Save our kids from this culture

My frustration with the bearpit that is Comment is Free was brought to a head by this bizarre post by David Hirsh. Once again, I'm going to reproduce my CiF comment here, because frankly I think more people will pay attention to it here than there.

First, a word about Hirsh's argument. He opens thus:

Since before it even existed, Israel has been engaged in two wars with its neighbours. One is a just war, waged by Palestinian Arabs for freedom - which became a demand for Palestinian national independence; the other is a genocidal war that aims to end Jewish life in the Middle East.

The job of the left is to insist on the reality of this distinction and to stand against those who recognise the reality of only one or other of these two separate wars.

The job of the left - ugh. Something very Euston about that formulation - the call to duty, with the implication that this might not be a duty we all like.... But let's press on.

The problem with social reality is that if enough people believe something to be true, and act as though it is indeed true, then it may become the truth. So if Israelis believe they are only ever fighting a war of survival, then they will use tactics and strategies that are proportionate to the war they believe themselves to be fighting. If Palestinians, meanwhile, come to believe that they can win their freedom only by destroying Israel, then they will think of the Jew-haters of Hamas, Hizbullah, al-Qaeda and the Syrian and Iranian regimes as their allies in the task.

The only way out is for cosmopolitan voices and political movements to insist on the reality of both wars - to separate them conceptually and to stand clearly for a Palestinian victory in the fight for freedom and equally clearly for an Israeli victory in the fight against annihilation.

There's a certain narrowness to Hirsh's focus here. I'm quite prepared to nail my colours to the mast and say that I'm not in favour of annihilation, by and large. On the contrary, I'm very much in favour of people who are alive being enabled and permitted to remain alive. But I don't think this commits me to supporting 'an Israeli victory' of any sort, in any set of geopolitical circumstances which I can begin to imagine developing out of the current situation.

But maybe my imagination just isn't up to the job. A few more words from David, this time in the comment thread:

its not far-fetched to imagine a very serious threat. Imagine if the regime in Syria and Iran were joined, perhaps by a Jihadi-revolutionary regime in Saudi and perhaps a Muslim Brotherhood regime in Egypt. Add these to a Hamas led Palestine and a Hezbullah led Lebanon. This is hypothetical, yes, but entirely possible.

Imagine also, perhaps that the neo-cons in Washington are replaced by the neo-realists - Mearsheimer and Walt advising the White House that it is in the national interest of the US to ditch Israel.

Imagine also a global liberal intelligensia and labour movement that believes the Israelis are so evil that they deserve what's coming to them.

But its OK, because Israel is heavily armed.

The logic of your position, then, is that it is a good thing that Israel has the 4th largest army in the world (or whatever it is) because it guarantees their survival.

So how do you feel about the proposal of an arms embargo against Israel? How do you feel about the proposal to stop US aid and to stop the US selling arms to Israel?

What then is there to guarantee Israel's survival?

I'll stop beating about the bush: I think this argument is silly, offensive and dangerously dishonest. If Israel's apologists genuinely believe the country is engaged in a fight for survival at this moment, they're self-deceived to the point of insanity. If they don't believe that but think that what's going on now should be understood by reference to a completely hypothetical worst-case scenario, they're grossly dishonest. Perhaps even more important, the 'fight for survival' argument is being used to divert attention from what the Israeli government and army are actually doing; in other words, it's being made to do work that it couldn't do even if it was valid.

Here's a comment I prepared earlier:

David,

I think your argument is interesting & instructive, but not quite in the way that you think it is.

There are (at least) three questions which can legitimately be asked of the state of Israel without arousing suspicions of anti-semitism. Firstly, can the state itself be described as constitutionally unjust, either from its founding or since 1967 (and two-thirds of its history is post-67)? I assume you'd answer No, but many people would answer Yes - including many diaspora Jews and a good few Israelis. But a constitutionally unjust state is one which needs to be replaced, not reformed: replaced through the actions and with the consent of its citizens, certainly, but still replaced. In normal circumstances (I'll return to this point), asking whether - as a matter of principle - a constitutionally unjust state has the right to perpetuate itself is asking whether injustice has the right to continue.

Secondly, is the state's posture of perpetual war, and its repeated use of force rather than diplomacy, an appropriate response to the situation Israel finds itself in? Answer No (as many of us do) and any incursion into Gaza, any house demolition, any IDF sniper bullet carries a burden of justification: is this specific action justifiable, or is it just another example of an established, unjust pattern? This is where the allegations of prejudice start flying - those who answer Yes to the second question don't believe there is any such pattern, and consequently judge each specific action as 'innocent until proven guilty'.

Lastly, when the state does resort to military force, is its use of force appropriate and proportionate? It's important to note that this is a completely separate question from the previous one (and does have to be judged on a case by case basis). If I'm fighting for my life and I kill a defenceless passer-by who wasn't threatening me, I'm still a murderer. (Cf. suicide bombers.)

I found your 'Imagine' comment particularly enlightening. Because circumstances alter cases - a position that would be appropriate in normal circumstances isn't necessarily appropriate in the middle of a war. If Israel were an isolated underdog, entirely surrounded by states which seriously wanted to invade and destroy it, and unable to count on any outside assistance - if this were the case, my answer to question 1 would change (from 'Yes' to 'Maybe, but that's not important right now'). And if Israel were not only surrounded, outnumbered and outgunned, but on the brink of an exterminationist final conflict - in that case my answer to question 2 would probably change (from 'No' to 'Maybe not, but it's not for us to say').

So what's instructive about your article is the insight it gives into a certain Israeli mindset - a mindset which I can't regard as being grounded in reality, and one which I'm happy to say isn't universal among Israelis. I also think it illuminates a further, basically irrational slippage over the third question: are the IDF's tactics in Gaza and Lebanon (and elsewhere) disproportionate and inhumane? The answer which comes from Israel's apologists seems to be, essentially, "They had to do something, these people were going to kill them all!" Even in the nightmare scenario where this was actually true, it wouldn't be an adequate answer: if someone's trying to kill you, it's not self-defence to burn out the family who live next door.

Not that anyone appears to be listening to arguments like these. (They certainly aren't listening on Comment is Free...) In a way that's the worst thing about the current situation - the sense that the killers of the IDF are doing exactly what the killers of Hezbollah want them to (and vice versa), so that things are likely to get a lot worse before they get better.

It will have blood, they say - blood will have blood.

Don't have nightmares.