Lieberman’s solution to the Mideast conflict

Guess what Sen. Joseph Lieberman believes is the solution to the Israel-Palestinian conflict. According to ABC News, Lieberman, appearing on a Sunday morning interview show, “proposed substantial U.S. economic aid to Palestinians and said he would allow more into America as part of an effort to improve ties and separate young Palestinians from the culture of suicide.”

On first thought, Lieberman seems certifiably mad. On second thought, isn’t his idea entirely consistent with established American beliefs? Initially, it was the “peace process” that was going to turn Palestinians into civilized, law-abiding, democratic men, because, after all, everyone is basically like us, right? Then, when the “peace process” so spectacularly failed, there was liberal despair. But wait, Sen. Lieberman thinks, even though the peace process was not potent enough to perform the salvific operation of assimilating Palestinians into the family of liberal humanity, there’s something else that can: immigration of the Palestinians into America! After all, America is the place where the people of all cultures come to be freed from the shackles of their background and be turned into democratic, inclusive individuals, right?

The modern American ideology seeks to transform the rest of mankind into Americans by imposing our values on other nations, and by bringing everyone else in the world here. So Lieberman’s proposal is situated right in the American mainstream. Or, rather, right in New York Harbor: “Give me your Serbs and Bosnians, your Hindus and Muslims, and all your other teeming masses yearning to breath free of ethnic hatred, and I will turn them into pacific, tolerant, universal, rootless men. I lift my Lamp beside the Golden Door!”

Posted by Lawrence Auster at July 15, 2002 01:09 AM | Send