Let us try to define "moral equivalence" using an example. Ask the following question: Is there a moral equivalence between a government that is mistreating an individual and a corporation that is mistreating that same individual? Pose the question in this form to a number of people and the majority will say it is much worse for a government to mistreat people than it is for a corporation to do so, therefore there is no moral equivalence here.
Now pose the question in a different way: Is there a moral equivalence between a municipal government going after an individual over an unpaid water bill, and a department store going after that same individual over an unpaid purchase bill? And the reaction of the people will be a mixed one thus indicating that there may be a moral equivalence here.
The difference between the two situations is that in the first example, the people visualized an evil government possessing unlimited powers going after an innocent citizen, possibly for political reasons with the aim of destroying him or her. Consequently, the people reacted according to the stereotypes and cliches that the culture has instilled in them. In the second example, the people visualized the sort of case they may have seen happen to a neighbor or one they experienced themselves and thus concluded that a municipal government is not an ogre they should fear even if it is sometimes difficult to fight city hall.
The point here is that the mental disposition of people, which is always based on the prevailing culture and their personal experiences, is what prepares them for the way they view questions of moral equivalence and for evaluating them. And this brings us to the following question: Are the recent demands to call Israel a Jewish state morally equivalent to the Nazi vision of Germany being the home of a master race?
Most Jewish organizations and their backers will say no, there is no moral equivalence between those two. But most Arabs, especially the Palestinians among them, will say yes, there is moral equivalence between the two. This variation in the views is due to the different experiences that the two peoples have had, and to the different historical narratives to which each community subscribes. And this compels us to want to look at the mental disposition of the two respondents -- the no side and the yes side.
The no side will explain that there is no more harm in calling Israel a Jewish state than there is in a predominantly Muslim country calling itself an Islamic state, as indeed some do. The yes side will argue that things are more complicated than that and will amplify their point of view by giving a historical narrative.
They will begin with the undeniable fact that the Israeli government and its American supporters have repeatedly expressed fear about the demographic trend which is expected to turn Israel into a predominantly Islamo-Christian society from the predominantly Jewish one that it is today. Thus, it is clear that the intent of the Israelis and their American backers in calling Israel a Jewish state is to formalize, legalize and maintain the process of ethnic cleansing that the Jews have conducted since the establishment of the state of Israel. It is a cleansing they carried out at different times throughout the decades in more or less subtle ways, first to turn Israel into a Jewish state then to maintain it as such.
Moreover, the government of Israel continues to expand the reach of the occupation by building settlements on the West Bank of the Jordan River thus defying several resolutions issued by the UN Security Council, numerous appeals made by the world community and a strong nudge delivered by none other than Israel’s only ally and patron, the United States of America. And the excuse that the Israelis give for doing what they do is to accommodate the natural growth of their population, as they put it. And this, my friend, is the crux of the matter. This last part is so profound, I must pause for a moment and explain how deadly serious this thing is.
I had a Jewish friend who was never in a concentration camp but who knew what it was like to be in one. He did not like what the Jewish organizations were doing in his name and the name of Jews, and he thought little of the leaders who pretended to speak with authority when in fact, they knew little of what they were talking about according to him. He developed many ways to express his displeasure at those leaders, and one way to express his contempt at their mentality was to do the following. Whenever they said something that insinuated or implied that Jews are a superior race, he would say: This is exactly what will buy the Jews a one way train ride to the next holocaust.
I am certain that if my friend were here today he would be repeating this thought to express his view regarding the natural growth argument put forward by the Israelis and their American supporters. You see, dear reader, when they clear the jungle to make room for human settlements in places like Brazil, the clearing is done at the expense of the animals that live there. The excuse that humans give for doing what they do is that they are accommodating the natural growth of the human population. All the while, they say nothing about the animal population because animals are of no consequence in the competition between them and the humans. Thus, when the Israelis and their American supporters say they are accommodating natural growth, they mean to say the growth of the Jewish population which they believe trumps that of the Palestinians who are, after all, of no consequence. Wow! Do you get the drift of this mentality? Do you understand what these people are really saying?
Well, in thinking about such matters long and hard, my Jewish friend concluded that the Holocaust was the culmination of the rivalry between the Aryan master race as dreamed up by the sick minds of the Nazis, and the chosen race of the Jews as dreamed up by the sick minds of the rabbis and the Jewish leaders. My friend used to say that both sides lost this battle some six decades ago but the Germans were lucky because they lost the sympathy of the world, something that forced them to seek a new beginning. By contrast, the Jews gained the sympathy of the world, and this put them on a path to launch a new battle of rivals against someone else, a development that will send them back into the arms of the next holocaust. One way or the other the Jews will lose again as they have lost time and again over the past thirty five centuries, said my worried Jewish friend.
But how could the situation have evolved so drastically since the last holocaust when all that the Jews wanted was a small homeland of their own where they could lead a quiet life as if in a ghetto? The answer is simple but not at all a new one. It used to be said that the Jews were left in the hands of those who would harm them, and that no one lifted a finger to save them when danger came knocking at their door. True, but the trouble was that no one said who brought danger and harm to the Jews. And this omission was the reason why no one noticed that the culprits were the charlatans who appointed themselves leaders of the Jews.
These people founded organizations they labeled Jewish by the mere fact that they stuck a sign at the door that said Jewish this or Jewish that, then took control of the lives of the Jews. But time has proved over and over that to leave ordinary Jews in the hands of these charlatans was to do the moral equivalent of giving them the kiss of death. But who should have blown the whistle on these fake leaders yet did not? The answer is that the would-be whistle blowers were non-Jewish individuals who had power and influence and who resided mostly in Europe with a few residing in America.
Instead of standing up tall against the activities of the charlatans, those individuals did the opposite of what they were supposed to do. They encouraged the charlatans to keep on serving the Jews as they saw fit with no one allowed to question their activities. And the penalty for violating this edict was that the offenders would be called anti-Semitic and considered as good as dead professionally and socially. And all of this was happening at a time when the Palestinians were asking successive American Administrations to be even-handed in their handling of the Palestinian-Israeli dispute. But with the charlatans firmly in control, you can imagine what must have been the reaction of the Jewish organizations.
That reaction was to say no to even-handedness because when you are even-handed you set up a moral equivalence between two sides. But in this case, the moral equivalence could only have been a false one given the nature of the sides. And this stance was repeated so often that after a while, everyone came to understand it was forbidden to speak of the Jews and the Palestinians in the same sentence, let alone speak of them as if they were equal. Indeed, to put the two sides on an even keel was something that the Jewish leaders rejected vehemently and categorically, and the cowards of the world bowed to that and they said amen.
The fake Jewish leaders then used the phrase "moral equivalence" to obliterate every possibility at establishing a semblance of equality between the Jews and the Palestinians. The leaders then escalated their drive and made it impossible to establish equality between the Jews and anyone else. In fact, the phrase was used like a knife to cut the Jewish community out of the human race and to cast the Jews as a separate breed. In their eyes they were the superior breed, a claim that prompted other people to see them as the inferior breed.
And as always in such matters, things kept escalating to the point where the Israelis and their supporters considered it normal justice for thousands of Lebanese and Palestinians to be butchered so as to avenge the death of one or two Israelis, or to avenge the apprehension of a couple of prisoners who trespassed into Arab territory. In the view of the Jewish leaders, this would be the only kind of moral equivalence they can live with.
And this is why the Palestinians and their Arab friends have concluded that to call Israel a Jewish state is the moral equivalent of calling Nazi Germany home of the master race. Both claims are repugnant and both are rejected.