Tony Judt and the leftist betrayal of Israel

Sol Stern has a good piece at FrontPage Magazine today about the repellant Tony Judt, yet another leftist academic whose professional eminence seems to rise in direct proportion to the stupidity and evil of his ideas. A British Jew by birth, a leftist Zionist in his younger years, Judt became—as a result of Israel’s inability to form with its rejectionist Arab neighbors the international Arab-Jewish socialist paradise that leftist Zionists had dreamt of—a leftist anti-Israelite who seeks Israeli’s destruction through a “bi-national” state of Arabs and Jews. Not only that, but, as a result of American Jews’ lack of enthusiasm for his idea, Judt attacks a supposed Zionist conspiracy for suppressing all critical discussion about Israel in the U.S. (where he now teaches at NYU).

By the way, an index of how beneficial Judt’s proposal would be for Israel is that Patrick Buchanan eagerly endorsed it. As Buchanan’s decline (dissected by Ilana Mercer) illustrates, there is no limit to the folly to which hatred of Israel or Jews can take a man.

Here are the first two paragraphs of an article Judt wrote for Ha’aretz about Israel, with the condescending title, “The country that wouldn’t grow up”:

By the age of 58 a country—like a man—should have achieved a certain maturity. After nearly six decades of existence we know, for good and for bad, who we are, what we have done and how we appear to others, warts and all. We acknowledge, however reluctantly and privately, our mistakes and our shortcomings. And though we still harbor the occasional illusion about ourselves and our prospects, we are wise enough to recognize that these are indeed for the most part just that: illusions. In short, we are adults.

But the State of Israel remains curiously (and among Western-style democracies, uniquely) immature. The social transformations of the country—and its many economic achievements—have not brought the political wisdom that usually accompanies age. Seen from the outside, Israel still comports itself like an adolescent: consumed by a brittle confidence in its own uniqueness; certain that no one “understands” it and everyone is “against” it; full of wounded self-esteem, quick to take offense and quick to give it. Like many adolescents Israel is convinced—and makes a point of aggressively and repeatedly asserting—that it can do as it wishes, that its actions carry no consequences and that it is immortal. Appropriately enough, this country that has somehow failed to grow up was until very recently still in the hands of a generation of men who were prominent in its public affairs 40 years ago: an Israeli Rip Van Winkle who fell asleep in, say, 1967 would be surprised indeed to awake in 2006 and find Shimon Peres and General Ariel Sharon still hovering over the affairs of the country—the latter albeit only in spirit.

Apart from the specific anti-Israelism of the second paragraph, in which he atrociously makes fun of Israel for thinking that everyone is “against” it (the scare quotes are his), I’m even more struck by the first paragraph, with its utter negativity about what the life of a man or a nation signifies. How can Judt’s attitude be described? Anti-life. Seeking death. Self-righteously seeking death. In short, liberalism.

Howard Sutherland writes:

I think I’m beginning to understand why so many Jewish leftists hate Israel. They approached it with such preconceptions: here the Jews would raise the tone of the world by finally building a secular, socialist state that works. Trouble is, Israeli reality—especially the reality of having Arab Moslems as neighbors—is too harsh. It is hard to entertain the fantasies of a socialist brotherhood of Man in the Middle East (not that Israeli leftists don’t try). Jewish leftists feel betrayed by that failure to conform to their desires. Also I think they are very uncomfortable with the religious basis of Israel’s claim to statehood. [LA notes: Israel does not base its statehood on religious claims, but on the historic and unbroken connection of the Jewish people to that land.] Rather than conform their ideals to reality, they prefer to blame the state they think has betrayed their dream.

That Israel could never have been what they dreamed and lasted more than a week as an independent state doesn’t matter. People like Judt get paid to think, not solve real problems.

Did you read Farah giving up on Israel? [Yes, I wrote something up on it.] I agree with his criticisms, but don’t agree that we can simply give up on Israel, whatever that means. Ultimately the Israelis will have to save themselves, if they still have the will. Their great mistake was not to say in June 1967 that Judea, Samaria and Gaza were essential parts of the land of Israel, and that their sovereignty would never be up for negotiation. The whole basis of the State of Israel is the—ultimately Biblical—claim that Israel “from Dan even unto Beersheba and from the river to the sea” is the land God gave to the Jews. The failure to insist on that has weakened Israel morally beyond measure. The Sinai and even the Golan one might discuss; the other regions are in the heart of Israel. HRS

LA replies:

The weakness that Mr. Sutherland describes in his last paragraph is part and parcel of the same Jewish leftism that has always been ambivalent (at best) about a Jewish state. Jewish Zionism meant a Jewish state. Jewish leftism meant an international brotherhood of man. Leftist Zionism or Labor Zionism (which was the mainstream of Zionism) meant: “We strive and fight for our own country, but the moment we have it, we strive for peace with our Arab neighbors who eventually must accept us.” The Labor Zionists, believing in the ultimate victory of human brotherhood, could never accept the fact that the Arabs would never accept Isreal. And that’s the background of Israeli’s failure to act in 1967 in the way that Mr. Sutherland—and I—wish they had.

On the idea about what turned leftist Jews against Israel, it is as new and interesting to me as it is to Mr. Sutherland. The Zionist leftists could support Israel, on the condition that it ultimately become the hub of an international brotherhood of Arabs and Jews in the Mideast. They were motivated always by that utopian hope. So, after every victory, as in 1967, instead of solidifying their gains, they would instantly begin new efforts to win the Arabs over to peace and acceptance. And in doing so they would give up the position of strength they had won. In 1992 the PLO was nothing. Arafat was living in Tunis. Israel, from a position of strength, brought back Arafat and gave the Palestinians their own mini-statelet, which statelet is now run by Hamas.

So, the Israeli left with its eternal search for peace with the Arabs, which it sees as the only way to legitimize the existence of Israel, weakens Israel and strengthens the forces of Arab rejectionism and terrorism, which in turn destroys any hope for peace, which in turn delegitimizes Israel in the eyes of at least some Israeli and Jewish leftists. In the more extreme case of Judt, this disenchantment with Israel takes the form of seeking to obliterate it by creating a joint Jewish-Arab state.

If the leftist approach leads to nothingness and death, what would be the right approach (in both senses of the word)? The Revisionist Zionist strategy of peace through strength, which comes from the acceptance of the fact that the Arabs will never accept Israel, that Israel must do whatever is needful to secure its own existence, that it must never give an inch, and that it must keep the Arabs in a state of relative powerlessness from which they would be helpless to harm Israel. Further, once having attained a position of unassailable strength relative to the Arabs, Israel must maintain that position forever. In my view, this is the only way that Israel could have secured its long-term safety and existence.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at May 16, 2006 05:40 PM | Send