This Is Winning?

Submitted by Gary Vineberg (United States), Aug 6, 2002 at 23:04

I wish I could agree with Dr. Pipes' assessment that Israel is winning, but the recent United Nations vote proves otherwise. By a landslide majority, the General Assembly voted to condemn Israel for its occupation of the West Bank and Gaza with nary a mention of the atrocities perpertrated by Hamas and other Palestinian terrorists.

If Israel doesn't retaliate, the Palestinians win by attrition and demoralization; if the Israelis strike back, they are castigated by virtually the entire world (excluding the U.S. and a handful of other countries, most of whom abstain rather than vote against the disgraceful anti-Israeli U.N. resolutions) for war crimes, atrocities, etc.

Whether it's motivated by anti-Semiticism, cynical calculation of self interest, or some combination of the two, the repulsive attitude of Europeans and others toward Israel hasn't been changed one iota by the images of Israeli bombing victims. In their view, for all practical purposes, Israelis don't have the right of self defense because the Jewish state is illegitimate.

If the Christian liberal democracies of Europe can come to this position, how long can the U.S. stand against the rest of the world? I believe that America, as the most principled (albeit imperfectly) country on earth supports Israel because it's the right thing to do. Not because of some conspiratorial Jewish lobby that manipulates events behind the scenes. But certain influential citizens have told me quite openly that we need to assess the expense of supporting Israel in the face of Muslim opposition.

It seems that the rest of the non-Muslim world has already made its cost-benefit analysis.

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