[(Continued from p.6)]
longer considered a natural client group by the Left in the same way as other minorities are. The most conspicuous example of this trend was the notorious cover of the New Statesman which depicted a Star of David piercing the Union Jack under the headline "A Kosher conspiracy?" The magazine's editor has apologised but the fact that such an offensive image could appear at all shows how the wind is blowing on the Left.Three factors in New Left thinking chip away at the security of the Jewish people. First, the trend towards seeing world affairs through the mirrored sunglasses of the revolutionary; secondly, hostility towards the historic nation state; thirdly, the preference for therapy over discipline.
The first trend, Ray-Ban Radicalism, is now common on the Left, where foreign affairs are seen through a single set of lenses. Conflicts everywhere are perceived as struggles between "imperialist" oppressors and the wretched of the earth, irrespective of the real complexities. In Cuba and Nicaragua, and with increasing inappropriateness in Ulster and Israel, the Left indulges terror while casting its victims as the "real" oppressors. In the Middle East the terrorists who challenge Israel's right to exist are invested with radical chic and suicide bombers are depicted as romantic martyrs rather than mass-murderers.
The Left's growing hostility towards the nation-state is a threat to the very existence of Israel, which is itself the ultimate guarantor of the Jewish people's security. The New Left's insistence on dissolving sovereignty works against the survival of Israel as a Jewish State because it rejects the "exclusivist" principles of self-determination and secure borders. This animus against the nation state is given expression by bodies such as the EU, which consistently favours Palestinian claims over Israel. It finds an outlet among international lawyers such as those in Brussels demanding to try Ariel Sharon for "war crimes." And it is amplified in the UN through events such as the Durban "anti-racism" conference where Zionism was equated with racism.
The final New Left trend which works against Jewish security is the preference for therapy over discipline. Faced with conflicts, the Left shies from the resolute punishment of those in the wrong and insists that both sides have legitimate "issues" which need resolution. The universalist New Left logic of the "peace process" dictates that terrorists and democrats are treated alike. Both parties must learn to abandon their "intransigence" to achieve progress. By placing aggressors on the same moral plane as victims, the New Left not only denies morality any place in conflicts, it denies the Jewish people, in their contested home, the moral right to self-defence.
The new anti-Semitism clearly differs from the old. But the old taught us one terrible lesson. These dangers will grow unless checked. And unless checked they will diminish us all.
This article was originally published by the Times of London on February 19.
"Our people are stronger than the Israeli army," declared Yasser Arafat in a bold speech outside his office on February 9 that struck many observers as just another example of Palestinian fist-waving.
But when Palestinian rockets exploded in Israel shortly thereafter, and when a huge Palestinian bomb destroyed a top-of-the-line Merkava battle tank on February 14, it became increasingly clear that Israel's military deterrent and its qualitative edge are being challenged by the Palestinians and their allies as never before:
1. Egypt, which regularly trains its troops to battle Israel, now stands ready to receive Harpoon II missiles from the United States -- a strategic weapon that has both sea-to-sea, sea-to-shore and air-to-ground capabilities. Egypt, which already manufactures a version of the American Abrams battle tank, is also slated to receive the sophisticated MLRS multiple rocket system.
2. The Islamic terror organization Hezbollah
[(Continued on p.8)]
Celebrate
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March 2002 - 7 - Outpost