What Passes For Moral Authority These Days

Captain Kirk: Nobody understands you in this century unless you swear every other word. You'll find it in all the literature of the era: Jaclyn Suzanne, the novels of Harold Robbins."
Spock: Ah, the giants.
Star Trek IV

Shelby Steele writes about today's moral giants?:

Rock bands now find moral imprimatur in canceling their summer tour stops in Israel (Elvis Costello, the Pixies, the Gorillaz, the Klaxons). A demonstrator at an anti-Israel rally in New York carries a sign depicting the skull and crossbones drawn over the word "Israel." White House correspondent Helen Thomas, in one of the ugliest incarnations of this voice, calls on Jews to move back to Poland. And of course the United Nations and other international organizations smugly pass one condemnatory resolution after another against Israel while the Obama administration either joins in or demurs with a wink.

Such is what the world has come to. Jay Nordlinger writes:

Couple of days ago, I was in a flower shop, and the owner is Israeli, I think. There was a customer who had on the counter a Hebrew newspaper. On the front page was a big, big picture of Elton John. He had performed in Israel. And the two men were saying, “Good for him.” (Yes, I guess the owner is Israeli.)

Has it come to that? Has Israel been so demonized in the world — so delegitimized by Islamists and their left-wing allies — that a concert by a foreigner in Israel is a big deal? Is an act of courage, cause for gratitude on the part of the locals? Has it really come to that? Is Israel now apartheid South Africa? That is moral perversion of so high a degree, it is dizzying.

Nordlinger blames this on "people like Jimmy Carter."

I think you can better trace it to the UN inviting Yasir Arafat to speak--gun in hand--to the General Assembly, and the acceptance of the myth of a "Palestinian people" which has never historically existed.

Once the focus shifted from the Arab wars to destroy Israel to the fabrication of a people that never existed, the truth was tossed to the wind.

When the accounting of events become reduced to pop-history, who better to represent right and wrong than pop-musicians, the standard-bearers of culture in the eyes (and ears) of those who cannot be bothered to look past simplistic explanations and accusations--after all, half the time the lyrics take a back seat to the tune.

And the Islamists and the left are calling the tune now

Technorati Tag: Israel.