(This article of mine was published in The Jerusalem Post this weekend.)
It's Time For A New Word: Israelopathy
If
you are highly critical of Israel, does that make you antisemitic?
Debates rage in the US and UK as to whether various approaches to Israel
can be described as antisemitic. The allegations of antisemitism have
notably been raised against Democratic congresswoman Ilhan Omar and
British Leader of the Opposition Jeremy Corbyn.
Sometimes,
the criticism of antisemitism is turned on its head and used the other
way around, as follows: Surely no country is above criticism, and thus
it can't automatically be antisemitic to criticize Israel. The inference
is implicitly made that therefore no critic of Israel can be labelled
an antisemite. This further implies that those who do issue charges of
antisemitism are trying to cover up Israel's crimes.
A further challenge with describing hostility to Israel as antisemitic is that
many people accused of this have a strong
antipathy to such clearly antisemitic events as the San Diego synagogue
shooting. The argument goes that if they are strongly opposed to antisemitism in America,
surely it doesn't make sense to say that they are antisemitic about
Israel. And some of their best friends are Jewish! Heck, some people who
are highly negative about Israel are even Jewish themselves - does it
make sense, they say, to describe them as antisemitic?!
Because
of the confusion and distraction raised by the question of
antisemitism, I firmly believe that it is time to coin a new term to
describe certain attitudes to Israel. A perfect word would be
"Israelopathy."
Israelopathy refers to a
pathological disorder. It is a pathological and irrational obsession
with, and hatred of, Israel. Israelopathy is characterized in several
ways.
One is its irrationality and
obsessiveness. There are 195 countries in the world, the majority of
which are not even free societies, and many of which are guilty of truly
appalling human rights violations by any measure and without any
security justification. And yet some people, and some institutions (such
as the UN and many media outlets) are obsessed with the alleged crimes
of Israel, facing existential threats, far more than with any other country - even more than with
every other country put together. Such obsession calls the credibility
of their criticisms into question.
An
example of this can be seen in
Ilhan Omar's March 17th Washington Post op-ed, "We must apply our
universal values to all nations." She speaks nobly about the importance
of
applying universal values regarding human rights to *all* nations - but
her primary focus is solely on Israel. And she speaks about "holding
everyone involved accountable for actions that undermine the path to
peace," but proceeds in her article to only hold Israel accountable!
The second trademark of Israelopathy,
reflecting its fundamental immorality, is its discriminatory nature.
That is to say, Israel is held to a certain standard that is never
expected of any other country. Every other country, when faced with
threats to its civilian population, is allowed to engage in military
action. And every significant military action necessarily involves
unwanted casualties. This is accepted as the price of engagement by
armed forces from every country, including the campaigns of the US and
UK in Afghanistan. Only Israel is slammed for causing any civilian
casualties - even though Israel takes greater pains to avoid them (such
as giving warnings to evacuate military targets) than any other country
has ever done.
The corollary of this
discrimination is that Israel's attackers are given a pass for their
actions that is not given to anyone else. Launching rockets that are
targeted against civilians is a war crime. Using religious institutions,
schools and hospitals as cover for military action is a war crime. Yet
Hamas commits both these crimes and is rarely condemned for it in the
media. Nikki Haley couldn't get the United Nations to condemn such
blatant war crimes. The NY
Times Jerusalem bureau chief David Halbfinger recently downplayed Hamas for
the occasional "stray rocket that kills too many innocents." Yet such
rockets are not "stray" - they are all specifically and explicitly fired
for this purpose! And an editorial in Britain's Guardian newspaper once
described these rockets - which have killed dozens, injured thousands,
and would have killed countless more were it not for bomb shelters - as
“useless fireworks” which “have killed
hardly anybody” and do not justify a military response. There is a
tremendous eagerness to play down the crimes of Palestinians.
The
third characteristic of Israelopathy is its demonization, in which
Israel is described with the most extreme terminology, and rated as a
malevolent entity of almost supernatural power. For example, whatever
one thinks about Israel's treatment of the Palestinians, the fact
remains that both their population and average lifespan have
dramatically increased under Israeli rule - and yet Israel is routinely
described as committing genocide. IDF
soldiers, who - whatever their crimes - are acting due to a genuine
security need, and who follow professional rules of engagement that are
enforced by an independent (and left-leaning) Supreme Court to minimize
unnecessary casualties, are routinely compared to Nazis. In the UK,
Jeremy Corbyn has spoken about "the hand of Israel" being behind
Jihadist attacks on Egyptian forces, and the
“unbelievably high levels of influence” that Israel has over the BBC.
The rhetoric employed by Ilhan Omar, who described Israel as
"hypnotizing the world" to ignore its "evil," also betrays this demonic
view of Israel, notwithstanding her subsequent apology.
Is
Israelopathy related to antisemitism? Maybe yes, maybe no. The very
question is irrelevant and distracting. The key is to focus upon and
criticize Israelopathy for what it is, not for what it might be related
to.
It's much more difficult for an
accused Israelopath to deny being Israelopathic than it is for them to
deny being antisemitic. It doesn't help for them to point to their
opposition to synagogue shootings. It doesn't help for them to claim
that they are Semites (or even Jewish) themselves. Nor can they respond
that it's surely not Israelopathic to criticize Israel. Because
Israelopathy does not refer to criticism of Israel - it refers to a
pathological obsession with Israel, a discriminatory attitude to the
conflict, and a demonization of Israel. All of which are, sadly, all too
easy to demonstrate.
To Moral Philosopher Slifkin,
ReplyDeleteBrilliant idea. Post it to Sharansky, who got usa to accept the 3 d's.
מאי הר סיני? שירדה בו שנאה לאומות העולם עליו
ReplyDeleteHarvard Law Professor Alan M. Dershowitz said:
ReplyDelete“There is yet a third strain of the current virus of anti-Semitism, this one even more difficult to diagnose.
Its danger lies in its subtlety, its pervasiveness, and its acceptability at all levels of our society.
This is a phenomenon familiar to all of us, yet difficult to articulate and expose: the singling out of Jewish institutions and especially Israel for special scrutiny, and the application of a double-standard to Jewish things and persons.
This phenomenon, which currently has no accepted name, assumes a variety of forms, but its most obvious manifestation is the special and often gloating attention paid by the media, [and] by intellectuals, and by the government to any deviation by Israel, no matter how trivial, from the highest norms of humans rights, civility, and sacrifice.
Though Israel may be deserving of criticism, what is missing is the comparable criticism of equal or greater violations by other countries and other groups. This constant, often legitimate criticism of Israel for every one of it deviations, when coupled with the absence of legitimate criticism of others, creates the impression currently prevalent on university campuses and in the press that Israel is among the worst rights violators in the world.”
SOURCE: Chutzpah by Alan M. Dershowitz
(chapter 4, page 119) published year 1991
by Little Brown & Co ISBN: 9780316181372 * ISBN: 0316181374
QUOTE 1:
ReplyDelete“If one or more of the parties knows that peace implies the end of its existence, it has no motive to return to peace. That is how the radical Islamists of Hamas view the future of Muslim society.
A wealthy and successful Jewish state next to a poor and dysfunctional Palestinian state may imply the end of the moral authority of Islam, and some Palestinians would rather fight to the death than embrace such an outcome.
Rather than consign their children to the Western milieu of personal freedom and sexual license, radical Muslims will fight to the death.”
SOURCE: How Civilizations Die
(chapter Introduction, page xiv) by David P. Goldman,
year 2011 CE, Regnery Publishing
===================================
QUOTE 2:
“Europe tends toward pacifism because
it knows it has nothing to gain from aggression.
Iran tends towards belligerence because
it knows it has nothing to lose.”
SOURCE: How Civilizations Die
(chapter 1, page 7) by David P. Goldman,
year 2011 CE, Regnery Publishing
===================================
QUOTE 3:
“[Swiss Muslim Tariq] Ramadan is the grandson of Muslim Brotherhood founder Hassan al-Banna, whom he praised without mention of al-Banna’s allegiance to the Nazis during the 1930s and 1940s.”
SOURCE: How Civilizations Die
(chapter 3, page 35) by David P. Goldman,
year 2011 CE, Regnery Publishing
===================================
QUOTE 4:
As Mohamed ElBaradei, the Egyptian Nobel Peace Prize winner, said after the January uprising, his country
“is on the list of failed states,”
and the Arab world is
“a collection of failed states
who add nothing to humanity or science”…
SOURCE 1: Thomas Friedman,
“Up with Egypt”, New York Times,
2011 February 10
SOURCE 2: How Civilizations Die
(chapter 3, page 35) by David P. Goldman,
year 2011 CE, Regnery Publishing
You are an Isaac Betech, but you're OUR Isaac Betech.
DeleteGreat piece. Sad though...
ReplyDeleteBrilliant!
ReplyDeleteDennis Prager says that if someone constantly singles out the Italian State for the same types of mistakes or misdeeds that are committed by all other states, can we be forgiven for strongly suspecting that the critic hates Italians?
ReplyDeleteIf the only state you choose to criticize is the Jewish State.....
Maajid Nawaz had a more direct parallel to Omar's claim of "hypnotising." If someone were to say that the Prime Minister of Pakistan gets his way on the international stage by just flashing a suicide belt, would we call that "criticism" of Pakistan/
DeleteUse Occam's razor. Since it is almost always possible to guess someone's general political opinions from their views on Israel , there's no reason to invent some new entity called 'Israelopathy' to describe perfectly ordinary leftwing pathology applied to Israel. Left wing opinions on other topics are no less pathological and destructive than their views on Israel, often much more so (e.g. mandatory child abuse in the form of hormone replacement 'therapy' for tomboys).
ReplyDeleteBefore claiming that Israel is 'singled out', actually specify which country the Left should be focussing on instead, not according to your morality, but their's. That means successful countries founded by European colonists trying to maintain their existence in the midst of barbarians intent on tearing down what they can't build themselves. There used to be quite a few of these countries, but they are all gone. I wouldn't be surprised if you knew a few people who helped destroy them. Israel is the last one left.
'Israelopathy' is just a transparent request to give Israel an exemption from the non-stop torrent of degenerate filth that the Left produces morning till night. It's immoral and it won't work. Either someone figures our a way to defeat leftism for good (not that hard, really, took Hungary about 7 years) or the whole western world is finished. Good luck fighting BDS when the U.S. is a more left wing version of Venezuela with extra Muslims.
I was very surprised to see you use the expression "Israel's treatment of the Palestinians" that I see so often in anti-Israel articles. The term is never defined, but gives the reader this vague feeling that Israel performs some heinous acts against innocent people that are so well know that no elaboration is required. Why would you use this expression? Perhaps you can explain to me what is this "treatment" you are referring to? The only "treatment" of Palestinians by Israel that I know of is preventing them form killing Israelis. Are there any decent Westerners who oppose this?
ReplyDeleteI think that other countries are criticized for their human rights record, although you may be right that Israel is criticized disproportionately. However, you must take into account that you are far more sensitive to criticism against Israel because you are more likely to be reading articles criticizing Israel than Russia, China, Egypt, et. al., you identify with Israel much, much more, and you feel that Israel existence is seriously endangered by this criticism that (you feel) delegitimizes it.
Palestinians are treated worse than Jews. They are discriminated against in law. They are discriminated against in government allocations. They are treated worse by LEO, and most of them are subject to military law, whilst the Settlers who live next to them have the full protection of Israeli civilian law. The same Settlers can vote in Israeli elections, despite not living in Israel (no other citizens are allowed to vote absentee, except for government personnel serving overseas).
DeleteYou don't have to be ultra-leftwing to see the reality. Palestinians are treated relatively poorly, both de facto and de jour.
96% of Palestinians in the West Bank live under Palestinian Authority rule, and are supposed to be voting in Palestinian Authority elections--elections that have not been conducted since 2006. That is an internal Palestinian issue, and no fault of Israel's. They never, at any time, were citizens of Israel. The present situation is the result of the Oslo Accords, which were supposed to lead to a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza. It didn't work out that way, mostly because of Arab intransigence of refusing every offer that Israel has given.
DeleteYet these 96% don't get to vote on what really matters.
DeleteWho will be the defence minister in charge of the soldiers they meet on the way to school or shops? Will they be supplied with electricity or water or space on the electromagnetic spectrum for mobile phones? Who will do something about the potholes on the main highways? Will they be allowed to export goods?
The only residents of the West Bank who get a meaningful vote backed up by the full power of the state are Jewish. It's unconscionable.
The saying goes, "Don't show a fool a half-finished job".
DeleteThe Oslo process was supposed to produce a viable Palestinian state (or autonomous region) next to Israel. What we have now is a half-finished job. We can't leave the West Bank, because it might (or probably will) become like Gaza.
It is not only the right-wing ideologues in Israeli society that prevent a Palestinian state in the West Bank, but the bitter experience that Israel has in any land concessions to the Palestinians. The ceded land immediately becomes a launching ground for either rockets or terrorist attacks. Jews cannot enter these areas again without an army escort. Land concessions to the Palestinians emphatically do not bring peace to the region.
Palestinians can take their fair share of blame for the failures of negotiations.
DeleteBut the failure of negotiation doesn't make it open season and the end to all cooperation and autonomy.
There's no justification for the growth of settlements. They are a catastrophic security threat, strung out, vulnerable, and wasting valuable manpower.
There's no millitary reason for denying Palestinians control over their own water supplies.
There's no millitary reason to deny Palestinians with even 3g connections on mobile phones. It's not like the GSM network doesn't suffice to detonate a roadside bomb.
We simply cannot carry on like this for ever.
You keep quoting Gaza. I'm fed up of Gaza. Let's fix Gaza. Did you try vote for Lapid to challenge Hamas terror militarily and replace them with Israel's defenders in the PA, or did you vote to fund Hamas with suitcases of cash and weakness?
Did you forget about Lebanon? Do you miss that occupation, and the steady death toll there? Do you not enjoy the relative tranquility? Because even though the IDF lost the tactical war 12 years ago in Lebanon, they won the strategic peace.
Did you forget about the hundreds of Israelis who are injured or killed every single year in or from the West Bank? Is that OK?
Okay, you're fed up of Gaza. But even the autonomous regions in the West Bank are too dangerous for Jews to go into. Look at Joseph's Tomb in Nablus. Breslov guys are allowed to pray there--once a month, in the middle of the night, under IDF escort. That doesn't bode well for any further land concessions in the West Bank.
DeleteDid you forget about the hundreds of Israelis that were killed in the early Oslo years or during the Second Intifada, before the IDF had to go in and "make seder" vs. all the terrorist infrastructure in the West Bank? Before that, the autonomous regions were all "cities of refuge", where a terrorist could commit a terror attack in Israel, and then flee to Nablus or Tulkarm before the גואל הדם (= the IDF) would be able to kill or capture him. Abbas won't allow any IDF presence in his future state, and I don't trust Palestinian Authority police in arresting and sentencing terrorists who have killed Israelis and fled to the West Bank. They'll sooner pay him a stipend and name a school after him.
Israphobia
ReplyDeleteIt's not an issue of "Israel should never be criticized" but that the tone and degree of the criticism can veer from appropriate to extreme at times, imho.
ReplyDeleteIt's fine to criticize Israel, just like any other country. It's the demonization and one-sidedness of the language that is presented in left-wing circles that is a problem, and helps no one, least of all the Palestinians.
And I think Israel has done a better job of upholding both its territorial integrity and the moral kind than many other countries would have done in similar circumstances. Thanks for the article R. Slifkin. I always learn so much from your writing.
Very well written, clear and compelling, thank you.
ReplyDeleteHow many rockets has Israel fired randomly and indiscriminately into Palestine for no apparent reason other than they hate and wish to destroy Palestine? What would the UN security council do if they did? Why do we tolerate such duplicity from our politicians and cable news media?
ReplyDeleteI quite agree with this piece. The UN's focus on Israel is anti-Semitic. Jeremy Corbyn is an ati-semite. But it's oh so very convenient to conflate all criticism of Israel with Jeremy Corbyn. That's only part of the story.
ReplyDeleteIf you don't want to be held to higher standards, don't make hyperbolic and palpably untrue claim to be the most moral army in the world.
And then there are the basic decency points. Don't arrest and harass the Chevron resident who had the temerity to film a violent racist execute a prisoner. It would be criticised in Kosovo, in Kashmir, or Ukraine, or in the occupied West Bank.
Don't evict residents from their homes of decades for reasons of demographic facts on the ground.
Don't prevent vehicular traffic in Chevron for the majority to secure the position a tiny and often racist and violent minority.
Don't torture prisoners - Jewish or Arab.
Don't try to shoot the ankle of a specific man in a yellow t-shirt for no reason other than pour encourager les autres. Don't shoot anyone for any reason at a grazing trajectory in a crowd in case you miss. And then there won't be any negligently killed nurses.
Don't accuse people of armchair generalship. I have the footage from multiple angles.
Don't specifically and deliberately target camera journalists crews with tear gas from drones. Again, I have the footage.
If your senior brigade commander shoots a fleeing 14 year old boy in the back, killing him, after he stoned his jeep, hold him to the standards of his rank. Again, I have the footage.
There are forums where Israeli misdemeanors are discussed obsessively. The US senate isn't one of those places.
And so my last don't is this. If you don't like exceptionalism, don't embrace it. Israel isn't always in the right or the wrong- how could it be?
Don't respond emotionally to facts you don't like - carefully investigate them with an open mind. Some accusations, like Jenin, are propaganda. Many accusations are not.
You obviously do not agree with the article. You agreed with a couple of points to add a veneer of neutrality and objectivity to what followed—your disingenuous embrace of every anti-Israel trope and calumny out there.
DeleteDo you really think Israel is more wantonly careless, commits more deliberate violence against civilians, and takes fewer precautions, than any, or even some other nations' armies?
Can you give examples of other states involved in a decades-long struggle against outright military attackers, plus both organized & random terrorists---which has done a *better* job of respecting the human rights of their enemy?
Not the US, not France, not England, and certainly not Russia or any Arab state. Therefore, it is very reasonable to say that, broadly speaking, the Israeli army is one of the most moral fighting forces in the world, perhaps the single most.
There is space between thinking "Israel is more wantonly careless, commits more deliberate violence against civilians, and takes fewer precautions, than ANY other nations' armies?" and "Israel is more wantonly... than SOME other nations' armies?"
DeleteI reside in that space between two quite extreme positions. One is a low moral bar to pass, and the other is mythically high. I recommend this space in between to all other rational thinkers. Of course Israel Always Right occupation apologists will resist nuance, as will Israel Always Wrong terror apologists, and in many ways the extremes feed off each other. Whether Rabbi Slifkin cares to categorise himself in the first way is up to him.
You ask "Can you give examples of other states involved in a decades-long struggle against outright military attackers, plus both organized & random terrorists---which has done a *better* job of respecting the human rights of their enemy?"
It's an excellent question.
The US will struggle to outlive the infamy of Guantanemo Bay and Abu Ghraib. They have covered up for torturers. Videotapes were erased. Gina Haspell, rather than being imprisoned for her role in torture (and sacked for the bad intelligence it produced which was used to support the case for the US invasion of Iraq) is now head of the CIA. The US Army in Iraq had forgotten Vietnam.
But let's not draw the conclusion that brutality is inevitable or efficacious. The US experience has shown it to be pointless and debilitating. The US lost in Vietnam, and it lost in Iraq.
In 1972, a British soldier identified as Soldier F ran amok in Londonderry / Derry, and only after his conduct was whitewashed, by his superiors, then by the judiciary in the form of the Widgery Inquiry. Only now is he being held to account in a court of law. Bloody Sunday marked the renaissance of the IRA, and support for their actions burgeoned in the months that followed. It took the British army 20 years to regain the military initiative in a population demographic which actually supported their presence overall. The Real IRA's Omagh bombing proved a strategic set back for the Real IRA, forcing them to declare a ceasefire. Likewise the recent shooting of Lyra McKee has set back the real IRA.
The French lost the Algerian war and the first phase of the Vietnamese war despite immense savagery. The British Amritsar massacre cemented the position of Gandhi and political support for Indian independence.
In summation I accept the premise of your question, which is that no army is perfect. It does not follow that illegality and brutality should be accepted without challenge or comment.
You ask for examples of states which have done no wrong. Of course I cannot answer. States and their servants are fallible. That is why soldiers should not be kept in the proximity of civilians to the extent possible, and why misconduct needs to be challenged and punished
But I ask you in return for this. Name an army which employed brutality against the civil population to successfully conclude a war since the Boer War at the turn of the century. You could point to the suppression of the 1950s Hungarian revolution. Generally, wars of attrition against civilian morale almost always fail. The IRA failed. ETA failed. The PLO failed. The British Indian Army failed. The British expeditionary force in Palestine failed. The Spanish army in Africa failed. The Dutch army in Indonesia failed. The Egyptian army failed to maintain Mubarak. The Syrian army has kept back the tide at its gates in a large part because the Sunni extremists alienated substantial minorities. The Soviets were defeated in Afghanistan, then the US returned to be defeated in turn. And the IDF will fail to maintain unchallenged hegemony.
Israel is not winning in the West Bank, and the sooner we recognise this the less blood and gold will be expended in an immoral and pointless cause. Do you really want your children to fight like the US fought in Vietnam?
But I ask you in return for this. Name an army which employed brutality against the civil population to successfully conclude a war since the Boer War at the turn of the century.
DeleteEasy: The United States in Germany. Piece of Cake. What you believe about how human societies operate is just not true.
German citizens pointed out German positions to US soldiers. US soldiers were under orders to avoid civilian casualties. The US was popular in post war Germany.
DeleteThe cause? A collapse in Nazi moral creditworthiness. They had lost legitimacy in 1945 and they were the army of occupation. A better example would have been Russian soldiers who bloodily fought their way through the battle of Berlin. Really you are on the side of Stalin.
The US was popular in post war Germany.
DeleteYeah, when you take over the education system and media, and completely purge all remnants of the old regime, then it turns out you can make people believe pretty much anything. In 1944 Hitler was the most popular man in Germany, in 1947 he was the most hated. Like I say, piece of cake.
US soldiers were under orders to avoid civilian casualties.
You're hilarious
I'm not saying that military force is impotent. I'm saying that military force cannot crush all resistance. You can bludgeon your way in, but you will lose the war of attrition without consent.
DeleteMay I remind you that Hitler, whose policies you advocate, lost World War 2. He never really secured Belarus from the partisans, or France from the Maquis, or Greece from their partisans. Stalin's iron curtain crumbled after the passage of time.
Tyranny is not sustainable.
I don't accept your bracketing the Western powers with Stalin and Hitler. soldiers. Hundreds of thousands of German soldiers voted with their feet in their choice of where to surrender.
Obviously I don't make the maximalist claim that the Western allies were beyond all reproach.
The overwhelming sweep of history shows that the extremism and tyranny you advocate fails. You haven't addressed the fall of empires. Government without consent is unsustainable.
May I remind you that Hitler, whose policies you advocate, lost World War 2.
DeleteHe lost because the combined military power of Germany and its allies was inferior to that of the United States and its allies. Not very complicated.
Obviously I don't make the maximalist claim that the Western allies were beyond all reproach.
Like all liberals, you are incapable of separating your dumb morality from analysis about how reality operates. I have no interest in whether the Allies are 'beyond reproach'. I am interested in how they were able to completely replace German culture with a new one in the space of a few years so thoroughly that they might as well have imported aliens, using methods that according to liberalism can't work.
The overwhelming sweep of history shows that the extremism and tyranny you advocate fails. You haven't addressed the fall of empires.
What empires? If you mean the European empires of the modern era, that's easy enough. The U.S. and U.S.S.R. wanted to carve up the European empires for themselves, so they supported racist (that's an objective description, not a moralising one) paramilitaries who took over the countries and run them into the ground one by one. These paramilitaries also had substantial backing from factions within the British and French power elites. This process enriched millions of U.S. and other western workers in so-called NGOs whose job is to help countries that, mysteriously, just keep getting worse and worse.
Government without consent is unsustainable.
That's stupid. Consent is a product of power, not the other way round. 'Government without consent' just means that the official government does not wield actual power and those who do are manufacturing their own consent. Everything about liberalism is just plain wrong because it describes a hypothetical alien species that went through imaginary events like a social contract and has no applicability whatsoever to human beings
Now, here's another example. China is sick of dealing with its Muslim population (and who can blame them?) So they have a solution: round them up, put them in camps, tell them their religion is stupid and they should become like normal Chinese people. According to the liberal theory of history this should lead to 'a cycle of violence', 'public discontent' 'erosion of legitimacy' etc. But none of that will happen and liberals even know it won't happen, which is why they frantically avoid the subject. 30 years from now, Uihgur culture won't even exist and precisely no one will even care. Of course, this only works because the Chinese regime is sufficiently united on this issue and exercises effective sovereignty.
I could come up with more examples literally all day. You can't come up with any, because all your examples prove is that it is impossible to suppress leftwing movements if they have sympathizers within the U.S. government who hobble efforts to suppress them, which is obvious.
Gavriel, try making your points without all the insults. You'll get a more receptive audience.
Delete"Now, here's another example. China is sick of dealing with its Muslim population (and who can blame them?) So they have a solution: round them up, put them in camps, tell them their religion is stupid and they should become like normal Chinese people." And the Germans were sick of dealing with the Jews. You like their solution too? Round everyone up. You like Communist indoctrination. Why are their so many fascists in the Jewish world?
DeleteToday, on Lag Baomer, we remember the crushing response of empire to revolt. So utterly was Bar Kochba defeated that we do not dare to even explicitly mourn him, referring obliquely to the 24,000 students of Bar Kochba's cleric Rabbi Akiva who died during this period because of a lack of unity of purpose.
DeleteYet, here we are today, but where are the Romans? And so today is the end of the mourning, a day of fiery celebration, because our civilisation and all civilisations cannot be repressed.
Totalitarianism has been tried. Might in Nazi Germany was equated to right. Hitler tried out your Lebensraum theories. He attempted to exterminate his way to domination. And Adolf Hitler was utterly defeated.
You are puzzled as to why Germany utterly turned against Hitler in 1945. As a totalitarian, that must puzzle you. Of course, it doesn't puzzle people who aren't nazis.
Hitler lost World War 2. He lost World War 2 because in invading Russia he bit off more than any army ever fielded could chew. Without the consent of the governed, even Hitler's storm-troopers couldn't hold territory. You act like the military resistance Hitler faced was not related to his imperialism, his rapacious invasion of territory to which he had no claim.
You claim that imperialism and empire would have continued but for the USSR. You will never be convinced, but I will list below all the empires which have fallen due to a lack of consent from those governed in years preceding the formation of the USSR: -
British rule in the USA
Slavery in Haiti
Slavery in the Southern States of the USA
British rule in Southern Ireland
Russian empire (Czarist era)
Japanese rule in China
The self-proclaimed master races all fell short of mastery.
You claim that people can never really claim sovereignty for themselves without the backing of other powers, and that is partially true. But never in world history has one empire ever dominated. A multi-polar world is the norm, and the ability of the oppressed to play off one empire against another is one reason why tyranny is unsustainable. If an empire does not serve the people, other empires are generally available.
Of course, immoral totalitarians like you who advocate genocide against Uighurs will never learn. There will always be those whose sick fantasy it is that they can utterly crush citizens. Over the passage of time, and strung upside down from lamp-posts, we shall see who is right and who is wrong.
@Hominid. You keep flinging insults because you can't separate your morality from objective historical analysis. If you had the stones to explicitly state your theory it would go like this: 'it is impossible to suppress righteous leftwing movements by force because they are righteous, however, it is possible to suppress evil rightwing movements by force because they are evil'. Stated so simply, this is obviously absurd, but it underlines everything liberals say about politics. My theory is as follows: 'Power wins. If it looks like the less powerful have defeated the more powerful, take a peak behind the curtain'.
DeleteNow let's go through your examples:
British rule in the USA
Whigs in Britain prevented the army from taking effective action and instead ensured that every ridiculous and absurd demand made by the rebels be met. Predictably, this led to the rebels increasing in power until they were able to declare independence. The result was more than a decade of misrule known as the 'Articles of Confederation', which was brought to an end by an local aristocratic counter-revolution. That worked pretty well for a few decades until Andrew Jackson brought back democracy and the country took an inevitable slide into civil war.
Slavery in Haiti
Anti-slavery factions in the British government thought they would show the Tories a lesson by hanging the Haitian government out to dry. The slaves killed every white person in the country and 2 centuries later they are so poor that they literally eat mud. Neighboring Dominican Republic does much better.
Slavery in the Southern States of the USA
The North was vastly more powerful than the South. The abolitionists wanted their Jihad, they got it. Hundreds of thousands of slaves starved to death, but they were free or something so it's OK.
British rule in Southern Ireland
The old Anglo-Irish nobility always had friends within the English government that stopped any serious attempt at political integration. Nowadays, Ireland has abortion on demand, gay marriage, and its leader is an Indian, so so much for the hearty Irish Catholic nationalist tradition, which folded like a wet noodle in the face of real power.
Russian empire (Czarist era)
Folded in a German backed coup by a group of nutty ex-Jews, ex aristos and other assorted disgruntled minority activists. Tens of millions died.
Japanese rule in China
America won. What exactly is hard about this for you to grasp?
I will now give another example of how power wins. Perhaps this one will get past your heresy shield. In the late 1980s, America had a very large, well-armed, and well-trained militia movement which denied the authority of the Federal government. The movement enjoyed widespread and diffuse public sympathy because its ideology was basically just a more coherent version of mainstream American dumbservatism, in exactly the same way that Islamists have the partial-sympathy of Muslim populations. So how did the Federal government respond? First it turned up at Ruby Ridge and shot a woman through the head in front of her daughters while she cradling a baby in her arms. Then it turned up at Waco where a group of nutty Seven Day Adventists had bought some ammunition with the wrong permit. To teach them a lesson, the Feds burned down the building with all the women and children inside.
DeleteNow, according to liberal 'theory', this should have sparked a 'cycle of violence', civilians would rush to the defence of militamen and it would be impossible to crush the militias. The only way to bring peace would be to give into their demands and perhaps let Montana secede so that they could live in the woods and not pay taxes. Bill Clinton would end up hanging from a lampost. Except, none of that happened. The media and education system told everyone that the milita movement were violent nutters (true enough), the Feds kept cracking down, and it fell apart. Timothy McVeigh perpetrated an atrocity and instead of giving into his demands (as invariably happens in response to leftwing terrorism), the Federal government encouraged the natural wave of public revulsion. Now I think there may be two or three dozen militia guys on twitter. Power wins. Simple.
I happen to think imperialism is immoral, but you don't hold these values so I'm not wasting my time arguing that with you.
DeleteHowever even you must accept numbers. My general postulate is this. Fielding an army to hold ground indefinitely depletes an empire's resources. If the war isn't won in a few weeks, it has been lost. To withdraw the army, all challengers must be crushed utterly. All the opposition needs to do is survive. And that is why the US, after spending almost three trillion dollars, is going to withdraw, defeated, from Afghanistan.
This is an empirical observation, not a rule of nature. For example, during the infancy of repeating fire firearms, it was possible for small, inexpensive European armies to rape Africa. Earlier, advances in metallurgy and firearms gave the conquistadors an extraordinary edge. Perhaps advances in robotic systems and AI will bring a further such age to us in ten or twenty years, but already drone technology is commonplace, and the ability of the state to dominate the "exchange ratio" will again slip below sustainable levels.
For people like Hitler and you, the war is lost because of a "stab in the back". The solution would have been more war. If only the British Government had spent more than the 60% of its entire revenue for the 1795 fiscal year it did spend fighting a war in a colony 3,000 miles away, then.... it would have had to do the same thing again in 1796, 1797, 1798, 17999 and so on. All the colonists needed to do was survive as a force in being. It was unwinnable. And it was a fine case of the innate power of the collonists to play off two empires (French and British) against each other. The French got excellent strategic returns on their investment. But the French involvement doesn't diminish the colonists' power in choosing which side to back.
Likewise, the US expending 1.3% of its 1965 GDP on converting Vietnamese mountains to dust was a rather unsatisfactory return on capital compared to what the Soviets and Chinese were getting out of it. The reason for this unsatisfactory exchange ratio: the consent of the governed. Without the resources released by that consent, millitary occupation expends more resources than it can ever hope to recover.
Most of the rest of your comments address the aftermath of revolutions, but do not deal with the revolution itself. A moment when the innate weakness of empire reveals itself. But you never acknowledge that vulnerability and weakness
What people do with their liberty post revolution is up to them. But don't pretend napalming Vietnamese villages to protect them from communism was any more cvillised than Baby Doc. Don't tell me the Gulags were more civillised then racial equality. Don't tell me Auschwitz was more civillised than gay marriage.
Here's the thing about Timothy McVeigh: most people disagreed with his swivel eyed lunacy and he only spoke for himself. Only 100 people supported David Koresh's right to rape his own children. The government governed with widespread consent. Of course the government and its servants are faliable, and even, in the case of the US government and its police forces, systematically racist. Yet, the US government being fundamentally democratic in nature, the black separatist movement has few adherent. The government enjoys widespread consent, not because of its force of arms, but despite them.
I happen to think imperialism is immoral, but you don't hold these values so I'm not wasting my time arguing that with you.
DeleteAnti-imperialism has killed more people and in more grisly ways than communism and fascism put together, but liberals, being essentially overgrown children, think that as long as they contract out their mass murder to an ethnic militias, that exonerates them. However, this understates the issue because at least communism and fascism are real things. Anti-imperialism is always and everywhere a fiction to legitimate newer, more dishonest (and has it happens more wasteful and incompetent) forms of imperialism. None of the countries that gain 'independence' are, in fact, independent. It's all just a big, sick joke.
Fielding an army to hold ground indefinitely depletes an empire's resources. If the war isn't won in a few weeks, it has been lost. To withdraw the army, all challengers must be crushed utterly. All the opposition needs to do is survive. And that is why the US, after spending almost three trillion dollars, is going to withdraw, defeated, from Afghanistan.
It would have been trivially easy for the U.S. military to crush opposition in Afghanistan,just like the massively inferior Russian military crushed relatively competent guerilla forces in Chechnya (to everyone's benefit). The war in Afghanistan is, however, in reality a proxy war within the U.S. government itself and, as always, the more powerful side won.
What people do with their liberty post revolution is up to them.
Of course, as you know, the Vietnamese 'chose' to use their 'liberties' (really, you liberals are sick) to have a famine, three figure inflation, and million refugees fleeing the place. It's odd how this happens every single time and even odder how you still feel that you have the right to douse everyone with your moral indignation.
Perhaps advances in robotic systems and AI will bring a further such age to us in ten or twenty years
Right, except old-fashioned imperialism works perfectly fine right now whenever there is a government willing and able to exercise sovereignty vis a vis the west. How odd.
Here's the thing about Timothy McVeigh: most people disagreed with his swivel eyed lunacy and he only spoke for himself. Only 100 people supported David Koresh's right to rape his own children. The government governed with widespread consent.
I already told you. Power makes consent, not the other way round. That's so obvious it's almost trivially true. Now, it's very true that neither Timothy McVeigh or David Koresh had powerful friends and this is why crushing them proved an effective strategy. (I'm going to pass over your bizarre defence of burning children alive to save them from being abused. Maybe democratic regimes can try that out in Rotherham).
Yet, the US government being fundamentally democratic in nature, the black separatist movement has few adherent.
Yeesh, you really are a true believer. 'Black Separatists' (LOL) are tools that those with power pull out every so often when their enemies need a good kicking. And a good kicking they get. Sux2bu to be you Ferguson MI.
Can you not count or did the facts hurt your feelings?
DeleteYou have nothing to say about the cost of war. Plenty to say about criminal taxi drivers in Lancashire (because all Moslems are rapists, amiright? Also all Jews are rapists because of Weinstein) and Tommy Robinson. But nothing to say about the unaffordability of occupation. Nothing. Because you are obviously deliriously wrong. When the facts don't suit you make them up (Afghan is a US civil war?). Or ignore them. You are irrational.
You claim anti imperialism kills more than empire. I admire your humanitarian instincts and yes you Timothy McVeigh and David Koresh, Tommy Robinson and Hitler and Stalin are definitely the victims of history here.
The joint U.S.- Russian conquest of Africa and other former European colonies using 'nationalist' militias following WW2 and their subsequent falling out, was the bloodiest episode in human history with the possible exception of the Islamic conquests and the killing spree continues to this day. If you can't deal with that, maybe it's because you're a liberal.
DeleteBut nothing to say about the unaffordability of occupation.
Do you know how many British troops were stationed in India throughout the 19th century? Look it up.
Plenty to say about criminal taxi drivers in Lancashire (because all Moslems are rapists, amiright?
Some people will not quite recognize what this avatar of pious liberalism is referencing, so for everyone's benefit:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telford_child_sexual_exploitation_scandal
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rotherham_child_sexual_exploitation_scandal
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derby_child_sex_abuse_ring
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huddersfield_grooming_gang
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxford_child_sex_abuse_ring
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newcastle_sex_abuse_ring
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rochdale_child_sex_abuse_ring
That's the 'free society' that holy genius Natan Sharansky tells us is so great. Don't read too closely, though, mustn't be a fascist.
Israelophobia has two sources: AntiSemitism and people falling for the propaganda of the Antisemites. South Africa did not get as much attention when it had Apartheid something Israel is falsely accused of. Meanwhile the PA and Gaza is Judenrein.
ReplyDeleteSo you support BDS and think it's insufficient?
DeleteYA antisemitism has many sources. The primary source is sin and the device God employs to keep us separate from the gentiles when we sin. A second source in our era is the crimes of the Mistake of Israel. So you want to arrest little children and not be criticized for it. That's rich.
DeleteHominid,
ReplyDeleteYour comment makes no sense. YA made two points, quite clearly.
Israel is falsely accused of begin an apartheid state, and…
…The constant criticism of Israel—out of all proportion to other states—comes from antisemites and their useful idiots (which one are you?)
Don't be obtuse, and don't abuse actual antisemitism for your rhetorical flourishes.
DeleteYou don’t need to be an antisemite in order to be a useful idiot. Looks like someone else might be being a bit obtuse.
DeleteIf I criticise arresting the man who filmed Azaria I'm antisemitism's useful idiot or an antisemite.
DeleteYou don't about really careantisemitism. You don't care about morality. And you and Rabbi Slifkin have never yet met an Israeli war crime you would condemn publicly.
You are scared. You think that if you admit to dark truths that the state of Israel will be imperiled.
The truth is that dark truths and not admissions are what imperils the state of Israel. You can't conceal the occupation.
Again perhaps a bit obtuse (and maybe even a tad hysterical and over the top). Criticism is valid. Criticism out of all proportion not so much and where allegations of antisemitism or useful idiots become appropriate.
DeleteWhat proportionate criticism of Israeli policy have you or Rabbi Slifkin ever made in your lives?
DeleteIt's a mythical beast. You have never met a shot nurse you wouldn't solemnly declare a proportionate and necessary millitary target.
This is a silly discussion as you keep trying to change the subject. Which is about how singling out Israel for criticism beyond all proportion is either done intentionally (antisemitic) or unwittingly (useful idiots).
DeleteI'll let R Slifkin fend for himself. But as for me - you look pretty foolish making allegations about someone you don't know.
An excellent article [as usual!], virtually every point true and noteworthy.
ReplyDeleteBut the suggestion that it's time "to coin a new term" is oddly misguided—neither constructive or realistic. Contrived new phrases, designed to make a rhetorical point or address an issue, only rarely catch on—and then usually when aided by the media &/or popular culture (which would obviously not happen here).
But more importantly, adding a separate phrase for irrational hatred of Israel—and doing so in response to the popular but deceptive excuse that being anti-Israel doesn’t make you antisemitic—is playing right into their hands. In fact, it sounds like it almost agrees with that contention:
"Because of the confusion and distraction raised by the question of antisemitism, I firmly believe that it is time to coin a new term to describe certain attitudes to Israel.
This almost seems to imply R’ Slifkin agrees that the two hatreds are not largely overlapping, which is certainly not the case! There is no real confusion, only disingenuousness and outright lying, to a very agreeable audience.
For us to use a different term for rabid enemies of Israel would effectively be ceding ground to the enemy, saying you can be a pathological, obsessive hater of Israel—and not be labelled an anti-semite. Wrong.
that's what happens when you are obnoxious as the israelis are, like when you arrest 5 year old children, people tend to not like you, try acting like a halfway normal society and see how much the criticism dies down
ReplyDeleteIsraelophobia is a method to advocate anti semitism and be politically correct.
ReplyDeleteAnd violates the latest definition of anti semitism.
What about "a few people in a deli"? Is that not antisemitic, except that that speaker was also exempt from criticism?