Luke Ford

For whom is it something to celebrate? For those who support the Jewish state. For those who want to destroy the Jewish state, it is something to mourn.

Different groups have different interests. What is good for the Jews is often bad for non-Jews such as Arabs and Muslims.

Michael Oren writes in the New York Times: “This year, Israelis are also celebrating the centenary of the Balfour Declaration because it formalized the international community’s recognition of a Jewish nation and our 3,000-year attachment to our homeland. But the Palestinians are mourning it — their leaders have even called on Britain to apologize. Today, as in 1917, they view Jews not as a people with rights to a national homeland but as a religious group and, throughout much of Islamic history, an inferior one at that.”

Every religious group regards other religions as inferior.

Oren: “Despite persistent Arab rejection of Jewish identity, the Zionist leadership recognized that the Palestinian Arabs were a people with sovereign rights.”

Land is a scarce resource. There are competing groups with competing claims for the land of Israel. Any Arab or Muslim who accepts Jewish claims to the land of Israel is a cuck. A proud Arab or Muslim would rather die than accept a booming Jewish state in their midst. If peace prevailed, Israel would even more dramatically excel its Arab neighbors who have an average IQ of around 85 (while Israel’s is near 100). The shame would be unbearable for the Arabs (or for any other people in their position). They’d rather die than cease trying to destroy those who excel them.

Steve Sailer writes:

My guess is that before the Six-Day War, a lot of American Jews didn’t emotionally invest that heavily in Israel, figuring it could be wiped out. Once it had proven immensely victorious, they became huge fans.

Similarly, I started reading the sports pages in 1965 when I was six. The upcoming UCLA – USC football game matching eventual Heisman Trophy winners Gary Beban and Mike Garrett was a big deal at the time. I can recall listening in with perfect neutrality, not having made up my mind which of these two odd acronyms to root for. When I tuned in on the my transistor radio in the second half, USC was up 16-6. But Beban threw two long bombs for touchdowns and UCLA won. This was very exciting and I became a UCLA fan (which paid off in basketball but not in football).

The Six-Day War gave the more conservative American Jews something to be excited about. Richard Nixon and Daniel Patrick Moynihan came up with a plan to make clear to pro-Israel American Jews that Israel’s success would be linked to America’ success in the Cold War.

Comments at Steve Sailer:

* I grew up with security guards outside synagogue every Saturday. On festivals there were police too. I never really thought about it, but for my bar mitzvah we invited a lot of non-Jewish family friends and they told us how weird it was to have security guards outside a house of worship. I guess they don’t think that now.

After the Sabra and Shatila massacre, security was bumped up in British synagogues. My mother remarked to someone that the community was feeling at risk. She responded (or so my mother tells me), that ‘of course you have to expect that, unfortunately’. My mother replied that since the massacre was carried out by a Christian militia with no direct Israeli participation then it would make as much sense for some angry chap to attack a church. Her friend found the very thought incomprehensible. I guess she doesn’t now.

It’s almost like spending decades rewarding angry Middle Easterners for terrorism incentivises them to do it more, but liberals and dolt rightists know that can’t possibly be true.

* Mentioning the USS Liberty is useful because anyone who does outs himself as an anti-Semite. There is nothing to be gained by rehashing this incident otherwise. Casualties from “friendly fire” are unfortunately very common in the fog of war. Just the other day the London cops shot a bystander in the head in the course of killing the terrorists. They should not have needed 50 shots to kill 3 terrorists but once the adrenaline starts pumping people don’t think clearly. It’s very easy to be an armchair general.

Every victimology has a nationalism and every nationalism contains the capacity for genocide. I love the honesty and realism of the following essay:

Haaretz: Israeli lawmaker Bezalel Smotrich: Any option leaving in place an Arab collective with national aspirations that contradict our own would only perpetuate the conflict.

Haaretz has lost its way in the past several weeks, or perhaps it’s not something that happened recently: Identification with the narrative of the enemy and the instinctive antagonism, to the point of hatred, of anything that hints of nationalism have driven its writers mad. This time I was the pretext for the outburst of memories from the terrible days of World War II (“The Israel lawmaker heralding genocide against Palestinians,” Daniel Blatman, May 23; “Smotrich as a sign of things to come,” Zeev Sternhell, May 26, Hebrew edition).

It began with the groundless accusation that I had called for the systematic killing of women and children (“Why religious Zionism is growing darker,” Tomer Persico, May 17). It never happened. It was based on a distorted, tendentious leak by a participant in a closed meeting in which I explained my political philosophy. She made the accusation in a Facebook post; people who consider themselves serious, including some professors, fell for this nonsense and built entire theories and interpretations upon it. I hope Prof. Sternhell’s academic research is founded on more-solid facts and figures.

What did I say? I said that in the Land of Israel, two contradictory national aspirations dwell together, and that the entire foundation for defining the Palestinian national movement relies on the negation of the Zionist movement. The Palestinian national movement was established as a countermovement to Zionism movement, and so the right of the Palestinian “nation” to exist is based in the denial of Israel’s existence as a Jewish state. That is why the chances of reaching a peace agreement with the Palestinians, based on the continued existence of these two conflicting national aspirations by means of an artificial geographical division and on Palestinian recognition of the Jewish state, is virtually nil.

On the practical level, that is the fundamental difference between me and the left. The left buries its head in the sand, believing these contradictory aspirations can be reconciled, while I do not. The reality of recent decades supports my viewpoint. We have always extended our hand in peace; they have always rejected it at the moment of truth: the 1947 United Nations partition plan, the Oslo Accords, Camp David and then-Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s negotiations. That is no coincidence: If they recognize us they will pull out the rug from under their right to exist as a national entity.
Given the fact that these are two contradictory national aspirations, we have two options: to continue the bloody conflict for another 100 years, or to decide it. Hence my plan, which is first and foremost one of political consciousness. I want to etch into the consciousness of the other side the understanding that there is no chance an Arab state will be established in the Land of Israel, through the “settlement solution.” When we impose sovereignty over Judea and Samaria, create additional settlements there and bring in hundreds of thousands more settlers, the Arabs will realize that it’s irreversible, that their dream is over.
There are two possible human responses to this unambiguous situation: The realists will understand and accept it, while the “Don Quixotes” will try to fight it. The realists will also fall into two groups: those who accept the reality will also be divided into two groups: those who choose to remain and to enjoy a personal life far superior to that of Arabs in neighboring states, and those who will not relinquish their national aspirations and will choose to fulfill them in one of the Arab states or in any other country.
Those who refuse to accept the new reality and choose to fight it through violence will encounter the “military solution,” in the form of a determined Israeli army with a mandate from the political leaders to achieve victory and to eliminate terror. There is nothing more just and moral than Israel’s right to defend itself against those who would destroy it. Would such a war require indiscriminate total slaughter? Of course not. You’d have to be a total fool to think that. Those who remain won’t be forced to sing the national anthem. All they need do is not to take up arms.