Is It Worth It?
September 20, 2001

by Joe Sobran

     One thing is clear: the recent horrible events in 
New York and Washington had nothing whatsoever, in any 
way, shape, or form, to do with U.S. support for Israel. 
Many Arabs and Muslims hate this country and would hate 
it just as bitterly if there were no such thing as 
Israel.

     At least this is what we are hearing from Israel's 
apologists. The European press seems to assume that 
America's policy toward Israel helped provoke the 9/11 
attack. To the naive eye this would seem rather obvious. 
Yet we are assured otherwise.

     Writing in the WALL STREET JOURNAL, Norman Podhoretz 
asserts that "if Israel had never come into existence, or 
if it were magically to disappear, the U.S. would still 
stand as an embodiment of everything that most of these 
Arabs consider evil. Indeed," he goes on, "the hatred of 
Israel is in large part a surrogate for anti-
Americanism."

     According to this argument, the terrible violence we 
have suffered has no connection to our alliance with 
Israel; that alliance not only has no cost for us, but is 
a positive blessing. We are lucky to have such an ally.

     In fact, by this logic, the cost of the alliance 
falls on Israel. It would seem to follow that Israel, in 
its own interest, should break its special ties to the 
United States and reject any further American military 
and financial aid. Why should the Israelis, who have 
their own problems, take on all our enemies in addition?

     Podhoretz's argument is an insult to his readers' 
intelligence. Of course American support for Israel has 
cost this country dearly. Any fool can see that, though 
in some quarters only a fool would say it out loud.

     A personal note is relevant here. Fifteen years ago, 
Podhoretz and his circle tried to get me fired from my 
job at NATIONAL REVIEW for saying as much. That 
experience taught me a lot about the limits of free 
speech.

     When it comes to Israel, an American journalist 
speaks his mind at his own risk. That helps explain why 
so few voices in the U.S. press are saying what European 
journalists may say without fear.

     In the early 1980s it became clear to me that the 
pro-Israel lobby was trying to steer the United States 
into conflict with the Arab world. I saw nothing in the 
American interest in that; and my own two sons were 
approaching the draft age. Until then, I had been 
strongly pro-Israel myself; but sacrificing my boys for 
Israel was a higher price than I wanted to pay. Nor did I 
want other Americans to pay it.

     But as soon as I began arguing publicly that the 
U.S.-Israel alliance was not only costly but dangerous to 
the United States, I became the target of Zionist 
vituperation and worse. Some, like Podhoretz, tried to 
ruin my career. And I've seen others get the same 
treatment.

     Yet it should be clear even to those who see nothing 
to criticize in Israel that America pays a price for 
supporting it -- and the price just got much heavier. No 
doubt there are other things that make this country hated 
and despised in the Arab-Muslim world, but to deny that 
Israel is a chief irritant is dishonest. And we must be 
free to say so.

     My point here is not that Israel, or for that matter 
America itself, is to blame. It's simply in the nature of 
things that, for all sorts of reasons, the interests of 
nations conflict; and when a nation projects force 
abroad, sooner or later it is going to provoke a strong 
reaction. What happened to us last week was only to be 
expected; I don't feel like a psychic for having 
predicted it for many years.

     Now we have to ask ourselves a simple question: Is 
it worth it? It's a question we should have asked much 
earlier. Of course we have to weigh the rights and wrongs 
of the Middle East, but there comes a time when even 
taking the right side may bring unbearable costs.

     It's not encouraging that the U.S. military response 
to the 9/11 attack has been gauchely dubbed "Operation 
Infinite Justice." Mercy may be infinite, but justice is 
always a matter of measure. And a sense of measure is 
just what has been missing in American foreign policy for 
lo, these many years.

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