Sunday, December 12, 2004
Why we support Israel
Great post. I would add a point which is very important: We support Israel because the Palestinian Arabs have been our enemies for 100 years. The Palestinian Arabs sided with the Ottomons against the United Kingdom, France, Australia and the United States during World War I. The Palestinian Arabs sided with the Axis during World War II. They sided with the Soviets during the Cold War, Iraq during the Gulf War, and they sure as heck acted as though they supported Al Qaeda after September 11. Of course, they supported Saddam in the War for Iraqi Succession. The Palestinian Arabs have had many opportunities to support the United States, and had they seized those opportunities they might have a moral case that the United States should be "even handed" in its dealings in the region. But they didn't take the chances they had, and instead supported our enemies. Why should any American ever care about the Palestinian Arabs, except perhaps in the most cynical sense -- if we have to suck up to them as part of a broader strategy to coerce and cajole Arab states to help us in the war on Al Qaeda, fine, but let's not call it justice.
The United States did not emerge as a meaningful supporter of Israel until 1967. Whatever slack one might cut the Palestinians for their opposition to our interests since then, one cannot simply ignore the preceding 50 years, when they fought against the United States and its allies at every opportunity. Sure, some of it can be accounted for as Arab resistance to British colonialism. But Palestinian support for the Soviet Union during the Cold War and for Saddam more recently cannot be understood as anything other than the making of common cause with the enemies of the United States. Why does the squishy Left demand that we forget that history?
4 Comments:
By 
Solomon, at
Sun Dec 12, 08:39:00 PM:
It's a very good point. (It's Solomonia, btw, not Solomania - though that's not a bad name!)
I remember seeing Orrin Hatch not long after 9/11 and he said - big-time paraphrase here - something like, It's not always easy to tell who your friends are, but just remember who was dancing in the streets after 9/11. Those people are our enemies!
By 
, at
Sun Dec 12, 09:05:00 PM:
Yikes! So sorry about the typo in your name. Corrected it both here and in the blogroll. As a former securities lawyer, all I can say is ARRRGGHHH!
By , at
Mon Dec 13, 09:26:00 AM:
I kinda agree that you shouln't cut people slack for spiting you. However at what point do we say 'OK, despite our past we need to get over it and establish something reminiscing peace'. I think about all the terrorists now being bred in Palestine, which may not have happened if the better nation took the higher moral ground.
Thanks,
Shapps
http://shappir.blog.com
By TigerHawk, at
Mon Dec 13, 09:53:00 AM:
Shapps, I don't disagree that there may be sound geopolitical reasons to put pressure on Israel to concede more to the Palestinian Arabs. But if that is our reason for pressuring Israel, let us be honest with ourselves, at least. My objection runs to the argument that siding with the Palestinian Arabs is the right thing to do in some moral sense, which seems to be the position of the American Left and virtually all the rest of the world.
