European Document/Who Shall Judge Israel?
Welch, Colin
"European Document/Who Shall Judge Israel?" by Colin Welch Every day poor Israel seems to foreit a little bit more of the sympathy of the guilt-ridden West. The process surely began with...
...Our blind eye is now t u r n e d in the opposite direction...
...Israel's a r r o g a n t and i n t r u s i v e behavior in her new territories reminds some of South Africa...
...Suppose that my neighbor has for years neglected his vast e s t a t e , ruining the soil and impoverishing himself and others...
...But suppose t h a t the judge is credibly informed that my neighbor has never shown any obvious intention of using the gun for legitimate sporting p u r p o s e s , but has on the contrary r e p e a t e d l y threatened and tried to blow me to smithereens with it...
...The process surely began with the spectacular success of her wars...
...Jews had long been pitied as underdogs...
...but he need not do it with any great enthusiasm...
...A new antiSemitism, or perhaps the old one in a new and more r e s p e c t a b l e guise, became socially and intellectually acceptable--though of course Palestinians are Semites too...
...Wherever p r o p e r t y laws actually work against this basic purpose, wherever they favor waste, squandering and ruin, they really cannot be defended with tremendous vigor, if at all...
...Like South Africa she has not even any oil...
...If there is a flaw in this very simple view, an analogy may help to reveal it...
...Suppose then that by a mixture of f a i r means and foul I encroach on his e s t a t e , r e s t o r i n g and making f r u i t f u l all the land which I control and making others prosperous as well as myself...
...Sadat...
...Nor is there anything to be proud of anyway in r e d r e s s i n g injustices at other people's expense...
...They know full well that, while the Arabs may with relative impunity lose war after war, the Israelis can afford to lose only one which, lost, would be for them curtains...
...2 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR SEPTEMBER 1980...
...Their traditional role was to suffer, t h e i r t r a d i t i o n a l reward the innutritious tears of their sympathizers...
...Another analogy incidentally may reveal not so much a n o t h e r flaw in the simple theft-restitution view as a further complication...
...It seemed like a r e v e r s a l of nature when the underdog suddenly and r e p e a t e d l y leapt up and fought back, scattering other dogs, even more under, in all directions...
...But such people are not typical of those now in power in the West, who are on the whole more likely to be embarrassed by the shameless display of such qualities...
...If so, by what r i g h t do we become so censorious...
...In such !circumstances it may be unwise of Mr...
...If you are a newspaper editor or publisher and want further information on Tyrrell's column write or call: Dick 'Fales, National Sales Director, King Features, 235 E. 45th St., New York, N.Y...
...A NOTE TO OUR READERS As in years past, the Continuing Crisis appears only once in the three summer months...
...Incidentally, along with editing The American Spectator, R. Emmett Tyrrell, J r . , now writes a nationally syndicated column for King Features...
...Begin to be provocative, as he is...
...Well, then, surely the judge should take a different course...
...10017...
...And since what is necessary to I s r a e l ' s survival and what is not are matters legitimately debatable, we should without rancor expect Israelis to be much more careful about what they give back than we would like them to be...
...212) 682-5600...
...Suppose I have stolen a gun from my neighbor...
...B e g i n ' s bloody past has not won him f r i e n d s , nor does his tactless intransigence influence people...
...If we were in the I s r a e l i s ' position, should we not surely behave more or less as they do, a little bi~ b e t t e r or a l i t t l e bit worse, or go under...
...Next month it will return...
...by C o l i n Welch Every day poor I s r a e l seems to f o r f e i t a little bit more of the sympathy of the guilt-ridden West...
...Hearts which had bled for Jews s t a r t e d to bleed for P a l e s t i n i a n s as the victims of I s r a e l ' s aggression and injustice...
...It is certainly not unwise for him to be cautious or even g r a s p i n g in his stewardship of whatever Israel has got...
...His a p p a r e n t l y sordid chafferings and grabbings have about them a remaining whiff a garlic and the ghetto, especially by cont r a s t with the a p p a r e n t l y Parsifallike openness of Mr...
...Former friends draw away as if someonc weren't using Amplex, though it is rats which I think I smell...
...One of the main purposes of the laws governing property, after all, is to ensure that precious and scarce assets are in private hands preserved, cherished, developed, enhanced, and put to the b e s t use...
...He sues me for its r e t u r n . The judge may in s t r i c t law be forced to r e t u r n some or all of it to him...
...The Arab-Israel m a t t e r is often looked at and discussed as though it were a simple matter of restoring stolen p r o p e r t y . I s r a e l has stolen this or t h a t from the P a l e s t i n i a n s ; it is thus her clear duty or even in her i n t e r e s t to give it (or the like) back...
...The judge's duty is superficially clear: to punish me and to r e s t o r e the gun to its owner...
...legitimate interests of Palestinians...
...WHO SHALL JUDGE ISRAEL...
...Admittedly Israel now had some new f r i e n d s , of that sort which admired dash, s e l f - r e l i a n c e , resolution and military prowess...
...In our zeal to r e d r e s s injustices once inflicted on J e w s , we in the West may once have overlooked the Colin Welch is Deputy Editor of London's Daily Telegraph, where this essay originally appeared...
...In our zeal to r e d r e s s P a l e s t i n i a n injustices we may overlook the legitimate interests of Jews...
...To return to the f i r s t analogy, we in the West have every right to ask the Israelis to give back whatever may be given back without danger to t h e i r security or even survival, but nothing more...
Vol. 13 • September 1980 • No. 9
