[D]emocracy, for all its wonderful potential, is not a guarantee of anything other than the concretization of a populace’s will.
Rabbi Avi Shafran, Pundits On Pluto
In his op-ed today, Richard Cohen agrees--when it comes to the antisemitism in the Arab world, Democracy is not going to wash it all away:
The trouble with democracies is that they tend to cater to the prejudices of the people - not just to their good sense. This explains why almost all the nations of Central and Eastern Europe turned rabidly anti-Semitic when democracy was instituted after World War I. Anti-Semitism was a popular sentiment and it was exploited by unprincipled politicians. The result in Poland, for instance, was the stated policy of declaring the Jews - about 10 percent of the country - personae non gratae. By then, they had been in Poland for only about 1,000 yearsCaroline Glick echoes the same sentiment--Antisemitism is part of the Muslim world:
...Nowhere in the Middle East is anti-Semitism considered aberrant or weird. It is inconceivable to me that Arab politicians will not attempt to harness both sentiments, combining nationalism with anti-Semitism - a combustible and unstable compound. History instructs about what follows. [emphasis added]
Israelis are indifferent because we realize that whether under authoritarian rule or democracy, anti-Semitism is the unifying sentiment of the Arab world. Fractured along socioeconomic, tribal, religious, political, ethnic and other lines, the glue that binds Arab societies is hatred of Jews.But that is where Cohen and Glick part company.
..What these numbers, and the anti-Semitic behavior of Arabs, show Israelis is that it makes no difference which regime rules where. As long as the Arab peoples hate Jews, there will be no peace between their countries and Israel. No one will be better for Israel than Mubarak. They can only be the same or worse. [emphasis added]
Though he may bemoan the continued antisemitism of the Muslim world, Richard Cohen insists that despite (or because of?) rabid antisemitism in the Muslim world, Israel must make unilateral concessions:
Consequently, now would be the propitious time for Israel to settle with the Palestinians. I am aware that resolution of the Palestinian issue will not satisfy anti-Semites or extreme Arab nationalists - Israel is not going to give up all of Jerusalem nor, for that matter, disappear - and both Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza have only been emboldened by recent events. Still, the creation of a Palestinian state - the lifting of all the onerous restrictions on Palestinian movement - will take some air out of this particular balloon and, possibly, improve Israel's deteriorating moral standing in Europe and elsewhere. This is no small matter.Even if we assume that such a one-sided concession is not a small matter--experience has shown us that it would be a short-lived one.
More to the point, the only benefit Cohen can find is to possibly give a boost to Israel-Europe relations--while having zero, or negative, effect on the Middle East neighborhood where Israel lives.
After all, if--as Cohen admits--Israeli concessions would satisfy neither antisemites or extreme Arab nationalists, just who exactly is left?
Pundits just cannot stop themselves from suggesting more unilateral Israeli concessions as a jump start to peace--just as Jews cannot help themselves from automatically voting for Democrats.
I wonder if there is a connection.
Technorati Tag: Antisemtism and Mideast Peace.
And why is the Israeli government intent on making new concessions that every one knows the Palestinians will reject as insufficient?
ReplyDeleteThey'd have to be out of their minds to do it but Zionism in post-survivalist Israel is viewed as the crazy aunt in the basement.
Explain to me again how creating a Palestinian state in Israel's heartland advances peace and security for the Jewish State. I'd love to hear the rationale behind it.