I want to clear something up about the refrain I have been hearing from Jewish person after Jewish person that I have been talking to about this ongoing catastrophe. "Yes," these left-leaning Jews admit, "what's going on is horrible, but, you know, you have to support Israel." Has anyone else heard this snappy phrase a few dozen times or so?

I would like to demystify these words for a moment, in the hopes that for someone out there, copious gauze might be extracted from their eyes. Let's say you have a friend. We all support our friends. So you support your friend. Let's say your friend holds a gun to his head and tells you he is going to kill himself. How might you best support your friend in this situation?

Your friend tells you that "supporting" him means always agreeing with what he wants to do. But he wants to kill himself. Isn't there something of a contradiction there? Might it not be in our best interest to THINK THE SITUATION THROUGH ON OUR OWN TERMS, instead of simply agreeing with that friend that he's taking the right course of action?

Of course, this entire scenario is generous. Because what our friend is really doing is holding a gun at someone else's head. In fact, he's already pulled the trigger, plenty of times, and wants to keep pulling it.

Accepting the true terms of the present situation means accepting that Israel's power in this region dwarfs those of its foes. It means accepting that the groups that Israel is fighting are complicated, comprising different interests. "Arabs" are not the same from region to region. I could go on. All of these simplistic distortions of the state of things between Israel, Palestine and Lebanon are in the service of such spurious "support," a support that is really just wilfull blindness. We are letting our friend shoot himself in the head. Israel's actions right now comprise one massive, apocalyptically horrible mistake. To miss this, to ignore this, is literally to not live up to one's supposed responsibility as a Jew, in the most Zionist of terms. It is to condemn Israel to a potentially destructive fate.

Of course, that friend isn't just trying to shoot himself, or others. He's pointing the barrel at us too-- we're looking straight down it.

Senator Clinton Speaks Up for Israel at U.N. Rally

Speaking at a boisterous rally for Israel near the United Nations headquarters this afternoon, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton said she supported taking “whatever steps are necessary” to defend Israel against Hamas, Hezbollah, Iran and Syria in the military conflict in the Middle East.

Senator Clinton, addressing a crowd of several thousand people, said the United States must show “solidarity and support” for Israel in the face of the “unwarranted, unprovoked” seizure of three Israeli soldiers by members of Hamas and Hezbollah, which she referred to as among “the new totalitarians of the 21st century.”

“We will stand with Israel because Israel is standing for American values as well as Israeli ones,” said Mrs. Clinton, who was joined by two dozen political and religious leaders on a stage along 42nd Street.

Mrs. Clinton, who is seeking re-election to the Senate and is considered a possible candidate for president in 2008, also compared Israel’s fierce response, which has included heavy bombardment of Lebanon, to a theoretical response by the United States if it faced attacks from neighboring countries.

“I want us here in New York to imagine, if extremist terrorists were launching rocket attacks across the Mexican or Canadian border, would we stand by or would we defend America against these attacks from extremists?” Mrs. Clinton said to roars of approval.

“We will support her efforts to send a message to Hamas, Hezbollah, to the Syrians, to the Iranians,” Mrs. Clinton said. “We will not permit this to happen and we will take whatever steps are necessary.”

“It is a message that we want not only those in the Middle East to hear, but the world, because no nation is safe from these terrorist extremists,” she said. “They do not believe in human rights, they do not believe in democracy. They are totalitarians, they are the new totalitarians of the 21st century.”

Mrs. Clinton spoke for about two minutes and focused specifically on Israel and its citizens. She made no reference to a proposal, made earlier today by British Prime Minister Tony Blair and United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan, for sending an international “stabilization force” to quell the fighting between Israel and Hezbollah in the south of Lebanon.

The event drew a who’s who of New York City politicians, including Congressmen Jerrold Nadler and Anthony D. Weiner, City Council Speaker Christine C. Quinn, and two candidates for state attorney general, Andrew M. Cuomo and Mark Green.

posted by Blicero : 7/17/2006 02:09:00 PM