applies this standard to Israel, and ignores the obviously failed state (in real terms) of Lebanon, the pseudo-states of Hizb'allah and Palestine which have also obviously failed, and much of Africa and southern Asia. Indeed, Shehadi describes Lebanon as "resiliant". No, it is only Israel who must disband because of her enemies. Asking the Jews to politely lay down their arms and accept slaughter, slavery or another millennia of stateless wandering strikes me as somewhat unrealistic, as well as morally abominable.
How this is "do[ing] itself ... a favor" is unclear to me, and I suspect to most Israelis. The editorial continues to go downhill from there, such as by admitting that there was deliberate targeting of civilians, but that it was by Israel. On the matter of Hizb'allah, Hamas and so on targeting civilians deliberately, and on their hiding among civilians in order to ensure civilian casualties should Israel respond to the terrorists' increasingly violent attacks, Shehadi is silent. Near the end, Shehadi delivers his verdict: "If the fundamental moral logic is flawed, then it is time to give up, pack up and go."
He's right, of course, about the consequences of flawed moral logic. He's just utterly, irredeemably wrong about morality and logic. It is not Israel, but Israel's enemies, that should knock it off. And that includes, apparently, Shehadi.
Trackback Pings
TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.caerdroia.org/MT/mt-tb.cgi/1148