The Canadian poet, essayist and teacher David Solway has written an impassioned essay, “The Return of the Prodigal Son,” at Pajamas Media, in which he notes a “spiritual deformation” among Jews – one that endorses the “universal values” of Judaism “at the expense of the particular value of staying alive”:
Jewish critics of Israel will cover their tracks by arguing, as Canadian columnist Robert Fulford puts it, “that they are [Israel’s] best friends, urging it toward a higher moral position,” as if a country that tolerates Arab anti-Zionists in the Knesset, treats its enemies in its hospitals (180,000 in the last year alone), sacrifices its soldiers to avoid civilian casualties in anti-terror operations (as in Jenin), and leaflets potential targets (as in Gaza) did not already stake out a “higher moral position.”
Further, such preachments may lead to self-immolation and the embrace of killer ideologies. Thus we may be reminded by our ostensible betters of the exhortation from Deuteronomy 10:19, “Love ye therefore the stranger” — even if that stranger has his sights set on your life and the obliteration of your family. But we are supposed to show sympathy and understanding for his difficult circumstances as he schemes our destruction. We are urged to engage in “dialogue,” to make concessions, to acknowledge the misery of those who desire one’s extinction, to provide an example of disinterested righteousness for the rest of humanity. One recalls the great Jewish patriot Ze’ev Jabotinsky writing about the deluded Jews in Old Russia who, during the disturbances of the time, “considered it their duty to support the autonomist efforts of their enemy, on the ground that autonomy is a sacred cause.” The upshot? “Jewish heads are smashed.” “This sort of thing,” he continues, “is not morality, it is twaddle.”
In 2000, an Israeli prime minister offered the Palestinians a state on substantially all the West Bank and Gaza, with a capital in Jerusalem. Arafat refused it, returned home to a hero’s welcome, and began a terror war. In 2005, a second Israeli prime minister handed over Gaza to the Palestinians and received a rocket war in response. In 2008, a third Israeli prime minister offered the Palestinians a state on 100% of Gaza and the West Bank (after swaps), with a capital in Jerusalem, which Abbas refused. For the last three years the Palestinians have refused to negotiate at all, unless Israel conceded critical issues before the negotiations begin.
This week Abbas went to the UN with a petition for statehood, with a logo of a map covering the land from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea, and a public symbol of a woman whose sons were terrorists for both Fatah and Hamas. At the UN, he declined a fourth Israeli prime minister's offer to meet, and returned home. Today he received a hero’s welcome in Ramallah.
Soloway's link is to Jabotinsky's famous 1923 essay, "The Ethic of the Iron Wall," in which Jabotinsky observed that:
It is incredible what political simpletons Jews are. They shut their eyes to one of the most elementary rules of life, that you must not "meet halfway" those who do not want to meet you.