(Continued from p.10)
ring, the anti-Jewish sentiment confronted in Europe, as invited by a supposed warping of the Jewish soul under conditions of exile, and they wanted to believe that such sentiment would end as Jews became a normal people with a normal national life. But that perspective has left them compromised and morally adrift in the face of the persistence of Arab hostility and the world's endorsement of that hostility. Their moral bearings, a firm sense of the rightness of the Jewish cause, has been compromised in them by their disconnection from Jewish tradition and history and peoplehood and faith, which are the essential foundations for an effective retort to the unmitigated hostility of Israel's enemies.I wrote elsewhere, in an earlier article in Outpost, of helpless victims of abuse, such as abused children, commonly taking at face value the accusations of their abusers; they do so not out of naivete but to sustain some sense of hope in a relatively hopeless situation. If they can blame themselves for the abuse, see the fault in themselves, they can maintain the illusion that by reforming, by becoming "good," they can win over their abusers. The same phenomenon can be seen among abused, victimized peoples, and has been a recurrent theme in Jewish history. In Israel, the response of the left to ongoing Arab hostility has been consistent with this pattern. In the face of all the overwhelming evidence to the contrary, they insist that if only Israel blames itself and makes more concessions gives up more territory, rewrites history to embrace pro-Arab revisionism, however fanciful, prostrates itself before Arab hatred that hatred and hostility will be mollified and Israel will be allowed to live in peace. They have ignored, of course, not only the all-too-obvious physical dangers entailed in this course but also the warping, debilitating, soul-corroding aspects of promoting such willful delusions.
Among abused children, some are fortunate enough to be exposed to counter-experiences that help arm them against assuming responsibility for their predicament. The most common such counter-experience is a relationship with a more consistently nurturing adult, a grandparent perhaps, who conveys to the child a sense of being valued and worthy of better treatment despite the parental depredations. Among peoples such protection comes from whatever enables them to sustain a sense of self-worth and of the injustice of the abuse heaped upon them no matter how chronic and widespread and ugly and dangerous that abuse may be. For Jews it must come from a sense of Jewish history and peoplehood that is sensitive to all that is ennobling, humane and worthy in Jewish belief, Jewish teachings, and Jewish example, Jewish history.
It is not surprising that in large part it is those in Israel most attuned to this legacy that are most resistant to the self-abasements and capitulations promoted by the left, and we see, for example, the modern Orthodox taking a consistently increasing role in the IDF officer corps, much to the chagrin of figures on the left. Nor is it surprising that while in office the Labor-Meretz coalition, to diminish resistance to its so-called peace plan, sought to cut the teaching of Jewish history from Israel's school curricula.
Who will prevail in the existential struggles currently being waged within the Israeli polity has yet to be determined. What is clear though is that Jewish survival in Israel, if it stands, will stand on the twin pillars of Jewish historical connectedness and Zionism; and Jewish survival in the United States, if it is to stand, will do so on the same two pillars.
Dr. Kenneth Levin, a psychiatrist and historian, is professor at the Harvard University Medical School.
(Continued from p.4)
against the oppression of the Tibetans? What about when Sudan slaughtered 2.5 million Christian blacks in Khartoum? Why doesn't NATO force its member-state Turkey to give to the Kurds what it demands for the Kosovo Albanians? These are merely a few of the many similar examples all over the globe. In truth, the attack has nothing to do with
ethics. Only pure political pro-Arab interests are at
stake-- oil. The U.S. intervened in Afghanistan on behalf of
the Moslem extremists--who are now engaged in
blowing up American embassies and using their
American-supplied Stingers to endanger aviation all over the world.
Even worse, the Americans, all for the sake of
Kosovo, are themselves endangering American-Russian
relations and the precious gift that Gorbachev gave the world--
the lifting of the Iron Curtain. Russia and the Serbs are
bound by a historic alliance. When NATO armed
the Croatians and the Bosnians against the Serbs, and
even bombed the Serbs from the air, Russia renewed its
diplomatic and military relations with Iran, Iraq, and
Syria-- and we, Israel, are the victims of the renewal of the
Cold War in the Middle East. This is a direct result of
the defective American policy in Yugoslavia.
American diplomatic failures have left blood-stained marks all over the world: in Vietnam, Iran, Iraq, Beirut, Somalia, Panama, Bosnia, Arafat's Palestinian Authority, and now Kosovo. This new method of forcing a country to give up parts of its territory under the threat of international attack is now being tested. Is Israel next in line?
(This is an abbreviated version of remarks by Haetzni on radio station Arutz 7. Haetzni, formerly a member of the Knesset for the Tehiya Party, is an attorney who lives in Kiryat Arba.)
April 1999 - 11 - Outpost