I suppose that depends on your point of view. In a harsh world, joining with your fellow tribes-people is good. To face the world alone is difficult and generally quite dangerous. Each clan has its own culture, its own mores, its own system of values. If you abandon your clan's values, whose values do you adopt?
Is your culture one where women accused of infidelity are executed by stoning? Are you from a culture that forbids the slaughter of animals that have not been stunned prior to slaughter despite the fact that this same culture is pro-whaling, and pro the hunting of elk; not to mention the destruction of seals for their pelts? Can these cultures be praised, or, at the very least, be found to have value? Can you value a culture that still practices human sacrifice? If you believe in the equivalency of all cultures then the answer must be yes. But, it's no, if you're a Jew.
These questions came to mind as I read a back issue of the Jerusalem Report dated Aug 2, 2011 and came across a piece by Menachem Klein titled, "Universalism and Israel's Universities."
Jews have three hundred and seventeen commandments. The most famous are the ten given at Mt. Sinai. Although some might apply to all people, many were intended strictly for Jews. Although Jews see the observance of the seventh day as being one meant for them, it's been adapted, with modification, by Christians, who have taken the first day as the Lord's day. For Jews it's still the seventh.
These views have not the slightest meaning for people identifying themselves as "universal humanists." For them, to look at matters through Jewish eyes is chauvinistic and reprehensible. Arabs defining themselves as Palestinians should be treated by the Israelis in exactly the same way as how Israelis treat their fellow Israelis.
But, how is this to be done? You and I might not agree with them, but Muslims feel that Jews have no right to the State of Israel. (They feel it is a usurped Palestinian territory.) Despite the fact that Israel is the culmination of Herzl's dream for a state for the Jews, Muslims will not recognize Israel as a Jewish state. (Their attitude on this matter is set forth in the Hamas constitution.) Despite Israel having pulled every Jew out of Gaza, Hamas continue to bombard Israel with mortars and to fire at Israeli civilians with rocket propelled weapons. How should Israel alter it's policies towards Hamas?
Mr. Abbas plays a more subtle game. But, in the end, he wants a Judenrein West Bank. He decries the wall the Israelis have erected despite the fact that this wall has served reasonably well in keeping Islamic terrorists from blowing up civilians riding Israeli buses. Yes, the IDF does man check points that no doubt retard travel between communities in the West Bank. But why does Israel allocate its forces in this way? Clearly, it's to protect Israel and Israeli citizens.
And, still universal humanists decry Israel's policies of self protection. In a perfect world Israel shouldn't behave in this manner. And, that's 100% correct. But, it's not a perfect world; far from it. You can't behave in a manner that would suggest that you've arrived in some sort of Utopia. If you do, you'll end up as earlier Utopians have. You'll be eliminated.
I don't mean to bring up the Holocaust, but it is a fact that more Jews failed to escape from Germany because they believed with great fervor that the German culture, a culture for which they themselves had fought in
WW I, would never allow Hitler to destroy them as a people. They misjudged.
I would also remind my dear readers of how many people found communism and Russia a highly attractive alternative to capitalistic America. I can indeed understand why notable personages such as Paul Robeson lauded the Soviet model.
America then was unquestionably a racist nation. But, what many failed to realize was that (1) America had ideals. These ideals may often have failed to have been met, but we never stopped working at it. Robeson lived in the period of Jim Crow. But that was then. Jim Crow is no more. (2) The Russian model was a flawed model. It could not work. Simple economics brought it to its knees. Unfortunately, for the people of the Soviet Union, the demise of communism was delayed for a considerable amount of time by its police state cruelty.
Viewing the two systems from our vantage point today, it is confounding that any American citizen would actually steal military secrets from this country for delivery to the Soviets. All one can conclude is that these turncoats were, by and large, idealists. In Russia, they thought they had discovered Utopia, or, at least, a Utopia-in-the-making. Today, these people would be called universal humanists.
