OK, everyone here knows I am a more moderate poster and moderate in terms of what is "left" and what is "right." I have nothing against the general left, especially in domestic issues, where I am very much on the left. But on foreign policy, whereas I once considered myself "left," as I see that on foreign policy, ESPECIALLY on I/P, the left is nowadays increasingly the far-left, and there is a huge problem I have with this.
An article was just written in the UK Guardian, known for many anti-Israel hit pieces and singling out which has become so commonplace among the left, that it at times will downplay, or at times defend, and in some cases here call terrorist "legitimate resistance." This article I think sums a lot of what I think up:
There is a phenomenon, the self-righteous left, which lives in a simple black-and-white universe, governed by what I call SLES, short for Standard Left Explanatory System – a concoction that is ruining the left's credibility and integrity. This system, which started to evolve in the 1960s, says: "Always look for the underdog and then blame the stronger party for anything the underdog does, particularly if the stronger party belongs to the west. Never hold the underdog (particularly when non-western) accountable for anything."
SLES, when applied to the Middle East, is remarkably simple. If Palestinians, Muslims or Arabs say something that isn't nice (like "It is a religious duty to kill Americans", or "Israel needs to be wiped off the map"), or do something even less nice (like blowing up the Twin Towers, killing entire families on the first evening of Passover in Netanya, or attacking London's public transport system) you have a very quick explanation for it: "There is something that the Jews/Americans did that must have hurt him/her terribly. We must try to understand him/her."
I think this columnist, who by his own volition has been critical of the occupation of the West Bank, has hit the nail on the head. Too many times, people here and elsewhere try to "understand" Hamas and Hezbollah, and the fact that for many in the conflict, it is not about land but about ideology and political expedience. Example a: when posters called Hamas "legitimate resistance" during Operation Cast Lead, when terrorists fired from homes and schools into the Jewish state, even tho Gaza is no longer occupied, people said they are "resisting imperialist colonialism," when in reality, its goal is to destroy Israel even if the West Bank and Gaza had no Jews whatsoever in it. This also goes for when some try to "explain" 9/11, that Osama's act wasn't ideology but resisting "imperialism." Norman Finkelstein is one of this theories top proponents. This also goes for when Arafat turned down a state, which proved that his ideology is to destroy Israel, not anything rational. Maybe the Palestinians are the underdog in this conflict for a reason: because they took on an immoral and not easily winnable cause, which was the destruction of Israel. The underdog is not always the good guy. Saddam Hussein in Desert Storm (which the PLO supported), faced against a massive coalition, arguably then the underdog, was not the good guy. Many times the underdog is the good guy, but NOT ALWAYS, and I could give many more examples.
There is not a single state in this area where I could express my views freely except Israel. In Gaza, the Hamas regime has just imposed a rule requiring women to wear veils to comply with Islamic modesty laws; in Iran gay people are hanged and critics of the recent elections threatened with death – or actually killed. Egypt and Syria incarcerate political opponents, and Saudi Arabia is a highly repressive regime – and the list goes on. This is not meant to characterise Islam: it's a description of the facts in the Middle East.
While I feel strongly for Wettstein's lost dates, I feel even more strongly about the disproportion between the condemnations of Israeli policies and the silence of Europe's self-righteous left about horrors ranging from the mass murder of members of Fatah by Hamas, to the genocide in Darfur, to rocket attacks on Israeli civilians.
Critical though I am of Israel's policies, I have nothing but disdain for the self-righteous left hiding behind a simplistic SLES that enables them to spill venomous condemnation of Israel as if it were nicely placed between the US and Canada, and for completely unintelligible reasons behaves as if it were under threat.
Exactly, where is the far-left when they either downplay Hamas types or other Arab/Islamic countries that either don't recognize Israel, have in the past threatened, or currently try to wipe it out? Where are they when Hamas/Hezbollah and other countries in the region and world have no human rights, or abuse their citizens far worse than Israel does in the territories?
The problem is today, too many blame the West for all the problems in the world, especially the Middle East. This is the view Noam Chomsky takes. (Lets also remember the Ottoman Empire broke up because it stupidly chose to enter WWI on the wrong side, which was its OWN imperialism) This is not only false, but an insult to all Arabs and Muslims, as it treats them like two dimensional figures in this game without ability to make their own decisions or play a role. And it warps the I/P conflict into blaming Israel for everything, and ignoring, downplaying, and at times defending despots, dictators, and terrorists own free will. We cannot have peace until Israel's opponents take some responsibility and moves towards peace. Israel offered Arafat a state, and had previously offered to hand back the West Bank and Gaza pending a peace agreement.
Another part of the problem, which Dennis Ross (not a far-leftist or neo-con, and both D and R admins and in the Obama admin) debunks in his new book, which I am reading, called "Illusions, and Peace: Finding a New Direction for America in the Middle East" is that Israel being in the Middle East is the cause for all problems there, and this myth is the reason why the far left tries to blame Israel for everything, while ignoring everyone else. The fact is Islamic terrorism is not limited to Israel/Palestine, and happens all over the world, as we see, from Africa to Indonesia, in conflicts that have nothing to do with I/P. Also, many wars, like the Iran-Iraq War and Desert Storm among countless others had nothing to do with I/P at all either. The far-left downplays the role of ideology, and thinks everyone is rational, and thinks Ahmadinejad would be rational with a nuke.
That is not to ignore the far right. We saw where true neo-conservatism got us. It got us a trillion dollar war in Iraq. That is what hurt our standing in the ME, not I/P. Even being slanted to Israel in the Clinton years, thankfully, we were still more popular then than with Bush. We do need to truly be "even-handed." And that means while yes we can criticise Israel, the Palestinians and the Arab states are far from blameless, the West isn't at fault for everything, terrorism is NEVER justified, and acting otherwise is an insult not just to Israelis by singling them out, but treating other actors as if they're non-entities.