Welcome to reality.
From An Unsealed Room:
WHY MANY ISRAELIS HAVE TURNED RIGHT
by Michael Diamond
I came to Israel from Scotland in 1987. I was a fresh-faced graduate of Glasgow university law faculty. At the time, like many educated liberals with no particular axe to grind, I saw the world through the rosy eyes of vaunted British socialism; I was privileged, I believed, and it was my duty to help those who were not.
In Israel I was a member of the "sane left", conceding that the Palestinians had had a rough deal, deserved justice, respect and a state of their own. I would shake my head in dismay listening to the hard-headed non-compromise of the militant right. I still believed that the world was intrinsically good, and if someone had a grievance, they deserved to be heard. And where I could, I would try to rectify the injustice.
That's why I got such a shock this week while sitting over lunch with a friend. Just two hours north of where we were, his son was being shot at by Iranian-armed Islamic extremists whose declared aim is to finish off Hitler's job of eradicating Jews from the face of the earth. Meanwhile, two thousand miles away, London was trying to come to terms with a group of British citizens who’d planned to kill hundreds of their fellow countrymen.
"When you have an ideology as powerful and uncompromising as militant Islam," I heard myself say, "…the only way to deal with it is to bring it to its knees."
My colleague, a respected professor of economics - who was recently boycotted for nothing more than being Israeli - nodded. "Naively believing Nazi's could be reasoned with, Europe tried appeasement, fatefully underestimating the depth of their ideological conviction."
I shook my head barely able to believe what was going through my mind. "Only a massive defeat was enough to wake the Germans from their power-craved stupor and only when faced with total annihilation did they have the courage to ask, maybe we were wrong?"
I sat back in disbelief. What had happened to the understanding, sympathetic socialist I'd been until a few weeks ago? How could I, the confirmed pacifist, be talking in such terms?
Then it occurred to me, it's not just me. Almost everyone I know in Israel who was once on the left, who once believed in peace, dialogue and equality for the Palestinian people, has shifted over to the right.
8 comments:
Mugged by reality!
Welcome back to earth, Michael!
I once heard that a conservative is a liberal that was mugged.
Slowly this pattern is taking place in Europe. Still a long way to go.
I have a friend who has been a pacifist pretty much all his life.
Recently, I started asking him what the peaceful solution would be to a man like Ahmadinejad.
My friend is also set to soon become a father for the first time. So, I asked him what he would do if a man was threatening to kill his baby, and then what he would do if that man grabbed the baby and started putting his hands around the baby's neck.
Recently, my friend told me he no longer considers himself a strict pacifist. He still believes in negotiation and conflict resolution (which is a reasonable approach with reasonable people) but he seems to have recognized that there are certain people with whom it won't work.
I'm happy to read this, and not only because it shows people are learning about Islam, but also because such people will aid in what I see as two-fold struggle for liberal civilization: inflicting total defeat on Islam and keeping our tolerant values. My way of attacking the two-fold problem is by claiming to be a gay Jew advocating the slaughter of the Muslims. I think it is fair to say that a gay Jew is the most hated minority on Earth who isn't guilty of some sort of aggression against others. By claiming to be a gay Jew, I wish to emphasize that I'm only advocating a campaign against one particular murder cult and not an effort to wipe out everyone not in some master group. I hope that this reassurance will make more people feel safer in advocating the total defeat of Islam.
A lot of Israeli Leftists have engaged in soul-searching in the wake of this Lebanon war. The more extreme ones still cling to their delusions, but others have abandoned them. The most publicized case is that of Leftist playwright Yehoshua Sobol, who was interviewed in Yediot Achronot and stated that he couldn't hold on to the formula of "land for peace" in the face of the facts.
I scanned the interview when it appeared, and, G-d willing, I'll post a translation on my blog in a few days (after I check there isn't one already on YNetNews, the online English version of Yediot Achronot).
pastorius said...
It is amazing, though, that the gays of our world, and those who support them are generally not behind the counter-Jihad. Doesn't make any friggin' sense.
I agree. The problem is two-fold. First, many people just don't want to admit how close we are to a World War. They think if they pretend otherwise, it will all go away. Second, gays and many formerly oppressed groups, like blacks in America, fear an attack on the muslims would lead to
an attack on them. They have heard too often these word by Pastor Martin Niemöller:
First they came for the Jews
and I did not speak out
because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for the Communists
and I did not speak out
because I was not a Communist.
Then they came for the trade unionists
and I did not speak out
because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for me
and there was no one left
to speak out for me.
But our current problems are not those of the Weimar Republic, but the more typical problems of human history. We are the Americas in 1491, and the muslims are Cortez.
Demosthenes,
Actually, I think the words of Pastor Niemoller fit perfectly with our current situation.
First they came for the Jews, then they came for the adulterers, apostates, and homosexuals, then they came for the Infidels, then they came for the People of the Book, and then they came for Dhimmis like me.
I don't see how it is that people can't see that these Islamofascists are the Nazis of our time.
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