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Michael Anbar , PhD, is a professor in the School of Medicine at the University of Buffalo. Formerly a professor at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot, he is the author of , published by iUniverse.
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By Michael Anbar
February 9, 2003
You are walking down an alley in Central Los Angeles and an assailant tries to mug you at knifepoint, shouting, "Give me that Rolex." You happen to live in that neighborhood and your house is facing that alley. You manage to grab the goon by the throat and he drops his knife grasping for air. You want him apprehended by the police. You look around for help. A well-dressed passer-by approaches at last, but instead of helping or calling the cops he scolds you for hurting this poor guy. He tells you that it is not this mugger's fault, but it is YOURS! You were the one wearing that Rolex watch that caused him to try to kill you for it. Besides, he says: "Who told you to walk alone down this alley?" You say that you live there; and he tells you that "if you don't like this neighborhood you can move to Beverly Hills." The commotion draws more spectators. They all side with this "nice guy" who keeps insulting you for being so cruel to this young punk. A policeman finally approaches, looks at the scene and tells you to let this fellow go. "We have arrested him twice last month and the judge released him. If I arrest him again they'll say that it's racial discrimination. There is no point..." and he walked away.
This is a common street scene in Central LA. It is also a street scene in the Middle East, only there Jews are murdered, not robbed. All the other elements are there, the crowd of Europeans and academic liberals who "understand" the envy of the miserable Arabs of Jewish economic and cultural success. "Clearly, those nasty Jews must have stolen their riches from the Arabs... Even their ancient homeland was stolen from the Arabs... You see, the conniving Jews stole their land the legal owners long before those victimized true owners were even born..." Then, there is the UN - the "world court" - hardly finding Arabs at fault no matter what they do. If the Jews do not like the neighbors they can move elsewhere. Actually, everyone would be better off if the Jews somehow disappeared from that Arab neighborhood...
What options does the Jewish nation have, living in that tough Arab neighborhood? Before we answer this question we must clarify what is a nation. A nation is a populace with a common culture (language, history, geographic origin, religion, literature, ethical values, etc.), rather than of a particular genetic makeup. A contemporary Italian can have a Greco-Roman, French, Austrian, Tyrolean, Etruscan, Vandal, Thracian, Phoenician, Berber or some other European, Asian or African genetic makeup. As long as he speaks, reads and writes Italian and declares himself of Italian heritage, he is Italian. When Italy was split up into many independent political entities, those people were still all Italian.
There is an intrinsic difference between a "nation" and a "state." A state is a political (not cultural) entity with a common central government, army, flag, stamps, coinage etc. There may be nations without a state, like the Jewish nation has been for close to 2000 years, or like the Kurds are today. While the Jewish nation has been scattered all over the world, its geographic identity, i.e., its homeland - the Land of Israel -- has not changed. There may be nations subdivided into many states like the Arab nation, and there may be states that include more than one nation, e.g., USSR, China, India or even Iraq or Syria, and each of those nations has its distinct geographic identity. Then there are multicultural states like the U.S.A. and Canada where people of many different nationalities, each with its own cultural heritage, including a distinct homeland overseas, are intermixed with minimal geographic distinction (with the exception of a few small native American nations). It takes hundreds of years to create a nation whereas a state can be created overnight with the stroke of a pen. States must be recognized by other states to become legitimate. Nations are defined by their distinction from other nations, irrespective of their political status.
There is may be a semantic problem in the definition of nations and states - the term "states" in "United States" refers to politically semi-independent entities with no specific culture distinction, that are encompassed by federal structure into a political super-state - the U.S.A. In another 200 hundred years the U.S. could become a nation if it stopped stressing the distinctiveness of each of its tens of cultural components. This is extremely unlikely. When the U.S. created the "League of Nations," which evolved into the "United Nations," it did not use the title "League of States" because it did not wish to confuse it with the "United States." The UN is a political superstructure of many states, not nations. The Jewish nation, the Arab nation, the Kurdish nation, the Tibetan Nation, the Armenian Nation, etc., are not part of, and are not represented in the "United Nations."
Nations are born and nations can die. The Jewish nation was born some 3300 years ago. The Italian nation crystallized less than a thousand years ago. The Acadian, Sumerian and Phoenician nations died before Christianity evolved, and there are no people today who speak their languages or believe in their deities. Following this definition the Arabs are a nation, and the Arabs in the "disputed territories," who call themselves "Palestinians" are part of the Arab nation, just as the Venetians are part of the Italian nation and the Bavarians are part of the German nation. India and China are huge political entities which include many nations, each with its our distinct culture. So was the Soviet Union. The Jewish nation, one of the oldest nations to exist, surviving more than 3000 years, is, however, not immortal. It could perish if it lost its homeland again. Within the last half fifty years it has been twice in danger of genocide - during the Nazi Holocaust, when almost half of the world's Jewry was massacred, and since 1948 it has been under repeated genocidal assaults by the Arabs who threaten half of the remaining Jews.
So what options does the Jewish nation have, living in this tough Arab neighborhood?
1. To willfully leave its ancient homeland is obviously not an option. This is where the analogy with urban violence ends; unlike individual people, nations do not move these days to better and safer neighborhoods. Besides, no nation has willfully abandoned its homeland, where its culture developed and flourished.
2. To commit collective suicide in order to please the Arabs and Judeo-phobs is not an option either, although indications of national suicidal tendencies are detectable in some Israeli and other Jewish "enlightened" leftists. These people detest Jewish culture, especially the Jewish religion, to such a degree that they would not mind to see the Jewish nation perish. Such tendencies are not unique to Jews. There are also some Americans who hate their country to the same extent.
3. To subdivide the Land of Israel and create a 23rd miniscule Arab state aimed at ultimate destruction of the Jewish homeland and at annihilation of its Jewish population, is not less suicidal that option #2; it would only extend the agony of the Jewish people. The use of a "Palestinian" state as a stepping-stone has been repeatedly declared by different Arab leaders as an effective way to eventually destroy the residual Jewish state and replace it by an Arab state. The insistence of the Arabs to make Jerusalem, the ancient Jewish capital, the capital of the 23rd Arab state is an unambiguous indication of the long-term intentions of the Arabs.
4. To form a secular bi-national state in the Land of Israel is also not an option because of the tremendous differences (not just religious) between the Jewish and Arab cultures. History teaches us that multicultural political entities are not stable when the cultures are too far apart. This is especially true when multicultural states ruled by a dictator change to a participatory regime. The Soviet Union and Yugoslavia are excellent examples. The breakdown of democratic Czechoslovakia is another example of instability of a political entity with two cultures, which are much closer to each other than the Jewish and Arab cultures, which chose to separate peacefully into two mono-national states. The Flemings and Walloons in Belgium might have followed the same model had that country not become the headquarters of the European Union. Multicultural U.S.A. and Canada cannot serve as models because the overwhelming majority of people in these counties have no historical roots there, while willfully sharing the same ethical values and political ideology.
It is hard to find any two cultures that are more foreign to each other than Jewish and Arab cultures, although both use Semitic languages. Although the Arabs have clumsily plagiarized Jewish scriptures used by Jewish tribesmen in Arabia, Islam is a very different religion. Judaism, and Christianity that emerged out of it, value and glorify life, while Quranic Islam values and glorifies death. Bloodshed, even of animals, is abhorrent in Judaism (see the basic commands to be followed by the Sons of Noah - Genesis 9, 5-6) - but it is glorified in Islamic tradition. Judaism's ideal is to improve the world and humanity, recognizing and tolerating other religions and beliefs, Islam's ideal is to conquer and rule all humans worldwide and make them subservient to Islam. Jewish and Christian martyrs are people who are willing to die to preserve their faith. Muslim martyrs are people who are willing to die in order to murder people of other faiths.
But the main difference between Western and Arab viewpoints is the freedom of the individual, which is associated with freedom of ideas and creativity. Unlike Islam, Judaism permits and encourages individual thinking. Jewish Rabbis are not divinely inspired "holy men" - they are scholars. This is why a nation that never had more than 16 million people, has contributed so much to humanity. From giving birth to Christianity and Western ethics, to creating Western schools of philosophical and scientific thought, including pantheism, Marxism, psychoanalysis, the Theory of Relativity and existentialism. One can appreciate the contribution of Jewish culture to Western civilization comparing the 54 Jewish Nobel Prize laureates in the sciences, medicine and economics, with the 6 awards to Muslims (not just Arabs), whose population is 100-fold larger.
One can also compare the economic status of Syria, a typical Arab country with a population of 16 million (90% Arabs) with a gross domestic product per capita (GDPPC) of $2,500, with that of Israel: Population of 6 million (80% Jewish) with GDPPC = $18.300 (85% of that of the UK and 56% of that of the USA). Was it not for the enormous Israeli expense on defense (11.5% of GDP; 3 times that of the US), its GDPPC would have exceeded that of the UK and other European countries. (All data are 1999-2000 figures). Syria and Israel, which have comparable natural resources, gained their political independence within one year of each other.
Yes, the Jewish people are wearing a Rolex; a Rolex of knowledge and productivity. The Arab gangsters, whose history is wrought with murder and robbery, want to kill the Jews for it, while the goons of the left and of the extreme right are applauding! Audaciously, these people are now telling the Jews not to hurt their assailants because they, the Jews, wear the Rolex of personal freedom, diligence and creativity.
5. The fifth option for Israel is to stay firm, repel Arab aggression, and with the help of its allies, inflict appropriate severe punishments on its assailants; punishments that will eventually clean up that whole crime-infested neighborhood. Once crime is out of the picture the neighborhood will become livable again to the benefit of both Arabs and Jews. One can learn from Rudy Giuliani that it can be done.
Views expressed by the author do not
necessarily reflect those of israelinsider.
 
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