January 8, 2009
I have questions this week — for the media critics defending Israel, and for the protesters defending the Palestinians.
For the media critics, I want to ask: What are you complaining about? For all the usual Jewish fears that the press will gang up on Israel, I’m noticing tacit and explicit understanding of Israel’s dilemma on the part of nearly all the major media outlets.
No, it’s not unanimous (and I’m talking to you, CNN), but it’s gotten to the point that Greg Mitchell, the editor of Editor & Publisher and a frequent critic of Israel, has himself been complaining about it. “For over a week,” he wrote Monday, “U.S. media had provided largely one-sided coverage of the conflict, with little editorializing or commentary arguing against broader Israeli actions.”
And in a segment of The Daily Show, a particularly bitter Jon Stewart mocked the “unrelenting support” for Israel among politicians from Jon Corzine to Mitch McConnell, all of whom said Israel’s was the “proper response.”
Within days of the air assault, there was a spate of punditry, from the likes of Dore Gold, Charles Krauthammer, and Alan Dershowitz, defending Israel from the charge that its use of force in Gaza was “disproportionate.” Their reminders of Hamas’ provocations, from its missile attacks, to its use of human shields, to its stated aim of seeking Israel’s destruction, were sharp, irrefutable — and largely beside the point.
Again, outside of the usual suspects in the Arab world or that moral backwater known as the United Nations, “disproportionality” didn’t appear to be the guiding critique of the war.
That’s been true even among newspaper editorial pages not known for their affection for the Jewish state. Their question is not whether Israel’s attacks were “justified,” but whether all the killing will actually achieve Israel’s aims. Even the L.A. Times, which used the D-word in its Dec. 30 editorial, went on to say, “Israel must desist as soon as it has neutralized the threat of rocket attacks” (my emphasis). When it comes to Israel and the media, a frequent critic’s acknowledgement that Israel has the right to defend itself counts as a major victory.
If the press is starting to “get it,” thanks go largely to Hamas. Its commitment to Israel’s destruction, its reliance on terrorism, and its own uncompromising end game make it an unlikely candidate for victimhood. Imagine that, instead of rockets, their rule of Gaza had been marked by responsible governance, a crackdown on militants, even recognition of Israel. Imagine that they had employed civil disobedience in the face of the Israeli blockade. Israel would have been shamed into lifting its blockade and granting Hamas recognition in return. In fact, had rejectionists in Gaza and the West Bank given up their maximalist fantasies long ago, they would have their state by now.
Which brings me to my question for pro-Palestinian protesters: What are you complaining about? Why aim your protests at Israel — that intractable Zionist entity, after all — when Hamas has the ability to change its people’s reality, starting now? If Hamas had called off its rocket attacks on day one of the invasion, there would have been no day two. Of course, they would have lost their “honor,” but since when is Arab “honor” a cornerstone of the international peace movement? Defending Hamas’ right to fight is defending Palestinian civilians’ ability to die. An honest protester would at least demand that both sides pull back from the brink.
But anti-Israel protestors have never been honest — or self-aware. Instead, they have enacted as enablers in perhaps the most self-defeating national liberation movement in history. Instead of insisting that the Palestinians seize the realistic opportunities offered them, they’ve bolstered the rejectionists’ delusions that they can have it all — not just a state of their own, but a return to their old homes in Israel itself; not just a return to Israel, but a “binational” state that means the end of Zionism. Oh, and Hamas? Hold on to your fantasies of chasing the Jews into the sea. We’ll get to that, sooner or later.
If they really cared about the Palestinian people, protesters would tell them that Israel’s weakness is its morality. Every rocket lobbed into Israel, every bomb that levels a cafe only hardens the Israeli sense that the solution to their conflict with the Palestinians is a military one. But were Palestinians to put down their weapons, they’d see how fast the Israeli public would demand that its leaders do so in kind. Show me the pro-Palestinian rally in favor of that — I might even carry a sign.
On a conference call Monday with Jewish leaders, Israeli Welfare Minister Isaac “Bougie” Herzog was asked by a hawk why Israel “waited all this time” to strike back at Hamas.
Said Herzog: “When Israel sends its sons and daughters into battle, it makes sure it exhausts all the other alternatives.”
When the Palestinian rejectionists begin to explore the alternatives to armed conflict, then they’ll have the peace the Israeli and Palestinian people deserve. No question.
