RSS Feed MenuGeorge Gilder has released a passionate new book about Israel, The Israel Test. Gilder, who is both an intense religious conservative and a tech guru, argues that support for the fullest claims of Israel is an essential moral test of the non-Jewish world’s ability to rise above resentments and envy. NewMajority has asked some friends and contributors to weigh in. First up, Hillary Mann Leverett.
While seemingly grounded in profound admiration for Jewish contributions to Western civilization and the flourishing of democratic capitalism, George Gilder’s The Israel Test represents, in fact, an essential abnegation of the Holocaust’s most important moral lesson — that all human beings are entitled to the protection of law, even in time of war. That lesson provided the intellectual foundation for the concept of “crimes against humanity”, as codified at the Nuremberg trials. But, for all of Gilder’s invocations of the Holocaust, his “Israel test” subverts its most important moral lesson.
In Gilder’s world, Jews deserve protection from right-thinking Western Gentiles not because universal norms mandate such protection, but because we’ve “earned” it — through our talent, historical achievements, and indispensability to the survival of the West, including the United States. And, because we’ve earned the West’s protection on this basis, Israel has also earned immunity from criticism for its mistakes, even if those mistakes include the occupation of another people or the blockade of a territory of 1.4 million people. The enemies of the West/Israel/the Jewish people would hate us even if we corrected our mistakes, so trying to assuage our enemies by addressing our mistakes and the grievances they may have created is a dangerous delusion.
This is an exceptionally pernicious set of ideas. Against the “Nazism” that, according to Gilder, characterizes not only Hilter’s Germany but also modern-day Iran, Palestine, Saudi Arabia, and Syria, The Israel Test has defined, in effect, a countervailing ideology of “Israelism”. Among other things, this ideology of “Israelism” would undermine the conceptual foundations for international efforts since the Holocaust to stop genocide in other settings — whether in Bosnia, Rwanda, or Sudan — whose inhabitants may not score as highly as Jews on Gilder’s scale of civilizational achievement.
More significantly, Gilder’s “Israelism” would immunize the Jewish state from ever being held accountable for its own breaches of international norms. The practical implications of this mindset can be seen in the reactions to the Goldstone report on violations of the laws of war during last year’s Gaza conflict by Likudnik defenders of Israeli actions. This report was prepared by one of the world’s most eminent jurists, who is, along with his many other accomplishments, a trustee of Hebrew University in Jerusalem and a board member of Brandeis University’s Center for Ethics, Justice, and Public Life. But, because Goldstone tasked both Hamas and Israel to investigate their armed forces’ violations of civilian immunity and the laws of war during the Gaza fighting, he is widely denounced for “anti-Israeli” bias. For example, Rep. Gary Ackerman (D-NY, chairman of the House Subcommittee on the Middle East and South Asia) vilified Goldstone for living in “a self-righteous fantasyland”, where “there’s no such thing as terrorism, there’s no such thing as Hamas, there’s no such thing as legitimate self-defense.”
Unfortunately, Gilder, Ackerman, and Israelism’s other adherents want us to live a self-righteous fantasyland where there is no such thing as international law or universal norms — and that, as history has taught, is ultimately a nightmare world for the Jewish people.
In Gilder’s world, there is also no room for diplomatic efforts to resolve political disputes involving or affecting Israel, for there can be no assuaging or bargaining with Arab and Muslim leaders and publics supposedly hell-bent on finishing Hitler’s work. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s latest reported description of the Holocaust as a “myth” is already being used by those who oppose U.S. engagement with the Islamic Republic to discredit the possibility of serious diplomacy with Tehran. But friends of Israel should recall that it was the Holocaust-denying Egyptian President Anwar Sadat who traveled to Jerusalem and made peace with the Jewish state. The Camp David accords effectively took Egypt out of the Middle Eastern military equation, thereby rendering impossible the kind of generalized Arab-Israeli war that the world had witnessed in 1948, 1967 and 1973. Israel’s place in the region is much more secure today as a result of that diplomatic effort—regardless of whether Egyptians are taught about or are moved by the historical record of the Holocaust.
Israel’s friends should think hard before excluding what has been, historically, one of the most vital tools contributing to its security. The real “Israel test” is whether we are truly willing to take all of the steps needed to ensure Israel’s place in the historic homeland of the Jewish people.
Chekote // Sep 21, 2009 at 1:09 am
sinz, we’ve basically turned Iraq into another province of Iran.
LOL. The Iranian regime is barely holding on and will fall.
Chekote // Sep 21, 2009 at 1:12 am
Good luck, Sinz. Those people in Iraq effin hate each other and want nothing to do with one another. it looks a lot like Yugoslavia.
So what? The point is that a sponsor of terrorism and neighborhood bully (Kuwait invasion) has been removed.
SFTor1 // Sep 21, 2009 at 1:23 am
Chekote says: “So what? The point is that a sponsor of terrorism and neighborhood bully (Kuwait invasion) has been removed.”
Chekote, would you agree that Iraq formed a counterweight to Iranian regional ambitions? Do we now have a destabilized region that may put some really nasty problems on our doorstep? It certainly appears that way to many sober observers.
sinz54 // Sep 21, 2009 at 8:58 am
sftor1: By the way, how can it be that a successful and creative economy like Israel’s would need so much U.S. foreign aid?
It’s a bribe, to keep Israel from nuking their enemies.
That was obvious when Carter presided over the treaty between Sadat and Begin in 1978. The U.S. agreed to massively step up aid to Israel and Egypt, so they would feel satiated and not go to war with each other any more.
If Israel felt like she were truly alone (as she would be if YOU had anything to say about it), she would send her nuclear missiles flying in every damned direction.
sinz54 // Sep 21, 2009 at 9:06 am
Hillary Leverett aptly points out that the greatest security windfall for Israel lies in becoming an ordinary state, ruled by the same international laws and conventions as any other state.
You’re evidently ignorant of history.
History has proven, time and again, that international law offers NO protection to small states. In fact, international law has NEVER, EVER stopped a determined aggressor. Never.
Small states, despite solemn treaties, despite international organizations like the League of nations, were routinely sacrificed to the prejudices and dismissals of people like yourself. Armenia, Manchuria, Czechoslovakia, Poland, lots of places were destroyed while the rest of the world abrogated their treaty obligations to keep those places free.
Israel’s biggest enemy is people like YOU: Those who would put their faith in a piece of paper to defend them against weapons of mass destruction.
History has shown that’s a losing proposition.
The only way to keep the peace is to be better armed than those who hate your guts.
And there are a billion Muslims who hate Israel’s guts.
sinz54 // Sep 21, 2009 at 9:18 am
sftor1:
Israel does not want to end up like Manchuria in 1931 or Abyssinia in 1936 or Czechoslovakia in 1938–a small state sacrificed when Great Powers refused to live up to their treaty obligations to guarantee the territorial integrity of small states.
Can you PROVE to Israel that this would never happen to them?
BTW: Weren’t you lefties demanding that Kuwait be sacrificed to Iraq in 1990? All of a sudden, the fact that a sovereign member of the U.N. was being invaded and destroyed didn’t matter to you.
The one time that the U.N. really did go to war to defend a small state’s territorial integrity–Kuwait–you lefties OPPOSED it.
Case closed.
Jim // Sep 21, 2009 at 9:19 am
Chekote:
I couldn’t agree more. Saddam was a gangster and a monster and his sons were worse. We had the opportunity to remove him from the regional neighborhood and we did it.
(Did you just hear that? It was the sound of the other shoe dropping)
ericna // Sep 21, 2009 at 9:42 am
I am surprised that this guy Gilder is taken seriously enough to warrant having one of his books reviewed. The guy is a certifiable cook along the lines of, dear I say, Ahmadinejad himself. Anyone in doubt may read his 2006 article in National Review found here: http://www.discovery.org/a/3631
SFTor1 // Sep 21, 2009 at 11:50 am
Sinz, in modern times small nations usually enter into defense treaties such as NATO, which is what Norway did after WWII. NATO offered effective protection against the USSR, which had a strong interest in Norway’s ice-free coast line. And Norway, as you may remember is a country full of lefties, yet they had no problem with this arrangement. Israel on the other hand, according to you, have been on the brink of spraying the region with nukes just to show how tough they are, and the U.S. have held them back with bribes. I hope you recognize that this is Moshe Dayan Mad Dog Theory in action, and not actual policy, right? I will assume you do.
At any rate, the above is how small nations solve their security concerns today, although Israel has chosen the mad dog route. It hasn’t made them very secure as far as I can tell. You have also provided a perfectly good answer for why Iran is pursuing a nuke. They obviously need one to deter Israel.
SFTor1 // Sep 21, 2009 at 11:51 am
jim: “I couldn’t agree more. Saddam was a gangster and a monster and his sons were worse. We had the opportunity to remove him from the regional neighborhood and we did it.”
A monster, just like Suharto, Pinochet, and Karimov?
SFTor1 // Sep 21, 2009 at 11:52 am
sinz:
I supported the first Gulf War. It was appropriate. It was also conducted by grown-ups like Bush senior and George Schulz. They did not make the mistakes of Bush fils.
SFTor1 // Sep 21, 2009 at 12:07 pm
George Gilder is a creationist.
Who knew?
Hillary Mann Leverett // Sep 21, 2009 at 12:19 pm
I would like to note in response to the reader who is intent on defending the holocaust-denying Sadat as more palatable than Ahmadinejad. At least three of this gentleman’s points are inaccurate or misleading:
1) Egypt was in fact exploring nuclear weapons possibilities in the 1970s and did not ratify the NPT until 1981.
2) Hamas and Hezbollah didn’t exist during Sadat’s lifetime — ergo, Sadat’s “nonsupport” for these groups is not evidence of anything.
3) Sadat was indeed a realist who calculated that an alliance with the US would contribute enormously to meeting Egypt’s most fundamental strategic needs. Those in the Iranian leadership — including Ahmadinejad– who look to the possiblity of a strategic realignment betweent the US and Iran believe that such a realignment, to make sense, must address the Islamic Republic’s fundamental strategic needs. That, to me, is quintessential strategic realism.
el gato libre // Sep 21, 2009 at 12:33 pm
“It’s a bribe, to keep Israel from nuking their enemies.”
“If Israel felt like she were truly alone (as she would be if YOU had anything to say about it), she would send her nuclear missiles flying in every damned direction.”
Sinz, you usually come off as a pretty reasonable guy. I’m pretty surprised by the tone of your latest posts.
So you think that Israel has been extorting billions in bribes from U.S. taxpayers so that they won’t pop off their nukes in “every damned direction”? Wow…That’s something I’d expect to hear from some ranting Jew-hater, not a supporter of Israel. The fact is that Israel is dependent on U.S. military and economic support. So when Israel behaves badly it reflects right back on us.
Do you support, just to take one recent example, the bombing of densely packed civilian populations with banned munitions like white phosphorous?
Jim // Sep 21, 2009 at 7:19 pm
sftor1: writes
“A monster, just like Suharto, Pinochet, and Karimov?”
Yes.
I’ve always wondered where the conversation goes from this point.