Honesty about the Middle East

A dozen years ago, during the debate over war with Iraq, Patrick Buchanan caused a storm by observing that the chief advocates of war were the Israelis and “their amen corner in this country.” Nobody really denied this; at least nobody could deny that there was such an “amen corner” and that it was pushing for war. But you weren’t supposed to talk about it. It was a sort of unwritten law.

This time Buchanan’s remark would be truer than it was then. Hardly anyone is eager for war who is not also a supporter of Israel and the harsh rule of Ariel Sharon. Can you think of anyone who opposes American support for Israel who also wants the United States to attack Iraq? Or anyone who favors American support for Israel who also opposes war on Iraq?

The chief difference between 1990 and this year is that the Amen Corner now probably numbers more Christian fundamentalists than Jews. And they are guided more by the Old Testament than the New. If Sharon were to massacre Israel’s entire Palestinian population, most of them would find good Scriptural precedent to justify it. For people of this mindset, it’s enough that the Bible says God once gave the Holy Land to the Israelites, ordering them not to spare the inhabitants, man, woman, child, or beast. That’s all we really have to know about the Middle East.

Of course foreign policy is made by people with worldlier purposes. It looks suspiciously as if a war on Iraq would be aimed at achieving American hegemony over the region. We are hearing that every country in the region that has huge oil reserves also has, by interesting coincidence, an intolerably corrupt and despotic government. This, we are told, merits “regime change.” The United States must overthrow all dictatorships that have a lot of oil.

As the Church Lady used to say, how convenient! Our duty perfectly coincides with our interest! We must promote democracy around the world, but especially in oppressed lands that also happen to be petroleum-rich. No longer are we targeting an Axis of Evil that includes North Korea. The current target is the Axis of Oil. This may even embrace Saudi Arabia, a long-time U.S. ally now being denounced as a treacherous enemy.

And Israel? Israel is safe from American bombs and regime changers. It has no oil and, its apologists insist, it “shares our democratic values.” If so, it shares them in a curious way. Israel’s “democracy” is based on a direct denial of the “self-evident truths” of the Declaration of Independence. In fact, the implementation of those truths would mean the end of Israel as we know it.

According to the Declaration, “all men are created equal.” Israel is based on the understanding that Jews are, in George Orwell’s phrase, “more equal than others.” If Palestinian Arabs were accorded the same rights as Jews, they would flood into their homeland and become the voting majority. Jewish supremacy would soon end, and the country would soon cease to be a “Jewish state.”

Israel is actually the only “democracy” that can’t afford equality. That is why it refuses to allow a “right of return” for expelled Arabs, even though it affirms a “right of return” for Jews everywhere, even those who have never lived in the Holy Land. Its Jewish majority is an artificial creation that must be maintained by endless racial discrimination against people who lack Jewish ancestry. Think of that. A “democracy” based on racial discrimination!

This is so obvious that it’s amazing that the Palestinians and their sympathizers so seldom point it out. Most of them speak as if the solution to the Israeli-Palestianian struggle would be a separate Palestinian state, with no reform in Israel itself. Why don’t they simply demand equality before the law in Israel? Is that out of the question?

Honest Zionists have always acknowledged, even insisted, that Israel can’t be both Jewish and democratic. They have been called extremists for saying so, but their logic is impeccable and, now, unavoidable.

Israeli propaganda depends heavily on the claim that Israel is “democratic.” Don’t expect a retraction of this claim in the near future. But Americans looking for excuses for attacking Israel’s oil-rich neighbors should be forced to face the truth.

Joseph Sobran