Soccer Dad

Chabon: israel is stupid for trying to survive

This past Sunday, novelist Michael Chabon took to the op-ed pages of the New York Times to argue that Jews were Chosen but not special. Toward the end he wrote:

This is the ambiguity that cites the dispensation of God and history, of covenant and Holocaust, to lay claim to a special relationship between Jews and the Land of Israel, then protests when the world -- cynically or sincerely -- holds Israel to a different, higher standard as beneficiaries of that dispensation.

The problem, of course, isn't that the world holds Israel to a higher standard, it's that the world holds Israel to a standard, but doesn't hold its enemies to one.

Why, for example, is there a blockade of Gaza? It's because that in 2005, Israel ended the "occupation" of Gaza. Presumably this gave the Palestinians of Gaza an opportunity to create a mini-state, a prototype of the state that would peacefully alongside Israel. Instead, within two years Hamas was in control of Gaza and instead of bringing prosperity to Gazans and peace to Israel, Gaza became the launching pad of Qassam missiles that threatened Israel's citizens in the south. The world issued no condemnations of the situation, until Israel fought back.

On one hand Israel is asked to make sacrifices for peace; on the other it is asked to ignore the threats that result when those sacrifices backfire and Israel's enemies rather than bring it peace.

Now Israel is intent on controlling what items enter Gaza so that Hamas can no longe re-arm itself. Israel's already seen that it cannot afford to leave its defense to others. The world has allowed Iran, Syria and Hezbollah to violate resolutions 1701, and now Hezbollah is re-armed leaving Israel's northern citizen under threat of attack.

The impetus for Chabon's column was the botched Israeli raid on the Mavi Marmara. Chabon called the raid an "unprecedented display of blockheadedness." From there Chabon muses about the whether there's anything special about Jews and Israel, never once considering whether Israel may have needed to defend itself. The op-ed is meandering and hard to follow, but one gets the impression that Chabon thinks Israel stupid for trying to survive.

Jonathan Tobin writes:

The "exceptionalism" of Jewish civilization rests in a religious and moral tradition that transcends politics or even the novels of a Michael Chabon. But Israel's right to defend itself against terror is rooted in the simple demands of justice that apply to all peoples and for which Jews -- be they smart or stupid -- need not apologize. For all of their reputation for brilliance, that's a lesson liberal Jews like Beinart and Chabon have yet to learn.

D. G. Myers concludes, similarly (h/t Yaacov Lozowick):

What does Chabon want? That Jews like me who love the State of Israel "shed our illusions." Israel, we must learn, is not uniquely smart or uniquely righteous or uniquely successful. But what Chabon fails to understand is that the illusions belong only to him and his natural allies on the anti-Israel Left. Only its enemies and detractors treat Israel as anything other than a legitimate state with a legitimate right of self-defense. Only they hold it to an impossible standard, including the standard of never disappointing or embarrassing Michael Chabon.

Crossposted on Yourish.