Bret Stephens writes a weekly column for the Wall Street Journal and on September 13, 2011 published a piece under the title: “Israel's Predicament”. He lists a number of incidents which, he says, happened to Israel in a single month and he ends with this plea: “But is it too much to ask its [Israel's] friends for support – this time, for once, without cavil or reservation?” The importance in pointing out how the column ends is that the end ties in with the beginning where the author asks: “What is Israel's predicament?” and he responds: “It is surrounded … by enemies … [and] its friends are only ambivalently committed to its security.”
Thus, you can see that the Stephens argument basically goes this way: Because Israel is surrounded by enemies who do not like it and by friends who do not care much about it, I ask you to support it if only this one time. The thing is that those of us who follow the antics of the Jewish lobby know it always asks that Israel be supported without cavil or reservation “this one time only” an average of ten times a day, everyday of the week and the sabbath too. And what this demonstrates is that these people are a forgetful bunch or that they are an ungrateful one. However, those who know history don't ask themselves which it is because they would have concluded long ago what the Turks and the American military have concluded only now which is that the Israelis (read the Jews) are an ungrateful bunch.
To wit, from the time when the ancient Egyptians saw how destitute the Hebrew tribes were and took them in from the cold to foster them during 4 centuries -- to the time when the various European people sheltered the Jews during the 18 centuries that followed the Roman occupation, these people have bit the hands that fed them. Ask them why they behave the way they do and they will recite a long contorted story that boils down to this: If they cease to be the way they are, they cease to be Jews. Thus, to be or not to be a Jew has always been the existential question confronting these people. Many of them got tired of the funky life they were made to live and left the Judaic movement to live like ordinary human beings. But the sad part is that they were replaced by the non-Jews who thought that a human hand was a tasty thing to have for a snack.
The other thing that hits you in the eye as you read the first paragraph of the Stephens column is the word “ambivalently” because you are immediately reminded of the fact that these people live by a never ending stream of ambiguities they create around them, the most important being whether or not Israel has a nuclear arsenal. And so you ask yourself if there is not a relationship between ambiguity and ambivalence. You ask: Could it be that Israel's so-called friends are ambivalent about its fate because it is ambiguous about its own intentions? Stephens hints at a possible answer to this question in that he argues that Israel needs a commitment to its security. In fact this is what his column is about; it is a list of what gives Israel a feeling of insecurity. And so you go over the list to see what it may reveal.
The list begins with 7 pesky incidents he says happened to Israel between August 18 and September 9. What he does not say is that if these incidents were put together in a basket, the Palestinians would gladly exchange them for one day of annoyances inflicted on them by the Israeli occupation. In fact, Israel can avoid the recurrence of such incidents by ending the occupation. Also, it is worth noting that the common theme running through all these incidents is that the people of the region are fed up with Israel's conduct and they want to see it change. The trouble, however, is that for Israel to change means that it will have to give up on its territorial ambitions, and this is something that would contradict the purpose for which it was created as well as the reason why powerful foreign interests are financing it now and keeping it afloat.
Stephens then goes on to mention an item that relates to a revelation made on September 5. It was brought about by a Wikileaks release in which an individual (probably a Jew) offered the opinion that "the disappearance of a Jewish state would not be the tragedy that Israelis fear since it would become more democratic." Rather than be impressed by the mention of the word democratic – always a big deal for him and for the propaganda arm of the Jewish lobby -- he is offended by the revelation because, as he says, the individual in question belongs to an organization called the New Israel Fund whose dedication is this: “A vision of Israel as both a Jewish homeland and a shared society at peace with itself and its neighbors.” And here too, you find another word that offends Stephens; it is the mention of peace with the neighbors. Thus, democracy and peace are not really what he, what the Wall Street Journal or what the Jewish lobby want to see in the Middle East; they want to see an ethnically cleansed Jewish state that will encompass Judea and Samaria which mean the entire occupied West Bank of the Jordan River.
And then he does something that comes to us, the readers, like manna from the sky. What he does is compare Israel with Pakistan and Zimbabwe which he describes as: “...the wretched mess they have made of their existence as self-governing states.” This confirms what the rest of us have suspected for a long time. It is that Stephens and people like him do not believe in what they preach when they portray Israel as being God's gift to humanity, a model for us to follow and a teacher that will show us the way to salvation. In fact, this is not the first time that these people have compared Israel to someone whose conduct they were saying was abhorrent. They did it during the meeting of the UN Human Rights Commission at Durban when they compared Israel and Iran, a country they were portraying at the time as being the perfect model of a theocratic state – something they wanted Israel to emulate. To this, I can only say: Thank you, Bret, you are at your best when you betray your private thoughts and your innermost sentiments. But then again, this is where true artistic creativity comes from. I say you should continue to nurture this tendency because it can lead you to write great novels.
And there is a good reason why he should consider writing fiction; it is that he is bad at making logical arguments that hold together and remain coherent. In fact, the rest of his column proves this deficiency. Look what he does. First, he laments that only Israel is on perpetual trial in that it is routinely held to account by way of its policies. He goes on to cite one of the reasons why Israel is criticized which is that it is occupying somebody else's country. This is where you expect him to respond to the criticism directly and to bring into the response Israel's policies regarding the occupation which is what stands at the core of the discussion. But this is not what he does. Instead, he mentions the phony platitudes that the phony friends of Israel throw into the discussion when they try not to offend their interlocutors while trying to persuade them of the futility of the occupation. What these people say is that Israel is risking its own future in taking a stance that is corrosive to its soul instead of coming right out and saying that the occupation is illegal and unfair to the victims who suffer under it.
And so Bret Stephens responds not directly by tackling the subject of occupation but responds to the platitudes. He says that they would be convincing if they “were joined by some decent respect for Israel's mind.” Okay, you say, he dodged the real question because he will now show that the Israelis are so special, they have the right to a few things even if these things came at the expense of someone else. And you continue to read the piece until you hit on this: “Israel … labors … under the … stereotype that it is too clever to blunder … But Israel also labors under the stereotype that it is too stupid … to recognize its own interest in coming to terms with a Palestinian state.”
You're not quite sure what to make of this but you keep reading until you find that he is saying the Israelis have soured on the idea of a Palestinian state because of six reasons which are the following: One, the Palestinians have spurned a couple of offers made to them in the past. Two, the experience of withdrawal from Gaza turned out to be a bad one for Israel. Three, Iran is going nuclear. Four, Egypt is turning hostile. Five, the Palestinian leadership is still irredentist. Six, the people of Israel have voted for the continuation of the occupation. And he concludes by saying that the pesky incidents he cited early on prove that despite the fact Israel did all it could to allay the enmity of its enemies and mollify the scorn of its critics, it now finds itself in mortal danger more than ever before which is why he pleads for the unconditional support of its friends this one time only.
And so you step back to look at the six reasons he just cited and you find that he is exploiting the worn out pattern always followed by the spin doctors of the Jewish lobby. It is to use every incident they can think of -- be it old or new – as an excuse to avoid ending the occupation of Palestine, to keep stealing land from these people and to keep looting property from them. The newest of those incidents being that Egypt is now going through a transformation, you expect him to explain why this would be a reason for Israel to continue the occupation and the looting but he fails to do so. Thus, you conclude that he brought nothing new to the discussion but that he recycled what has been said before which is why his efforts will serve to perpetuate Israel's predicament, the very situation he is complaining about.
And you conclude once again that the problem with the Jewish question is not that there is something wrong with humanity; it is that there is something wrong with a philosophy of life these people have adopted. It is a philosophy that says no matter what humanity does to accommodate them, it will never be enough because they are entitled to more than the infinite, more than the absolute and more than the eternal. They are past all this and beyond all that. They are past and beyond all limits.
They are to inflict pain on others permanently and they are to suffer themselves at perpetuity. Their way of life is the scourge inflicted on the human race with no sign it will go away gracefully.