Serbian historian Srdja Trifkovic is one of the finest writers on Islam. Because he tells the truth about Islam, he also tells the truth about Israel. The latter follows from the former. Sane Serbs, Nebojsa Malic is another, have clashed with Islam’s emissaries and view Israel has having been “serbed.” The rest of the paleos are in contradiction: They acknowledge Islam’s aims but refuse to see its workings in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. I highlighted their inconsistencies in “Paleos Must Defend the West…And That Means Israel Too.” Trifkovic’s “Israel, the West, and the Rest” continues a tradition of three:
“… our primary interests in the Middle East … are not to defend human rights, or to promote democracy, or to build a Palestinian state, or to treat Israel as an existential American ally … Secondary and peripheral [interests] must remain subordinate to the primary interests when policy outcomes come into conflict. Should we promote ‘democracy’ even if its beneficiaries are Osama and Ahmadinejad? Should we seek ‘justice’ for the Palestinians — however defined — at the cost of risking the disappearance of the state of Israel? No, heck no!
Even if an evenhanded and generous agreement were to be offered to the Arabs — including the establishment of a viable Palestinian state, an equitable sharing of natural resources, and a generous compensation package that would resolve the refugee problem — it would be unworkable in the long term — the notion of Israel’s legitimacy is simply unacceptable to traditional Islam…”
UPDATE I (June 16) : To Derek: “Israel” does not have to mimic paleos to deserve a defense against those intent on extinguishing it. However, it so happens that Israelis have “Sued NATO For 1999 Air Strikes On Serbia.” Read my post about this valiant, well-directed, self-interested effort.
We know that Israel was streaks ahead, as far as paleo political philosophy goes, in terms of its relationship not only with Serbia but with the old South Africa. Read about the latter comity.
Put it this way: Israel did not attempt to destroy these nations; the USA did.
Where does that leave paleo incongruity?!
UPDATE II (June 17): The idea, hinted at in the Comments Section, that this column privileges Israel over the US for “tribal” reasons is insulting—at least to those familiar with my positions. As I wrote to Myron the other day, when he asked that I apply the Israel test to an American issue: “I’m an American commentator, first.” I’m also the quintessential individualist. I’ve never belonged or worked for any group/tribe/church.
Why does this writer fight for the Afrikaner, Gringo Malo? Tribal affiliation? What bunk. If I knew what was good for me, I would indeed conform to Malo’s insulting caricature—the book deals would role in. I’d be rewarded for becoming what in Russel Kirk’s estimation the American mind craves: the banal and the mundane.
If anything, paleos work against their “tribe” when they agitate for the Palestinians. An Israeli did not assassinate an American senator; a Palestinian did. Muslim terrorists extolling the Palestinian cause killed 3000 Americans on 9/11. Yet it is Israelis that paleos warn us against.
And don’t dare mention the vast sums of money that go to that nest of vipers known as the Palestinian Authority. We only speak of the Jewish ponces who take from the US.
Equating my mere recognition of the justness of Israel’s existence and its struggle and what it has accomplished with tribal affiliation—this is plain pathetic, all the more so considering I have not ever recommended a foreign policy that does anything other than stay out of Israel’s affairs.
UPDATE IV: THEN THERE WERE FOUR. Thanks, Daniel, for alerting us to Derb’s brilliant piece, “Taking Israel’s Side”:
“Each of us has a mental map of the world colored by partiality, some of it reasonable, some merely emotional. If we are patriotic, we will feel more warmly towards a nation that trades fairly with us, cooperates to some degree in international projects we undertake, and shares some commonality of history, culture, or values with us. Contrariwise, of course, if you believe, as a liberal once told me he actually did believe, that your country is the most evil that ever existed, you will feel affinity with foreign nations whose leaders share that view. …
It remains the case that any fair-minded person must be an Israel sympathizer. A hundred years ago there were Jews and Arabs living in that part of the Ottoman Empire. After the Ottoman collapse both peoples had a right to set up their own ethnostates. It has been the furiously intransigent Arab denial of this fact, not anything Israelis have done, that has been the root cause of all subsequent troubles. It is also indisputably the case, as has often been said, that if Hamas, Hezbollah, and the rest were to lay down their arms, there would be peace in Palestine, while if Israel were to lay down her arms, the Israelis would be slaughtered.It is also indisputably the case, as has often been said, that if Hamas, Hezbollah, and the rest were to lay down their arms, there would be peace in Palestine, while if Israel were to lay down her arms, the Israelis would be slaughtered.”
[SNIP]
The last very good point was one I made in LIAR, LIAR, ABAYA ON FIRE (2002), quoting Lorne Gunter:
“Cycle of violence” suggests a sequence of events that has no beginning or end. Do the media ever pause to pose the no-brainer the Edmonton Journal’s Lorne Gunter poses? “If Palestinians stopped their attacks today, tomorrow there would be no Israeli attacks. But if Israel stopped unilaterally, would you trust the Palestinians to follow?”