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Monday, May 17, 2010

Must politics triumph over morality and truth?

In a piece on Salon, Joe Conason uses an article by Peter Beinart to comment on the relationship between the mainstream Jewish organizations in the USA and the Israeli government. According to Conason, the jewish organizations act as apologists for an extreme right-wing Israeli government led by Netanyahu. Just imagine, some Israelis in the government do not want to give rights to the palestinians in the West Bank. Of course, conason carefully glosses over the fact that those same Palestinians do not want to allow the Israelis to remain alive. According to Conason it is worse for Israelis to deprive Palestinians of rights (like the right to travel freely in Israel) than for Palestinians to kill Israelis. Conason also laments polling that shows that many Israelis see the future as one in which the two groups (Jews and Arabs) must be physically separated from one another in order to maintain the peace. why is conason surprised by this. Imagine how Americans would feel if there had been a 60 year campaign by mexicans to kill those in the USA. Would it surprise anyone that the Americans might begin to think that it would be good policy to eject those who were trying to kill them?

Strangely, no other country is ever held to the standard that the left demands of Israel. It cannot defend itself without cries of war crimes. Missiles from Gaza can kill repeatedly without a whimper from the left, but let one Palestinian get injured in a repraisal and suddenly all hell breaks loose.

The truth is that the left's political narrative needs defines the Palestinians as opressed and the Israelis as the oppressor, no matter what the actual facts are. In many ways, this reaction is much like the reaction of the Obamacrats to the Arizona immigration statute: they havenot bothered to read it, but they know it is bad. Or, as the old t-shirt used to say: "My mind is made up -- don't bother me with the facts".

The sad thing is that we now have a government that falls victim to the mindless dogma of the left. The greatest terror threat comes from the right. All conservatives are racist homophobes (like those in Arizona). National healthcare is a good thing even if it cuts down the likelihood of care for people and costs more than the current system. Taxes on the rich are too low even if raising them means that economic growth will slow dramaticly and millions more will lose their jobs.
It is too bad that morality and truth hav been eclispsed by political posturing from the left. We need a healthy dose of reality and less posturing and spinning.

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