The Reactionary Utopian
                      July 13, 2006


"EVERYONE HAS HIS REASONS"
by Joe Sobran

     More war in the Middle East, and it can only get 
worse.

     Asked why his great film THE RULES OF THE GAME had 
no villains, the French director Jean Renoir said simply, 
"Everyone has his reasons." It was a wise, humane, and 
tragic observation, eternally relevant.

     I've always been strongly anti-Communist, yet when I 
read about World War I some years ago I understood, for 
the first time, why many well-meaning, intelligent people 
-- from Albert Einstein to Charlie Chaplin -- might have 
reacted against it by putting their hopes in Communism. 
In their place, at that time, I realized uneasily, I 
might have done the same myself.

     I hope I would have had second thoughts when the 
grim truth about Communism in practice came to light 
during the Stalin years. Many former Communists and 
sympathizers did, and some became strong anti-Communists. 
But it can be extremely hard to let go of an idea you've 
become attached to, even when it has betrayed your hopes.

     In the same way, we should be able to understand why 
so many Jews in the twentieth century became attached to 
Zionism. It was a beautiful idea: a homeland of their 
own, where they could be normal at last. For many years 
it had my full sympathy. I regarded the state of Israel 
not only as the fulfillment of a Jewish dream, but as a 
valuable ally of the United States in the Cold War. I was 
willing to overlook Israel's murderous 1967 attack on the 
USS Liberty; at the same time I recoiled from Arab 
terrorism.

     But by 1982 I was having second thoughts for many 
reasons, of which Menachem Begin's brutal invasion of 
Lebanon was only one. I'd also come to see that the Arabs 
deserved some sympathy too. Then came revelations of 
Israeli spying on this country. My feeling of betrayal 
was profound.

     Looking back, I can regard Zionism only as naive, as 
Communism originally was; as political dreams always are. 
Of all the places to found a Jewish state, the Muslim 
world now seems -- obviously -- the least propitious on 
earth.

     Even so, I have never been able to regard Israel as 
an enemy of the United States; I've come to see it as an 
"ally" we didn't need, because American support for it 
would make Israel's enemies our enemies too. We should 
simply have heeded our forebears' warnings against 
"entangling alliances" with foreign countries, not only 
in the Middle East, but everywhere.

     You'd think two world wars would have given 
Americans some second thoughts about those "entangling 
alliances," and more respect for their Founding Fathers, 
but today such wisdom is dismissed as "isolationism" -- 
an absurd misnomer for simple prudence. It's not that 
foreign countries are always wicked; if you condemn 
Israel, what are you going to say about a genuine 
hellhole like North Korea?

     But when it comes to war, "everyone has his 
reasons." Nowhere is that more vividly illustrated than 
in the Middle East, where everyone seems to have his 
reasons to hate everyone else, where one side's 
"liberation" is the other's "terrorism," and both agree 
only on the necessity of war.

     Why the United States should dive into that boiling 
caldron is beyond me. In addition to the mutual enmity 
of Jews and Muslims, we are now bedeviled by that between 
Sunnis and Shi'ites as well. It's a deadly game in which 
even the (heavily armed) referees are apt to be killed. 
Yet we are told it's not only our interest but our duty 
to intervene until the whole region is democratic and 
peaceful!

     That will be the day. Everyone has not only his 
reasons, but also his dreams -- chiefly the dream of 
destroying his enemies. All these dreams collide in 
violence, which serves only to make the endless mutual 
hatred deeper.

     And American intervention has proven worse than 
futile, further aggravating the situation. A generation 
ago, an American diplomat urged Jews and Muslims to 
settle their differences "like Christian gentlemen." 
Excellent advice, if only anyone were disposed to take 
it.

     Today our advice is to adopt democracy: "Put down 
your guns and vote!" Yes, surrender to the referees, and 
take the chance that your deadly enemies will come to 
power peacefully -- and then destroy you. Given that 
prospect, everyone has his reasons to keep on fighting.

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