Once More With Feeling: The Beyond Tiresome 'Should Israel Exist' Argument

There is a heated debate boiling in the blogosphere over whether Israel ought to exist that strikes a particularly deep chord in me.

My maternal grandfather arrived in America a penniless German Jew at the turn of the 20th century. He mastered English and started a small clothing store that became a largish department store, but lost everything in the Great Depression and had to start all over again.

Granddaddy's life was about giving back and not making a buck.

He had copies of the Declaration of Independence and Bill of Rights printed at his own expense and would distribute them to high school civics classes.

When the scale of the humanitarian crisis involving German Jews became known before World War II, he led an effort to raise relief funds from the local Jewish, Protestant and Episcopalian communities and tapped some wealthy industrialist friends for donations, as well. (The local Roman Catholic diocese was not moved.)

He helped make arrangements to bring a Jewish teenager to the U.S. whose parents became victims of the Holocaust, as did several of his and my relatives.

But Granddaddy believed with all his heart and the force of a deep moral conviction that Jews were citizens of the world who, messianic visions notwithstanding, did not need their own state. He also anticipated that the creation of Israel would result in bloodshed and grief, although he went to his reward before the vicious cycle of wars began that continue to this day.

* * * * *

As arguments go, the question of whether Israel should exist is about as stale as year-old matzoh. Israel has not only existed, but has mostly thrived for a half century, although this has not stopped folks like the estimable Christopher Hitchens from expressing doubts about whether a Jewish state was a good idea to begin with in the context of the war in Gaza.

The response of fellow Slate pundit Emily Yoffe is collegially restrained, but like others who take umbrage at the question of whether Israel should have been created she skates right past that to why anyone would want to do away with it:

"Since people are not in the habit of voluntarily putting an end to their nation, how does Christopher envision the disappearance of Israelis? Bullet, bomb, gas? For most who wish to see the elimination of the state of Israel, it is not sympathy for the Palestinians that drives them (Where were the voices asking Hamas to stop its daily rockets into Israel so that this incursion could have been prevented?) -- but a lust for the end of the tiny Jewish state. Pakistan, which was founded just about the same time as Israel, can hardly be called a success. It is a corrupt nuclear state with regions run by terrorists. But I have yet to hear anyone suggest the founding of Pakistan was a mistake and it should be wiped off the world map. Somalia became independent in 1959. It is now an anarchic terrorist redoubt whose main export is pirates. Again, no one is saying Somalia was just a mistake and let's get rid of it. For some reason, Israel seems to be the only country whose very existence can be casually dismissed."

Yoffe gets an "A" for effort and an "F" for history. What makes Israel different than Pakistan and Somalia is that it was founded explicitly for Jews, while almost no one except hair-on-fire Islamic extremists advocate its dissolution.

This also escapes the erudite David Schraub, who writes at The Debate Link:

"It's not that Israel can't be criticized. But history has told us what crimes deserve the punishment of state-destruction, and it's beyond apparent that Israel's actions don't fit. The speakers don't have credibility, and have ulterior motives besides. So when the criticism branches off into that territory, it's facial evidence that we're no longer in the realm of fair-minded moral critique. We're now in the business of bashing the Jews. Because if there are two things that stand out in the history of the Gentile view of the Jew, it's (a) they can't stop us from having our way with them, and (b) they deserve whatever we mete out."

An inevitable subplot of the right-to-exist debate is that Jews not only are the victims of a double standard that Schraub sees lurking under every rock, but that Israel doesn't have the same right to self-defense as other nations.

As Rabbi Marvin Hier puts it in the WSJ's Opinion Journal:

"How else can we explain the double-standard that is applied to the Gaza conflict, if not for a more insidious bias against the Jewish state?

"At the U.N., no surprise, this double-standard is in full force. In response to Israel's attack on Hamas, the Security Council immediately pulled an all-night emergency meeting to consider yet another resolution condemning Israel. Have there been any all-night Security Council sessions held during the seven months when Hamas fired 3,000 rockets at half a million innocent civilians in southern Israel? You can be certain that during those seven months, no midnight oil was burning at the U.N. headquarters over resolutions condemning terrorist organizations like Hamas. But put condemnation of Israel on the agenda and, rain or shine, it's sure to be a full house."

Hier goes on to make an oft-repeated if asinine argument about why there are so many pictures of carnage in Gaza but so few in Israel: Because Jews are better prepared. To which I add, by this rabbi's barely concealed prejudice they also are more intelligent. Besides which, Palestinians are all terrorist wannabes who wear expensive sneakers.

Well, I'm technically a Gentile because my mother was not a Jew, but allow me a wee pushback on the observations of Yoffe, Schraub and Hier that summons Granddaddy's spirit:

Israel once held the moral high ground in the Palestinian conflict. But it has effectively squandered that not by accident but by willful miscalculation.

By building settlements in the Occupied Territories, which it had no right to do. By a policy of pushing back against Hezbollah in Lebanon and now Hamas in Gaza by inflicting maximum pain and suffering on civilians, including the probable use of weapons banned by treaties that it refuses to sign. By adopting the worst of American neoconservative talking points, including arguments eerily similar to those proffered by the White House when the U.S. invaded Iraq. By launching its Gaza offensive before the Bush administration skulked into the sunset since hardly any other foreign power of consequence would support it.

This is why it is time for sweeping change in the America-Israeli relationship.

As I offered here, the first thing that Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton must do is to make it clear to Prime Minister Ehud Olmert -- or ultra hard-liner Bibi Netanyahu if God forbid he wins the February election -- that Israel has to begin rolling back to its 1967 borders. The next thing will be to predicate American aid to Israel and the Palestinians on both entities dialing back the bellicosity.

There is a core truth intertwined in all of this: Israel has a right to defend itself against even the ridiculously amateurish Hamas rocket attacks, and it can be argued that the offensive is the least bad option.

Yet the Israeli leadership well understands that for every innocent killed the dream of a two-state settlement -- which a majority of Israelis and Palestinians support and is the only course if there is ever to be semblance of peace -- becomes further out of reach. The creation of Israel was a dream fulfilled for many Jews, but the dream that Palestinians will turn against Hamas by being made to suffer through a wildly disproportionate response to those rocket attacks is illusory.

Top photograph by Agence France-Presse