Category Archives: Israel

Israel Rights Its Wayward Leaders

As Israel celebrates its 6oth birthday, it is also conducting an ongoing investigation into the master of ceremonies: Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.

This is what I admire about the place in which I grew up: No authority is above the law, especially not the most powerful politicians in the land.

Americans think that because their top-tier leaders remain untouched, they’ve probably above board. Not so: It’s just that the American presidency and the cabinet are impenetrable. They’re allowed to take shelter behind the Scooter-Libby minions who take the fall for them.

Updated: Quote Courtesy Of Clyde N. Wilson

Ilana Mercer, Israel, Just War, War

Professor Clyde Wilson has a post on Chronicles magazine titled “What Is History? Part 11.” Alongside other worthies, the professor excerpts a line I wrote in “Betraying Brave Boys”:

“… a brave nation fights only because it must; a cowardly nation fights because it can.”

My gratitude to Judge Robert E. Reavis for letting me know. Judge Reavis writes:

“Clyde Wilson over at Chronicles has put you in the company of some pretty stout minds and spunky personalities. Of course I think you deserve it but it is good to see others think so as well.”

I briefly interviewed Professor Wilson, a noted Southern scholar, for my review of the film “Cold Mountain,” entitled “Hollywood’s Hateful Hooey About The South.”

With respect to the quote, Israel lived by the tenet it expressed up until its Lebanon Wars; the last taking place in 2006. Following the principle of monkey-see-monkey-do, Israel took a page out of the annals of unjust American wars, and waged such a war against Lebanon.

Update (April 16): In response to our reader’s comment below: As I explained in “Israel Risks Sundering Moral High ground,” a just war is proportional. It means you don’t level an entire country and kill a thousand innocents, because of a localized attack, where 3-4 people were seized. Such an attack is more efficiently and more justly dealt with by “Precision Pac Men.”

Granted, the Israelis were not nearly as unjust as we were in attacking Iraq, but neither were they as righteous as they had been in all past wars for survival. But unlike Americans, the Israeli people responded magnificently in rejecting the onslaught in Lebanon. Their government will not be prosecuting an unjust war anytime soon. That’s more than we can say about ours.

Updated: Absolut Anti-Americanism Vs. Patriotism

America, Colonialism, Economy, IMMIGRATION, Israel, libertarianism, Socialism

Speaking of a hatred of America (see previous post): Let me say this: I’ve observed that the usual libertarian offenders sided with the Reconquista ad campaign of Swedish vodka maker Absolut.

They have my absolute contempt.

Such people are intent on never showing that they stick up for flesh-and-blood human beings—but can love only deracinated abstractions. Ideas and issues before individuals.

The invasion of the Southwest—or “Reconquista” in the parlance of La Raza libertarians’ —is wreaking havoc on a part of the world that was built-up beautifully by Americans, not Mexicans.

To shelter me and protect me, I’d trust a “red state fascist” any time over a libertarian Absolutist.

Speaking of patriots, I’ve just finished Pat Buchanan’s latest book. It goes without saying that I take issue with economic protectionisms. But about Pat there can be no quibble: he is an absolute patriot.

The other good news to emerge from Day of Reckoning is that Pat is rather complimentary about Israel. In fact, it’s as though he read my “Nature of the Jewish State” column about Israeli nationhood. These ideas are reiterated toward the end of Pat’s book. It was indeed a bonus for me to see a sea change in his appreciation of Israel’s existential challenges.

Update (April 16): For an evisceration of the welfare-state “argumentation” La Raza libertarians put forth see “The Work Open Borden Libertarians Won’t Do,” and other essays in the Immigration Archive.

As to our reader’s contention that “self-sufficient people don’t choose socialism”: Really? If people can get back from the taxpayer more than they earn, they do indeed choose socialism. John C. Calhoun, in “A Disquisition on Government,” warned of this eventuality quite some time back too.

‘A Palestinian Poll’

Israel, Palestinian Authority

Writes R. Emmett Tyrrell Jr:

“On the evening of March 6 in Jerusalem, a heavily armed Palestinian terrorist from nearby east Jerusalem entered the Mercaz Harav yeshiva and opened fire on the unarmed teenage students studying there. Eight died, and 11 were badly wounded before another student and an off-duty soldier shot the terrorist. The atrocity ignited wild celebrations in Gaza.

If you thought that the celebrations were anomalous, you might want to know about recent findings just published by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research, an independent polling organization based on the West Bank. According to its polls, 84 percent of Palestinians approved of this attack. Moreover, 64 percent approve of Hamas randomly firing rockets and mortars from Gaza into Israeli communities, and 75 percent favor ending negotiations between their leaders and the Israeli government…”

Tyrrell further notes, as I did in “Gaza Goes to the Dogs of War,” that,

“When the Israel Defense Forces withdrew from Gaza (taking with them civilian settlers), the Palestinians had an opportunity to set up a peaceful community that might encourage further accommodations from Israel. As Victor Davis Hanson observed in a recent column, ‘Gaza has plenty of natural advantages. It enjoys a picturesque coastline on the Mediterranean with sandy beaches and a rich classical history. There is a contiguous border with Egypt, the Arab world’s largest country and spiritual home of pan-Arabic solidarity.’ Hanson mused imaginatively that Gaza could become another Singapore or Hong Kong. Instead the Palestinians immediately began a civil war among themselves, and after that, they began lobbing rockets and mortars into Israel. Somehow I doubt these people want peace. In fact, I suspect peace would be a disappointment to many of them.”

As we’ve claimed all along.
And as the Palestinians never cease to demonstrate.