Soccer Dad

Yes, he kuhn

A few days ago, Shmuel Rosner recommended this article by Yoram Hazony. Quoting from a professor, Thomas Kuhn, Hazony explains hostility to Israel as part of a "paradigm shift." I'm not sure I'm convinced by Hazony's argument. It makes sense, but it doesn't explain everything. Boiled down to its essence, Hazony explains why Europeans are so hostile to Israel:

It is a little-discussed fact that the Jews are not the only ones for whom Auschwitz has become an important political symbol. Many Europeans, too, see Auschwitz as being at the heart of the lesson of World War II. But the conclusions they draw are precisely the opposite of those drawn by Jews. Following Kant, they see Auschwitz as the ultimate expression of that barbarism, that brutal debasement of humanity, which is national particularism. On this view, the death camps provide the ultimate proof of the evil that results from permitting nations to decide for themselves how to dispose of the military power in their possession. The obvious conclusion is that it was wrong to give the German nation this power of life and death. If such evil is to be prevented from happening again and again, the answer must be in the dismantling of Germany and the other national states of Europe, and the yoking together of all the European peoples under a single international government. Eliminate the national state once and for all--Ecrasez l'infame!--and you have sealed off that dark road to Auschwitz.

Notice that according to this view, it is not Israel that is the answer to Auschwitz, but the European Union: A united Europe will make it impossible for Germany, or any other European nation, to rise up and persecute others once again. In this sense, it is European Union that stands as the guarantor of the future peace of the Jews, and indeed, of all humanity.

But if nationalism is the root of all evil, why do the Europeans center their anti-Israel inclinations by supporting a new nationalism, that of the Palestinians? If Hazony is correct it only explains part of the Europe's antagonism towards Israel. It isn't sufficient to explain it all.

When I was in high school and even a little later one of the most prominent pro-Israel voices on the op-ed page was George Will. For years though he's been silent on the Middle East. Today, he breaks his silence, with Netanyahu, the anti-Obama.

The point of the article is to contrast Prime Minister Netanyahu's seriousness with President Obama's frivolousness. However, in the middle of the essay, Will writes:

Israel, with its deep sense of nationhood, is beyond unintelligible to such Europeans; it is a stench in their nostrils. Transnational progressivism is, as much as welfare state social democracy, an element of European politics that American progressives will emulate as much as American politics will permit. It is perverse that the European Union, a semi-fictional political entity, serves -- with the United States, the reliably anti-Israel United Nations and Russia -- as part of the "quartet" that supposedly will broker peace in our time between Israel and the Palestinians.

This is remarkably similar to Hazony's central point isn't it?

(Will however also writes:

Arguably the most left-wing administration in American history is trying to knead and soften the most right-wing coalition in Israel's history. The former shows no understanding of the latter, which thinks it understands the former all too well.

Barry Rubin refutes Will's characterization of Israel's government.)

If Hazony had simply focused on the anti-nationalism of the European Union, I think he'd have a stronger point. Presenting his analysis as part of a "paradigm shift" perhaps overstates what's happening.