Obsessions about Israel
March 6, 2003

by Joe Sobran

     The other day a Zionist writer accused me of being 
"an obsessed critic of Israel." And here I'd imagined I 
was an obsessed critic of the U.S. Government.

     My point is not just that the accusation is silly, 
but that I don't see why it's even an accusation. A boy 
in love is obsessed with a girl. A mathematician may be 
obsessed with a theorem. Beethoven was obsessed with 
music.

     I could understand someone saying I was obsessed 
with the U.S. Constitution, or Lincoln, or Shakespeare. 
These are subjects I've written books about; I've written 
columns about them even when they weren't on the front 
pages.

     But Israel is seldom OFF the front pages. It's an 
obsession that's forced on all of us, unless we make an 
effort to ignore it. Columnists like Charles Krauthammer, 
Cal Thomas, and William Safire write about it far more 
often than I do, and nobody calls them "obsessed," 
because, like most pundits, they are always and 
absolutely on Israel's side.

     It's only when you occasionally contradict the 
Niagara roar of Zionist propaganda in the media that you 
are charged with having an unhealthy preoccupation with 
Israel. Then you are told that if you can't write 
something nice about Israel, you shouldn't write about it 
at all. As I once wrote about another Zionist detractor 
who kept accusing me of being obsessed with Israel, "I 
guess he can't stop thinking about my obsession."

     Israel isn't a subject that really excites me; I 
don't have the energy to write a book about it. But now 
and then the ironies are too rich to resist. Here is a 
"democracy" based on the denial of human equality. Here 
is an "ally" that steals military secrets from the United 
States, while making it enemies it didn't use to have. 
Here is a "homeland" for Jews who have never lived there 
and can't trace their ancestry to it, but who can claim 
rights that are denied to actual natives of the land. 
Here is a country that complains about "terrorism" and 
keeps electing rulers like Menachem Begin, Yitzhak 
Shamir, and Ariel Sharon.

     Lots of other writers are well aware of these 
incongruities, but they avoid talking about them for fear 
of professional reprisals. Editors and publishers fear 
the wrath of Jewish advertisers.

     Talk about obsession! There is such a thing as an 
obsessive silence about the obvious. The Victorians 
thought about sex a lot, but they seldom talked about it, 
except in cautious circumlocutions. And that is a lot 
more understandable than discussing an urgent foreign-
policy problem in delicate euphemisms. As Michael Kinsley 
recently wrote, Israel is the elephant in the living room 
-- seen, but evaded in conversation.

     After I began writing critically about Israel, after 
15 years of being enthusiastically pro-Israel, I ran into 
a Jewish friend at National Airport. He greeted me with 
the words: "I hear you've gone off the reservation on 
Israel!" Until then, I hadn't realized I'd been on a 
reservation.

     Not long afterward, he made it clear that our 
friendship was over. I was welcome to disagree with him 
about Social Security or the minimum wage or the income 
tax, but not about Israel. It seemed to me that he was a 
little ... well, obsessed.

     Many people get the impression that the media are 
totally pro-Israel. This is far from true. But most 
journalists are too prudent to say what they really 
think. A distinguished old reporter at CBS once told me 
about the ferocious abuse he and the network had received 
after he made a mildly critical remark about Israel on a 
Sunday morning chat show.

     When you are obsessed with a subject, you lose all 
sense of proportion about it. I think this is exactly 
what has happened with Israel, and we need frank 
criticism to restore proportion. Jewish Zionists have now 
been joined in their obsession by simplistic Christians, 
who also demand all-out U.S. support for Israel -- 
including endless wars against Israel's enemies.

     Zionism was one of the last century's many utopian 
movements. You can hardly blame the desperate Jews who, 
after World War II, were attracted by the prospect of a 
Jewish utopia. But after a while, when the troublesome 
results became apparent, even many Zionists had second 
thoughts. So, by now, should the rest of us.

     There are far worse governments than Israel's. Its 
enemies have lost their sense of proportion too. But our 
"special relationship" poses special dangers. The first 
President Bush understood this; his son appears not to.

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