(adapted from a post at Elder of Ziyon)
A book was recently published that examined the 1936 Olympics. It includes a section on the debate within the United States as to whether to boycott the games because of German racism.
While any objective observer would have clearly seen that Hitler had no interest in allowing German Jews to compete, the US Olympic Committee leaders were more than willing to swallow whatever excuses the Germans gave, and to look the other way, in order to keep the US in the games – for their own self-centered reasons.
Everyone with any sense knew that the Nazis were lying when they said they wouldn’t discriminate against Jews. But Nazi attempts to paper over their hatred – by saying that they were only against Zionism, not Jews, for example – were eagerly accepted by people whose self-interest coincided with the obvious lies.
Today, much of the lukewarm reaction by Europe towards Iranian genocidal speech (“only against Zionists, not Jews”), obvious nuclear ambitions (“for peaceful nuclear power”) and long-range ballistic missile development (“for an Iranian space program”) is powered by the same desire to overlook clear lies for short-term self-interest.
In some ways, this is a useful way to look at the entire Israel/Arab conflict. The Arab case – the destruction of Israel – is fundamentally one of aligning Arab wishes with the self-interests of the other nations of the world. The incentives are both positive (the huge petrodollar economy) and negative (the threat of terror,) but they are clothed in the language of morality (Israel’s treatment of “Palestinian refugees.”) The lies are obvious but they get lost in the static generated by the buzz of other nations’ self-interest.
Israel’s case to the world audience – that Israel has the right to exist in security- is primarily a moral one, and from a purely moral perspective it is correct. But the moral argument alone does not contribute as much towards the audience’s perceived self-interest as the incentives and disincentives of the Arab world.
This is why we see the world give more weight towards the moral arguments of the Arabs. By themselves, they are close to worthless, but combined with the implicit threats and economic rewards of their proponents their value becomes inflated to appear to be on a par with, or superior to, Israel’s moral claims. Any perceived moral infraction by Israel gets exaggerated, yet much worse violations of morality by Arabs get downplayed. In this fashion, the audience – primarily the West – can use the convenient moral cover to justify their ultimately self-serving actions (and it is of course in their self-interest to appear to be acting out of moral considerations rather than naked selfishness.)
The ironic part is that Israel’s interests really do conflate with Western self-interest more than those of the Arabs. The Islamist threat – powered by oil money and Western fears of terror – would not end with the destruction of Israel but with the Islamization of the world. Unfortunately, most nations usually sacrifice long-term interests in favor of the short term.
What this means for Israel is that it cannot rely on moral arguments alone to make their case. Israel’s leaders and supporters need to show how Israel’s case is in everyone’s – Western and Eastern alike – self-interest.
