How to Judge Israel

Here’s an excerpt from an absolute gem of an article by Charles Krauthammer that appeared in Time magazine in February 1990. It’s amazing how 17 years down the line, after all Israel's attempts at peace, this still applies. Each. And. Every. Word.

A kind of moral affirmative action applies. We are asked to understand the former victims' barbarities because of how they themselves suffered. [...] With Jews, that kind of reasoning is reversed: Jewish suffering does not entitle them to more leeway in trying to prevent a repetition of their tragedy, but to less. Their suffering requires them, uniquely among the world's sufferers, to bend over backward in dealing with their enemies. That is a double standard. What does double standard mean? To call it a higher standard is simply a euphemism. That makes it sound like a compliment. In fact, it is a weapon. If I hold you to a higher standard of morality than others, I am saying that I am prepared to denounce you for things I would never denounce anyone else for. If I were to make this kind of judgment about people of color -- say, if I demanded that blacks meet a higher standard in their dealings with others -- that would be called racism. Let's invent an example. Imagine a journalistic series on cleanliness in neighborhoods. A city newspaper studies a white neighborhood and a black neighborhood and finds that while both are messy, the black neighborhood is cleaner. But week in, week out, the paper runs front-page stories comparing the garbage and graffiti in the black neighborhood to the pristine loveliness of Switzerland. Anthony Lewis chips in an op-ed piece deploring, more in sadness than in anger, the irony that blacks, who for so long had degradation imposed on them, should now impose degradation on themselves. Something is wrong here. To denounce blacks for misdemeanors that we overlook in whites -- that is a double standard. It is not a compliment. It is racism.

The article did not call for Israel to be judged according to those in her neighbourhood. It calls for Israel to be judged according to the standard set by the west - but a west that is at war not at peace.

Nevertheless, Israel cannot be judged by the moral standards of the neighborhood. It is part of the West. It bases much of its appeal to Western support on shared values, among which is a respect for human rights. The standard for Israel must be Western standards. But what exactly does "Western standards" mean? Here we come to complication No. 2. There is not a single Western standard, there are two: what we demand of Western countries at peace and what we demand of Western countries at war. It strains not just fairness but also logic to ask Israel, which has known only war for its 40 years' existence, to act like a Western country at peace.

Comments

[mike]

I totally agree with Krauthammer. The excessive and disproportional criticism of Israel (in fact obsession) is a sophisticated form of anti-Semitism. Israel should be held to the same standard as every other nation by the international media. However, as Jews I do not feel we should be happy with Israel just being like other nations. We should always strive to create the type of modern society in our biblical homeland that will be a light unto the nations