Untroubled
Untroubled
Jeff Jacoby has a thought provoking column "Nazi Reminders in Gaza?" Like me he is quite clear that those who equate the fate of the Jews living in Gaza to the Jews deported by Nazis are wrong:
Let's be clear: You don't have to support disengagement to agree that the Nazi-talk is grotesque. The Israeli army is not the Gestapo. The peaceful Jewish residents who will be forced from the homes and land they love are not being sent to gas chambers. Sharon's plan may be delusional -- instead of enabling Israelis to ''disengage" from Palestinian violence, it will bring them more of it, and in deadlier forms -- but it isn't the Final Solution.
However he continues ...
And yet there is no getting around the fact that Israel is about to become the first modern, Western nation in more than 60 years to forcibly uproot a whole population -- men, women, children, babies -- solely because they are Jews. There is no getting around the fact that the forthcoming expulsions are rooted in the belief that any future Palestinian state must be Judenrein -- emptied of its Jews. And while it goes without saying that Sharon and every member of his government abominate the Nazis and all they stood for, there is no getting around the fact that disengagement is meant to appease an enemy that has always regarded the genocidal hatred of Jews in a very different light.
There is also no getting around that many of the actions taken by PM Sharon in order to facilitate the withdrawal would, in nearly any other context, give pause to those who now so enthusiastically extoll his plan. If any other leader in any other country fired those who would vote against him in order to ensure a victory on a cabinet level or ignored the results of a referendum, the editors at most newspapers would spill gallons of ink condemning the leader for cutting democratic corners. Only the withdrawal of Jews from Gaza is so important that democratic niceties need not be adhered to.
The problem isn't just, as Jacoby points out, that many disengagement proponents in Israel are untroubled by its implications. It's a worldwide problem. Consider the
photographs of the yellow cages Israeli troops plan to use to remove those Jews who don't leave on their own. Say the Israelis, instead, were planning to use them to quell violent Arab demonstrations. How would the world react? Would it end with eager photographers snapping pictures of these tools? Or would we read news stories and op-eds condemning Israel for planning once again to dehumanize the Palestinians?
With the government, I'm bothered less that Israel plans to it, than with the way PM Sharon has chosen to do it in the most divisive way possible. With those outside government I'm bothered less by those who support than those who are untroubled or (it goes without saying) enthusiastic about it. Unless the presence of Jews in Gaza is some unprecedented evil, the actions to reverse it are severe. Whether or not they're justified is a separate issue. To be oblivious to that is to be without conscience.
Crossposted on
Israpundit and
Soccer Dad.
Posted by David Gerstman at August 1, 2005 07:30 AM
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Untroubled
Jeff Jacoby has a thought provoking column "Nazi Reminders in Gaza?" Like me he is quite clear that those who equate the fate of the Jews living in Gaza to the Jews deported by Nazis are wrong:
However he continues ...
There is also no getting around that many of the actions taken by PM Sharon in order to facilitate the withdrawal would, in nearly any other context, give pause to those who now so enthusiastically extoll his plan. If any other leader in any other country fired those who would vote against him in order to ensure a victory on a cabinet level or ignored the results of a referendum, the editors at most newspapers would spill gallons of ink condemning the leader for cutting democratic corners. Only the withdrawal of Jews from Gaza is so important that democratic niceties need not be adhered to.
The problem isn't just, as Jacoby points out, that many disengagement proponents in Israel are untroubled by its implications. It's a worldwide problem. Consider the photographs of the yellow cages Israeli troops plan to use to remove those Jews who don't leave on their own. Say the Israelis, instead, were planning to use them to quell violent Arab demonstrations. How would the world react? Would it end with eager photographers snapping pictures of these tools? Or would we read news stories and op-eds condemning Israel for planning once again to dehumanize the Palestinians?
With the government, I'm bothered less that Israel plans to it, than with the way PM Sharon has chosen to do it in the most divisive way possible. With those outside government I'm bothered less by those who support than those who are untroubled or (it goes without saying) enthusiastic about it. Unless the presence of Jews in Gaza is some unprecedented evil, the actions to reverse it are severe. Whether or not they're justified is a separate issue. To be oblivious to that is to be without conscience.
Crossposted on Israpundit and Soccer Dad.
Posted by David Gerstman at August 1, 2005 07:30 AM