The Morally-Challenged Liberal Left
Always and forever on the search for a victim to champion and for whose cause they may raise their voices in righteous indignation the intellectual left has embraced the Palestinian cause as their newly-beloved. They have deliberately blind-sided themselves to the simple fact that not only is there always two sides to every story, sometimes the story itself has been irretrievably canted toward dissembling and distortion to prove a point, one which is not necessarily reflected in reality.Support of "the Palestinian cause" has become the new rallying cry of university students in the Western world, from Europe to North America and beyond. Critical historical truths and real events are simply not an issue here, not to be examined in the round in an attempt to fully understand the manner in which events have been played out, leading to the current situation; an impasse between two peoples, revolving around land ownership.
The legality of the presence of the State of Israel is incontrovertible, yet the ardent and closed argument of historically aggrieved Palestinians - for whom nothing has ever seemed to advantage them; before the creation of the State of Israel, when statehood was withheld from them by their religious compatriots; and after Israel's birth when they rejected the UN-directed division of geography - is now universally championed.
The most outrageously false claims of deliberate Israeli human rights abuses against the Palestinians are taken as fact. There seems no need to ever validate these claims; if they're issued as fact, they're taken as solid accusations stemming from reality. The more egregious the claims of Israeli brutality, neglect and discrimination, the more believable, for Jews have become once again, the universal outsider, the despised 'other', capable of the most odious acts.
Characterizing themselves as victims of oppression, of an apartheid state determined to cleanse the geography of their presence - to ensure that they remain forever landless, impoverished - enlistment of support in the leftist West finds a ready and supportive audience.
One university after another accedes to the demand that their auspices be given to a collaborative denunciation of a fascist state.
Yet by any criteria, Israel is anything but. Alone in the Middle East, Israel stands as a beacon of freedom, an economic, cultural, political success. Its health-care facilities and universities are second to none. Its scientists and technological advancements are the envy of the world. Its economy is booming, it has a free judiciary designed to counter any vestiges of moral or ethical slippage, along with a free press instantly on the alert for skulduggery.
There is no questioning of the legitimacy of the positions taken by the Palestinian Authority, that legislative political body purporting to be involved in advancing the interests of Palestinians, but which has, time and again, looted its Western-availed treasury, and which has deliberately failed, time and again, to responsibly and honestly seek a just solution for peace.
Israel cannot be supported, it would appear, by the intellectual left, because she is, quite obviously not in need of support as a pathetic underdog. She has presented, through hard work, integrity and determination, as a success in every yardstick of measurable political, economic and social advancement for her people - all her people, Jewish, Muslim, Christian, equally under the law of the land.
And succumbing to the usual fall-backs of anti-Semitism in response to society's jaundiced vision of a religious, ethnic group for whom failure has never been an option in a largely hostile world, offers the relief of racially-inspired resentment for that success.
Labels: Anti-Semitism
posted by Pieface @ Sunday, February 24, 2008
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