June 14, 2003

GENTLEMEN MAY CRY PEACE

        Once again the the gentlemen of our State Dept. are in hot pursuit of peace. Hard factual reality is an impediment to be ignored. Thoughts expressed in words like "road map to peace" are elevated over actuality. According to Colin Powell, "We must not let this latest terrorist outrage derail the path to peace.." So when Palestinians commit suicide-murder of actual human beings, Powell asserts, not that terrorists are killing Jews while pursuing their Nazi genocidal goal, but rather they are threatening the road map to peace and therefore the road map must be pursued with increased vigor.
        Thus are individual Israeli lives sacrificed to an abstract fantasy. They are simply impediments to the arrival of that happy day when the lion will lie down with the lamb. One recalls however, the story of the zoo keeper who showed a visiting anthropologist a lamb lying peacefully next to a lion in its cage. When asked how he had accomplished such an extraordinary feat he said 'Easy, I find a new lamb every day'. And so our State Dept., like the zoo keeper, isn't deterred by the reality that the Arab world has never, since the day of its founding, stopped trying to destroy Israel. Its actions speak louder than any words such as those put on paper at Oslo. Our State Dept. utopians would deny it, but they share the mindset of a long line of utopians who have scapegoated Jews as obstacles to the arrival of utopia. Stalin and Hitler and now the Islamo-fascists, all have needed to blame someone for the failure of their unrealizable dreams. Stalin's supposed workers' paradise, Hitler's unattainable ubermensch, Osama's failed Islamic paradise--each blamed the Jews. And now, in the heart of failed Arab states, the Jews, of all people, have created a dynamic, flourishing democratic state. On a tiny sliver of arid land Israel has created a standard of living and education for its citizens well beyong the levels attained in the various Arab kleptocracies, sitting on their oceans of oil. Nothing could be more galling, nothing more glaringly remind them of their own failures. The peace the Arabs want requires annihilation of the Jewish state. And now our State Dept. utopians join them; they dream of peace through agreements, never learning that such agreements are regarded as means to the end of annihilating Israel. if only those troublesome Jews would be more reasonable and, understand the need of the Arabs for more concrete concessions than were offered at Oslo. Verbal expressions of the correct sentiments are sufficient when it comes to Abu Mazen, but not enough from Israel. The more innocent Jews are murdered, the more need for diplomacy. There is no 'cycle of violence' with its supposed equivalence between terrorists and those who fight back, but there is a very obvious cycle- diplomatic moves are invariably followed by more terror attacks on Israeli innocents, followed by yet another diplomatic endeavour, etc.
        The real impediment to peace is the utopian impulse that seems such a deeply ingrained part of human nature. The Churchills who warn that peace can only come following utter, devastating defeat of the enemies of civilization are regarded as hate mongers--until it is almost too late. Who will be our Churchill?

Posted at 10:34 AM by