Today, Sunday November 26 on CNN, I watched a segment of Fareed Zakaria’s GPS (Global Public Square). While I have been both impressed and grateful for Zakaria’s moral clarity since October 7th, I found myself with concerns regarding 2 of his guests. In this segment he was discussing the situation in Israel with Richard Haas, who among other things was the Director of Policy Planning for the State Department during the George W. Bush administration. His other guest in the same segment was Robin Wright, a foreign affairs analyst and writer for the New Yorker. While they both displayed an expertise that comes with their experience, and based on much of what they said I am willing to give them some benefit of the doubt regarding their overall intentions, they also both verbalized very dangerous and flawed perspectives.
Starting with Richard Haas, his point about Israel taking a different approach towards the military operation, one that is less on display and less focused on larger targets has some merit from the perspective of how it impacts public opinion. However, when public opinion turned on Israel almost immediately when it justifiably retaliated for one of the most barbaric attacks in modern history, it understandably becomes less likely that Israel will focus too much on what other people think. Haas then went on to discuss the need for a political solution and how discussions should already be starting on how to move forward. Again, assuming his intentions are honorable, the mistake Haas is making is applying rational thinking to irrational people. If the leaders in Israel were to make that same mistake, they would be signing off on Israel’s destruction.
Regarding the comments from Robin Wright, she actually completely lost my faith in her judgment in one sentence. When she discussed the difficulty of the 2 sides having talks, she spoke of the problem in starting any discussion when saying, “Israel wants to destroy Hamas, while Hamas wants to destroy Israel”. The problem with these words may be subtle, but they are also significant. They imply that the mission to destroy Hamas is somehow equivalent to the the goal Hamas has of destroying Israel. It is a mindset that comes across as ignoring the fact that Israel is a sovereign nation where Jews, Christians and Muslims are free to live in peace, while Hamas is a terrorist organization subjugating its population to their laws and methods. There is no equivalency between the two, and Wright is either revealing a poor moral position, or has not thought out her words and the message that they send.
A war against evil is not the same as a dispute between two parties, regardless of how violent that dispute may be. To approach the war in Gaza as anything but a mission to destroy that evil is a an approach that does not work for Israel and ultimately will not work for the rest of the western world. I believe if Robin Wright would be looking at this with more clarity she might have said that their actually is a possibility that Palestinians and Israelis share a common goal, a goal for peace. That statement alone would be questionable, but comparing 2 sets of people is a more credible premise than comparing a democratic country to a terrorist organization.
People such as Haas and Wright are not the problem per se, but words they say can easily be manipulated in favor those who are the problem. If they are being put on display as experts, paying attention and sometimes challenging their words becomes an obligation we must adhere to, or suffer the consequences.
Am Yisrael Chai
Never Again is Now!
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As I have been doing on a regular basis for the past 3 months, I went to my local synagogue this past Shabbat( Saturday) morning. As I walked in I grabbed a Siddur, Jewish Prayer book, and a Chumash, the 5 Books of Moses. When you open the Art Scroll Siddur, my personal Siddur of choice, on the right mostly everything is in Hebrew, and on the left mostly everything is English. That is, usually it is. As I sat down to pray this particular prayer book had no English in it at all. Where I usually read the English it was now replaced entirely with Russian.
Holland's Heroes 