Too Simple

Is it crying or bleeding? by HamoidWhen I consider an issue, I like to remind myself that everything is complicated, so if it seems simple that means I don't understand it.  When I hear a partisan describe something as if it were simple, I smell propaganda, not confusion.  The Israeli raid on a Gaza borne ship that left nine activists dead is the case in point.  There are so many moving pieces that any analysis will be incomplete, but the best feature insightful details not black and white moralism.

Let's start with the statement that ended Helen Thomas's 50 year career with ignominy.  At an event celebrating Jewish Heritage, Thomas responded to the question "do you have a message for the Jews?" with:

Tell them to get the hell out of Palestine.

"Where should they go?"

 They can go home. Poland, Germany, America and everywhere else.

Jonathon Chait called her statement "morally reprehensible" but "honest anti-Zionism," I just see loudmouth liberalism at its worst.  Israel has increasingly become a liberal bugaboo, replete with comparisons to apartheid, whitewashing of Palestinian complicity and martyr worship of activists like Rachel Corrie.  Thomas, meanwhile, has become a liberal heroine by grandstanding at White House briefings with inane questions like "Mr. President, why do you refuse to respect the wall between the church and state? And you know that the mixing of religion and government for centuries has led to slaughter. I mean, the very fact that a country has stood in good stead by having a separation--why do you break it down?"  

Her last words manage to surpass their immediate repulsiveness after careful consideration.  At best, Thomas literally wishes Israel out of existence, at worst she seems to be riffing on the Holocaust in her reference to Germany and Poland.  What other than the Holocaust can she be referencing in choosing those countries in particular to send the Jews back to? It's appalling and counterproductive that a liberal "icon" would play into the, generally baseless, caricature of liberalism wishing to "wipe Israel off the map."  Partisans of all stripes (remember Glen Beck's dalliance with Erik Massa?) should remember that celebrating kooks who berate the opposition eventually leads to guilt by kooky association.  

On the other hand, Israel's leaders have compounded their heavy handed enforcement of the Gaza embargo with a tone deaf response after it resulted in calamity.  Benjamin Netanyahu's position that the embargo saves Israeli lives is immediately indisputable, but is a penny wise, pound foolish calculation in the long run.  However, his cold description of the passengers on the boat lacks even a smidgen of persuasive nuance.

That was not a love boat. That was a boat of hatred. It was not a peaceful flotilla. The soldiers who boarded the ships were attacked by clubs, batons and knives. They had the weapons kidnapped from them and shot at them,"

He goes on to compare the actions of the passengers to "an attempted lynching."  Without excusing the violence of the passengers, Netanyahu's must account for his government's culpability in setting up the confrontation.  Anthony Cordesman:

No aspect of what happened this week off the coast of Gaza can be blamed on Israeli commandos or the Israel Defense Forces. Israel’s prime minister and defense minister had full warning about the situation, and they knew the flotilla was deliberately designed as a political provocation to capture the attention of the world’s media in the most negative way possible. They personally are responsible for what happened, and they need to show far more care and pragmatism in the future.

Instead of addressing the foolishness of force as the method of dealing with activists seeking international attention for their cause, the Israelis think that video of the commandos being attacked is proof that the raid was justified.  The Israeli ambassador to the US, Michael Oren, doubles down on Netanyahu's Manichean world view by characterizing the entire movement to abolish the embargo as terrorism:

There is little doubt as to the real purpose of the Mavi Marmara’s voyage — not to deliver humanitarian aid to the people of Gaza, but to create a provocation that would put international pressure on Israel to drop the Gaza embargo, and thus allow the flow of seaborne military supplies to Hamas. ... The real intent of breaking the embargo is to allow rockets to be transported to Gaza from Hamas’s suppliers in Syria and Iran.

To support the end of the Gaza embargo is to wish rocket attacks on Israel.  There is no possibility of honest disagreement, only truth and evil.  No wonder then, that hard core Israel supporters in America eventually come to see the Palestinians as subhuman.  John Hinderaker at Powerline demonstrates the the lack of humanity in moral certainty in his discussion of Furkan Dogan, the 19 year old American citizen, killed in the Israeli raid on the flotilla:

As for Dogan, it is reported that he was shot five times at close range, four times in the head. If that is correct, it is reasonable to infer that he was one of those attacking Israeli soldiers with a club, knife or other weapon and was shot in self-defense. 

Instead of horror at a teenager shot four times in the head at close range, Hinderaker actually sees his death as automatic proof of Dogan's guilt.  The very fact that Dogan was killed by the commandos entails that he must have been guilty.  These are the same defenders who think that Israel should stubbornly refuse an international investigation of the tragedy.  What is to investigate anyway?  The Israelis are the good guys, and anyone killed on the boat must have been a radical, a terrorist, an instigator and or a sympathizer.

The raid has ripped the sore off of an infected wound.  A less jaundiced eye would see that while the embargo has become a liability to Israel and its allies, especially the United States and Turkey, lifting it might discredit Fatah and endanger the peace process.  That does not justify extending the embargo indefinitely, but only presents a diplomatic puzzle to solve.  In many ways, that is what Israel has become to the United States.  Our relations are complicated by the extraordinary political pressure the Israelis are capable of wielding, the very real affinity that many Americans feel towards the Jews, but the growing Washington consensus is that Israel has become a strategic liability.  Israel is at the peak of its power in many ways, but if elite opinion turns decisively against the bilateral relationship Israel currently enjoys then it is difficult to imagine the status quo as tenable.  Obama's world view, which employs realism to liberal ends, is fundamentally at odds with maintaining a strategically liable relationship over the long haul.  In Jeffery Goldberg's words: 

I don’t necessarily believe you solve all of America’s problems in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Yemen by freezing settlement growth. On the other hand, there’s no particular reason for Israel to make itself a pain in the tush either.

So, if you support the lifting of the Gaza blockade, don't be a loudmouth who turns off reasonable people.  If you love Israel, then instead of searching for conspiracy in its accusers, advocate for competence in its leaders.

Comments

[jessica]

Israel cannot be compared to any other nation in this world, in that they have been defending their land since 1948. Sure, they have had moments of a calm storm; but they have always lived literally in the midst of surrounding nations that have every desire to expel them from that land and even exterminate them altogether. In the words of an Israeli man i met in Israel, "They want Israel to make PIECE not PEACE". It is a complicated issue with the displacement of many Palestinians; nevertheless, no one is going to protect Israel's interest except for Israel. America will provide security to Israel if it benefits America. I don't think Israel's actions are condoned in simple terms, as put in your own words. The complexity of the situation lies in the fact that Israel is already in a war, and they are a ready people who understand that they cannot afford to play diplomatic games nor can they afford tolerance. In fact, America should begin to adopt a similar military industrial complex. No matter how charismatic President Obama may be, the world is shifting and there is an ideological war that is culminating. Israel is at the forefront. I have been to Israel and have seen first hand how defensive these people live on a daily basis. I trust that they made the right decision in attacking the Turkish flotilla. In war people die, I think we should understand that concept considering the wars we've been in for almost a decade. If Homas and similar terrorist groups are doing Everything in their power to destroy Israel, then military logic would surmise that Israel must to Everything in its power to protect itself.

[Joseph Cox]

This is the logic that leads inexorably to the final war you see in the offing. I don't want to boil down your logic to the subtext, but its hard to avoid seeing Biblical fatalism in: "In fact, America should begin to adopt a similar military industrial complex. No matter how charismatic President Obama may be, the world is shifting and there is an ideological war that is culminating. Israel is at the forefront." What war is that? The war against radical Islam? The end of times? This sort of muscular "realism" begs for a fight like a muscle bound creep pretending that he simply can not abide the look you gave him or the scuff on his shoe.

What exactly did the past decade of active fighting earn us? What were the benefits of trusting that the government had our best interests in mind when they attacked Iraq? Muddling war with security alienated Israel's only close ally in the Muslim world and pushes America away, even though we feel an affinity for them. We don't support Israel because they offer us much of anything, to quote the Cordsman article I linked to:

America’s ties to Israel are not based primarily on U.S. strategic interests. At the best of times, an Israeli government that pursues the path to peace provides some intelligence, some minor advances in military technology, and a potential source of stabilizing military power that could help Arab states like Jordan. Even then, however, any actual Israeli military intervention in an Arab state could prove as destabilizing as beneficial. The fact is that the real motives behind America’s commitment to Israel are moral and ethical. They are a reaction to the horrors of the Holocaust, to the entire history of Western anti-Semitism, and to the United States’ failure to help German and European Jews during the period before it entered World War II. They are a product of the fact that Israel is a democracy that shares virtually all of the same values as the United States.

But how far does the fact that we like Israel stretch? Can we let them drag us into a war we can't afford? Or discredit us with the Muslim world as continue to fight two wars there?

Yes, Israel has been surrounded by unfriendly countries for much of its existence. But less so now than ever. Jordan and Egypt are friendly, though less so on occasions like this, and the Iran nuclear issue makes practically every Arab country amenable to diplomacy- except for that nagging problem of all those Palestinians. To justify any injustice, murder or brutality because of historical grievance reduces the Holocaust, the Six Day War and the Yom Kippur War to tattered get out of jail free cards. Israel should have the moral high ground, it deserves it- but it seems to insist on giving it away.