The Jewish State at 60
By WILLIAM KRISTOL
Published: May 12, 2008
This week marks the 60th anniversary of the founding of the state of Israel. There have already been many birthday greetings, some heartfelt, some perfunctory, along with numerous reflections on the meaning of the occasion, some profound, some commonplace. For me, however, a discordant voice broke through.
Israel is a “stinking corpse” on its way to “annihilation,” Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said last Thursday as Israel celebrated Independence Day. “Those who think they can revive the stinking corpse of the usurping and fake Israeli regime by throwing a birthday party are seriously mistaken,” proclaimed the president of Iran, a nation that is a member in good standing of the United Nations and an active trading partner of countries like Germany and Russia. “Today the reason for the Zionist regime’s existence is questioned, and this regime is on its way to annihilation.”
Wow, Germany and Russia. Traditional favorites of the Kristol family, I've found.
I didn’t intend, in writing this column, to quote Ahmadinejad. I hate to dignify him by even taking note of his comments. I meant to pay tribute to the Zionists — men like Weizmann and Jabotinsky, Ben-Gurion and Begin — who made possible the almost miraculous redemption of the Jewish people in 1948. And I also intended to recognize the defenders of Israel at moments of crisis — men like Harry Truman and Richard Nixon and George W. Bush.
And yet somehow Mr. Kristol--despite his best intentions---brings Ahmadinejad into his birthday kiss column anyway. And how, again, did the founding of the state of Israel miraculously redeem the Jewish people?
I thought I might even dwell on the amazing essay by the novelist George Eliot who made a case for Zionism in 1879 — 17 years before the publication of Theodor Herzl’s “The Jewish State.”
“The hinge of possibility,” Eliot wrote, is that among the Jews “there may arise some men of instruction and ardent public spirit, some new Ezras, some modern Maccabees, who will know how to use all favouring outward conditions, how to triumph by heroic example, over the indifference of their fellows and the scorn of their foes, and will steadfastly set their faces towards making their people once more one among the nations.”
It took a few minutes of dauntless search-fu, but I think Mr. Kristol is referring to "Impressions of Theophrastus Such" by George Eliot, which may be found here.
Also, Eliot wrote of a future Israel wrote:
Looking towards a land and a polity, our dispersed people in all the ends of the earth may share the dignity of a national life which has a voice among the peoples of the East and the West--which will plant the wisdom and skill of our race so that it may be, as of old, a medium of transmission and understanding.
...the world will gain as Israel gains. For there will be a community in the fan of the East which carries the culture and the sympathies of every great nation in its bosom; there will be a land set for a halting-place of enmities, a neutral ground for the East as Belgium is for the West.
Ah yes, Israel as a medium of transmission and understanding between East and West. A land for a halting-place of enmities . . . a neutral ground for the East. Umm, good luck with that.
The new Ezras and the modern Maccabees arose. But Jew hatred didn’t go away. And so, today, in light of Ahmadinejad’s remarks, in the face of the weakness of the West before the Iranian regime — I can’t avoid being reminded of the fact that this year is not only the 60th anniversary of Israel, but also the 75th anniversary of Hitler’s coming to power.
A Hitler reference? I don't think I saw that one coming. Godwin's Law, anyone?
In 1933, in Germany, at the geographical and intellectual center of 20th-century Europe, the Weimar Republic was replaced, as the philosopher Leo Strauss put it, “by the only German regime — by the only regime that ever was anywhere — which had no other clear principle except murderous hatred of the Jews, for ‘Aryan’ had no clear meaning other than ‘non-Jewish.’ ”
Well, there was the whole Slav thing, too. I think "Aryan" pretty much meant non-Slav, too. And then there was the whole Lebensraum thing. (I think we can agree that territorial expansion was a "clear principle" of Naziism.) And Versailles. And Alsace-Lorraine . . . Say, wasn't Leo Strauss a Methodist?
The civilized world was helpless. Churchill’s pleas to act were ignored. The world was plunged into war. Two-fifths of world Jewry were murdered.
The founding of Israel promised a more hopeful future, not just for the Jews but for mankind.
How, exactly, did the founding of Israel promise a more hopeful future for mankind qua mankind? Taking territory away from an unfavored group and giving it to a favored group through main strength and awkwardness---that's our more hopeful future?
And, in fact, the last 60 years have perhaps been less horror filled and more humane than the preceding 60. But what of the future?
On Dec. 10, 1948, Winston Churchill, then leader of the opposition, took to the floor of the House of Commons to chastise the Labour government for its continuing refusal to recognize the state of Israel. In his remarks, Churchill commented:
“Whether the Right Honourable Gentleman likes it or not, and whether we like it or not, the coming into being of a Jewish state in Palestine is an event in world history to be viewed in the perspective, not of a generation or a century, but in the perspective of a thousand, two thousand or even three thousand years. This is a standard of temporal values or time values which seems very much out of accord with the perpetual click-clack of our rapidly-changing moods and of the age in which we live.”
And in the perspective of a thousand, two thousand, even three thousand years, who now remembers the Armenians? (That's a German chancellor quote, y'all.)
In 2008, the defense of the state of Israel, and everything it stands for, requires a kind of courage and determination very much out of accord with the perpetual click-clack of our politics, and with the combination of irresponsibility and wishfulness that characterizes the age in which we live.
In our irresponsible and make-believe age, it takes a real man to stand up for the defense of Israel. This is mere assertion, with no explanation. And just what, exactly, is it that Israel stands for? A state with ethnically determined favoritism? A state with religiously determined favoritism? A state which cannot maintain harmonious relationships with its neighbors? That's our bright future?
Still, even though the security of Israel is very much at risk, the good news is that, unlike in the 1930s, the Jews are able to defend themselves, and the United States is willing to fight for freedom. Americans grasp that Israel’s very existence to some degree embodies the defeat and repudiation of the genocidal totalitarianism of the 20th century. They understand that its defense today is the front line of resistance to the jihadist terror, and the suicidal nihilism, that threaten to deform the 21st.
Is this a slap at Franklin Delano Roosevelt? Well, if so, well and good, and let's lay on ourselves, but that's no nevermind right now. My more serious concern is Mr. Kristol's willing conflation of "the Jews" with either the State of Israel, or Israeli citizens. Or the Israeli government, of whichever flavor it might be at the moment? Kind of smacks of that whole collective thing to me. Me, I don't think the sins of the father pass on to the son, and certainly not to the whole damn tribe. We've been doing the whole tribal thing for over two thousand years since the coming of the Prince of Peace. Maybe we ought to think about a better way of doing these things. And really the whole Final Solution thing was tribalism all dressed up with modern efficiencies, wasn't it?
What Eric Hoffer wrote in 1968 seems even truer today: “I have a premonition that will not leave me; as it goes with Israel, so will it go with all of us. Should Israel perish, the holocaust will be upon us.”
I'll confess, I had never heard of Eric Hoffer before. (I freely admit my limitations.) I googled him. Although I do not know if he was religiously observant, he was---in at least the ethnic sense of the word---a Jew.
Given that Hoffer was a Jew/Jewish (whichever is more properly recognized as the respectful designation), is it in any way surprising that he had a strong sense of self-identification with Israel? And would it be somehow wrong to suspect that his tribal affiliations colored his perception that "as it goes with Israel, so will it go with all of us"? Hey, I am---in, at least, the citizenship sense of the word--an AMerican, and my opinion of just how important America is to the world is quite naturally colored by my (avowed) tribal affiliations. So neener neener boo boo.
William Kristol is a punching bag. I remain amazed at his continued prominence.
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