Israel's Weakness
by Jorge Vargas
No one living in this world with a basic knowledge of history and politics is unaware of the fact that humans are extreme-minded creatures by nature. There are extremists when it comes to the environment, when it comes to politics, when it comes to patriotism, when it comes to war, when it comes to peace.
Not all extremism is bad either. Some individuals are extremist believers in peace, for instance. These pacifists believe that no one should bear arms and that all conflict should be resolved by communication - if only we humans could genuinely hold ourselves to such a maxim. Well, that would put this writer out of business: What extremism could I then criticize and unmask?
Today, let us criticize and unmask, openly and without any reservation, the extremism that is prevalent in the so-called Holy Land of Israel. In the land where Jesus Christ was born, crucified, and buried, and where he rose again to join his Father in Heaven. In the land where Muhammad made his miraculous "night journey," and which was subsequently inhabited by Muslims for centuries. In the land where God supposedly promised safe-haven for the Jews.
Israel is a nation of great history - no one can deny this - but history is what gives it its greatest problem.
Whereas history can be a source of strength and pride for some nations - Bolivia, China, Egypt, France, Great Britain, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Peru, Spain, and the United States - it can be a source of conflict and arrogance for others - never will I forget visiting the Alhambra in Spain and, as everyone else marveled, an Israeli tourist commented to another: 'This is so unimpressive, we have houses that were built thousands of years before this thing.' I am not Spanish, but I can recognize arrogance when I hear it.
Now if that were the only source of arrogance I've ever heard, fine. Maybe Israel is not too taken by its own history. Maybe Israel is humble.
Even a blind person can see the arrogance in a nation that was created by treaties and which lays claim to land for self-interested purposes and without regard for human life based on fairy tales from thousands of years ago.
But then, nations use all sorts of excuses to advance national interests. France does it, Spain does it. Even tiny Bolivia does it, to say nothing of China and Russia and the United States.
There is a key difference, however. Whether they want to or not and whether they actually do or not, those nations at the very least put on the facade that they care about people different from themselves. To be more specific: In Israel, comparing the importance of Israeli Jews and Israeli Arabs would be akin to comparing the importance of humans to mice. And there is not even the slightest effort to conceal it.
So what to do? What to do when a nation has grown so powerful that it launches abusive attacks against her neighbors without any regard for human life? What to do when a nation subjugates and walls-in an entire segment of her population and steals land from that segment without any regard for international norms and standards?
Sure, they can blame the Iranians and the Syrians and the Egyptians and the Saudis for many crimes committed by their governments, but to be frank: Israel has broken more treaties than all four of those nations combined. Why?
Until very recently, international law was controlled not by the bureaucrats in The Hague but rather by the politicians, and the bureaucrats, in the capitals of the major Western powers. Western powers that are all, without exception, liable to one very powerful emotion: Guilt.
Guilt for the genocide that killed millions of Jews in the German death camps. Guilt for the fact that the West ignored these atrocities and only fought the Germans for political reasons: Germany invades Poland; balance of power shifts dangerously; Britain and France declare war on Germany; Japan attacks the US; the US declares war on Germany and Japan. No one cared about the Jews when these decisions were made and any argument against that fact is founded on a deep ignorance of the real history of that global conflict.
That guilt then forced upon the Europeans and the United States a key decision: What do we do for the Jews now?
Give them a country, of course.
But where?
Some said that they could give the Jews a part of Argentina but the South Americans railed against this because they knew precisely what a Jewish country would do amongst Catholic nations. And the Jews wanted something better than the Argentine countryside, something more meaningful: Israel.
So the British handed Israel over to the Zionist movement and the Zionist movement controlled Israel, radically at first but then with greater care. And Israel's Arab neighbors did little to help the situation by launching irresponsible war after irresponsible war against the Israelis who were already making a career of gaining pity from the world.
But it appears as if those days are over.
It is difficult to feel pity for a nation that willingly invades her neighbors and that openly targets civilians and that once had the audacity to open fire on a United Nations refugee camp. It is difficult to feel pity for a nation that labels the Palestinians as terrorists but which then refuses to take serious actions against the settlers that the Israeli government itself is paying to send into Palestinian territories. It is difficult to feel pity when these settlers are attacked by Palestinian terrorists if you know that the settlers are mostly extremist Zionists who carry firearms with them and openly insult and attack Palestinian civilians and, at times, murder Palestinian civilians with little, if any, punishment from the State.
And it is particularly difficult to feel pity when no harm was committed that the Israelis have not themselves committed thrice over. The world ignored them, yes, but, with the exception of the Germans, the world did not openly kill and harass them, and take their lands and refuse to grant them the right to return. The world, with the exception of the Germans, never invaded their territory and burned their cities.
The French, the British, the Spaniards, the Portuguese, and the Dutch have no reason to feel guilty. Neither do the United States or the countries of Iberian America. None of us committed any wrongs.
Should we remember those atrocities committed by the Germans?
Yes, of course. Without question.
Should we let those memories make us blind to the atrocities being committed by the Israelis in the name of extremism and which were only on September 27, 2008 recognized by the soon-to-step-down Israeli Prime Minister Olmert?
Definitely not. Without question.
Responsible nations and responsible governments must recognize that there are two key problems in the Middle East. One of them is oil, and it is a problem that is decreasing as the responsible nations of the planet - especially the Europeans - utilize different, cleaner sources of energy.
The other is Israel. Not the question of Israeli nationhood, not the question of the, until recently, unquestioning U.S. support for Israel, not the question of the Palestinian territories and the Palestinian right of return. Just Israel.
Israel has become a problem for the Middle East and, therefore, to the world because of its roguish behavior and, above all, because of its complete disdain for human rights and its unwavering defense of those extremists who continue to kill and threaten Palestinians and those few, brave Israelis who take a stand in defense of the Palestinians (and, therefore, in direct opposition to the excesses of an Israeli government that has too often resorted to the tired refrain of 'You did this to us in the 1940s, so now you need to help us.').
That is the weakness of Israel: Its reliance on a tragedy that occurred over sixty years ago.
The strength of Israel is found in those few, those precious few, who are willing to take a stand for responsible citizenship in the global community, for the respect of human rights by supporting an end to the abuses being carried out by the Israeli Defense Forces and the violation of human rights that is found in the fact that Israel openly impedes the free movement of peoples within their sovereign territory.
They are the strength of Israel and it is only with those people, with those good, humble, kind Israelies who are not frightened to take a stand for the unpopular option of respecting human dignity, that the nation of Israel will save itself from the sanctions that the nations of Europe, the Middle East, and Latin America would gladly impose on Israel once the United States finally opens her eyes and recognizes that Israel is a global problem and a rogue state.
To Israel: Beware, public opinion in the United States is turning against Israel. The Americans were never great ones for guilt, much less so if they never committed the crime.
To the Palestinians: Do not feel abandoned below the boots of the oppressor, for the world is watching and waiting for the lord of your abuser - for the United States - to finally say 'enough,' and when that moment comes, you will receive as much assistance as can be given so that when the world remembers how brutally you were treated and how ruthlessly your land was stolen from you, we will all look at one another and say, "Never again."
Never again. To put it into a sentence: Never again will the world tolerate the criminality and audacity of a great power simply giving an inhabited territory to a new group and never again will the world stand by idly as that new group pushes out the inhabitants, murders them, pillages their homes, attacks their sacred structures, steals their land, breaks treaties, and carries out a concerted campaign of ethnocide.
Today, now that Israel's Prime Minister has recognized that Israel is being consumed by the evils of religious and political extremism, that phrase takes on a new meaning and soon we will all say it and humanity will have gained a great triumph.
Never again.
