more foolish delusions
by Joshua Lustig
Published: May 19, 2008
“We have heard this foolish delusion before.”
These are simple words that could be used to describe our current political climate. When President Bush stood in front of the Israeli Knesset for its 60-year birthday this week and uttered them in a not-so-veiled attack at liberal foreign policy, he could have been speaking about his own regime.
That is, until he continued: “As Nazi tanks crossed into Poland in 1939, an American senator declared: ‘Lord, if I could only have talked to Hitler, all this might have been avoided.’ We have an obligation to call this what it is - the false comfort of appeasement, which has been repeatedly discredited by history.”
But instead of illuminating the failed ideology of his rivals with these words he exposed flaws that cut deep into the heart of American and Israeli policies. These historically short-sighted remarks summed up the brevity of Bush’s own misguided unilateralist foreign policy. It is a policy that not only has a long-lasting effect on American and Israeli prestige around the world, but has also sent ripples through a whole culture of Jews, where we are left scratching our heads.
I am the grandchild of two courageous World War II-surviving Jews. In the world of 1940s Europe they were robbed of everything: their families, their homes and their culture. Given the nature of our people’s seemingly endless struggle, I am glad Israel exists. It provides a home and some solace for the millions of displaced Jews across the world. A simple somewhere to call home.
But I’ve recoiled in horror listening to our president speak these words to the Knesset. Ignoring it as simply a blatant political move, it is a terrifying reinforcement of why the peace process has flat-lined and why some of us Jews outside of Israel are left shaking our heads.
There has to be a better way. We have to start listening to the world again. I’m not sure our tired, displaced and angry little culture can take any more of the world’s scorn. Now is finally the time for stability. It is finally the time for that one thing that prompts us to build these bombs and lobby these governments to end.
The current Israeli government, along with their partners in the Bush administration, has let paranoia get the best of them. As Bush stood in front of the Israeli government this week and boldly proclaimed that any attempt to speak to our enemies was based in a historical foolishness, he solidified a very dangerous idea. One that forces consequences that reach far beyond a simple speech: a vast empire of military aid, a struggling refugee people and a conflict no closer to ending than when it began an age ago.
The solidly hawkish approach Israel and the U.S. have taken not only threatens the Jewish state’s own survival, but adds, at the very least, a certain level of discomfort to the lives of the entire Diaspora. Every day the headlines blast the spiraling conflict; Jews across the world face the increasing prospect of being linked to Israel’s policies. These feelings may not be as much anti-Jew as it is anti-occupation. However, the longer these rifts persist, the more alienated we all feel.
Politically, the solution is the exact opposite of what Bush is advocating. No one has ever said that dialog means instant concessions, just a simple and powerful willingness to sit at the table.
Imagine decades ago, an Israel that had been timid to speak with its Arab neighbors, the same ones who had just launched a vengeful series of wars against them. Had Israel been so hard-headed as to not at least talk with Jordan and Egypt, the stable peace the three share would never have been possible.
Israel’s story is not yet one of success. It remains bitterly contested, constitution-less and without any solid plan for long-term stability. After years of unilateral policy when it came to key issues like Gaza withdrawal and Jewish settlements, this instability will be the legacy the Knesset hawks and the Bush administration leave to the next generation of Israelis.
For now, all those who favor a more rational approach to one of the world’s most dire crises can only hope for some backtracking. So, in the 60-year celebratory spirit, a toast:
Here’s to hoping the hopeless policy of aggression and unilateralism goes out with this administration. Here’s to a return to rational sanity. Here’s to hope.
Happy Birthday Israel, and L’chaim.
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(6)
May 22nd, 2008 at 1:36 am
You seriously want to have talks with people like Ahmadinejad, who calls the hollocaust a myth, and who calls Israel a stinking corpse and promises to destroy it? You want to talk to Hamas, whose charter calls for the annihilation of Israel?
A “return,” as you put it, sounds like embracing anti-Semitic, anti-Zionist, pro-pan-Islamist personalities like Jimmy Carter. That’s what I call “backtracking.” But if that’s what you want, I’m sure Obama can deliver.
May 22nd, 2008 at 1:38 am
p.s. “more foolish delusions” was an accurate title to your piece.
May 23rd, 2008 at 7:54 am
well, if you don’t talk to these leaders and nations, there’s no possibility of reaching a peace agreement - zero, zilch, nada.
so…I guess we just wait it out until they give us a reason to bomb them Chris? Shouldn’t be a problem there, our administration has fabricated plenty of evidence to drop bombs.
I also don’t understand why our administration has to take one side over the other? It’s ridiculous to call Jimmy Carter’s talks with Muslim leaders anti-Semitic and anti-Zionist. If we ignore the Arab nations and only talk with Israel, would that not by the same principles you speak of be anti-Islamic? Chris, your argument is hypocritical to it’s greatest extent, and by the very same token of your discrepancies, you have in fact presented anti-Islamic rhetoric. Shame on you…
May 23rd, 2008 at 7:55 am
p.s. Taking extra jabs at the author is unnecessary and childish.
May 23rd, 2008 at 12:26 pm
Justin, taking jabs is unecessary and so I apologize to Mr. Lustig.
As for Carter being an anti-Semite, it’s not because he talks to Arabs. It’s because of what he says about Israel. Do your research.
And to talk of peace with people who deny the holocaust and want to repeat it… What more can I say?
May 23rd, 2008 at 1:07 pm
Jab away, friends.