| [copied without permission from The Boston Sunday Globe, Dec. 16, 1990]
Martin F. Nolan
Israel's path to peace
In a rambling conversation on the Mideast, glib solutions were
plentiful. Israel was the cynosure of much criticism until a question
arose: in this region we are talking about, which country would you
choose to live in? This is a conversation-stopper.
When Daniel Patrick Moynihan defended Israel in the United Nations
against the lie of Zionism-as-racism, he charged that Israel's
*democracy* infuriated its critics as much as its occupation of the
land once called Palestine. That was in 1976. Democracy has yet to
flower in the Mideast save for one country. Israel, for all its
troubles, is a modern, livable democracy surrounded by monarchs and
dictators.
Few Americans or Russians emigrate to Syria, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, or
Iran. Egypt and Jordan are moving to a democratic ideal, but the most
successful democracy in the Mideast is Israel. Where would we like to
live? This simple question requires reiteration for Americans who
condemn Israel and even for those of us who admire Israel but hope for
more risks for peace and hold Israel to, yes, a double standard, the
higher standard of the Old Testament, a light unto the nations.
The entire life of the state of Israel has been lived in the shadow
of the Cold War. Americans have focused on the Mideast not just
because of oil, but because for decades the Mideast was a potential
tinderbox for World War III. Since 1948, Israel has been the American
superpower's surrogate, and a series of others--Egypt, Iraq, Syria,
even Yemen--have been the Russian superpower's surrogate.
Iraq's invasion of Kuwait has obscured the central reality of the
Mideast: no more surrogates, no more client states. In US public
opinion, Israel has prospered because the right loved its anticommunist
stance. Now the right is reverting to its isolationist roots after a
50-year nap, viz. Pat Buchanan.
For the entire life of Israel, Yitzak [sic] Shamir, now prime
minister, has been a fierce, go-it-alone no-compromiser. His former
career as an anti-colonialist guerrilla/freedom-fighter/terrorist has
made him the least lovable of political leaders. Soon he will be the
least viable. In a post-Cold War world, peace with the Palestinians
may soon become less risky for Israel and more a matter of realpolitik.
Peace may be the way to avert the psalmist's vision: 'By the rivers
of Babylon, there we sat down, yea, we wept, when we remembered Zion.'
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Re: .3
> He has another piece in today's Globe about the hypocrisy of the UN.
The Zohar speaks of the only time in history when the nations of the world
will unite (and guess for what purpose):
All the nations shall unite together against the capital
of Jacob, in order to annihilate her from the world.
Concerning that time it is written, "It will be a time
of crisis for Jacob, but he shall be saved from it." (Jer.
30:7)...At that time the children of Ishmael will rouse all
the people of the world to come up to war against Jerusalem
as it is written (Zech. 14:2), "For I will gather all the
nations against Jerusalem to battle."
The sixteenth-century commentator Ramak elucidates the text:
All the nations will unite together against Jerusalem, for
they shall make a peace treaty among themselves to turn
against Israel and annihilate her. *For Israel will have estab-
lished a sovereign state for themselves*. It will be a time
of crisis for Jacob/Israel, but they shall not be completely
broken, rather, "they shall be saved from it."
Sound familiar?
Jem
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| ' a different Globe, my eye'
You still have the same Israel hating, America hating,
leftists in intelligentsia camouflage...
Their patrons are still Ortega, Fidel, Lamumba, and of
course the second coming of Gorbachev. And as for quoting
Prophets in the Globe, I can't wait until the ACLU hears
about this... you know separation of Church and Press!!
Roland
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