Unappreciated

Someone on Facebook who showed up on my page because a FB friend befriended him (got that?) is a very determined anti-Jewish and anti-Israel type. I made a few dissenting comments. He now lumps me with Bruce Bawer --cool--, Victor Davis Hanson --I wish-- and Andrew Sullivan --I'll pass, thanks. We are Muslim-hating tools of the Hebrews. Men like us "must be stopped". I, in particular, am a phony and a...I forget. Liar? Hypocrite? Idiot? Etc.

Well, I have certainly dipped my toe in those waters from time to time. Mea culpa.

Oh, and "intellectually incoherent".

Well, I don't know if I am intellectually coherent or not.
My political views are mostly grounded in the value of survival.
Coherence is not as important as that is.

I am pretty clear, though, that the Muslim/Arab world is largely my enemy and Israel and the Jews are often, at worst, my neighbor-allies-competitors. (Although I have a particular dislike for Jewish leftists like Chomsky and Zinn, it is their leftism that is the cake; their Jewishness is the icing only.)

My issue with Islam has little directly to do with Israel. Even if there were no Israel, Muhammad and I would never be friends. But it does not escape my notice that Israel is a proxy for the West.

Suppose that Israel was destroyed by the Arabs or Iranians. Would this end the problem between Islam and the West? Not in the slightest. They would continue to hate us for our past support of the now-defunct state when it existed! These are basically tribal people with very long memories, especially for shame. And having tasted victory over the Zionists, they'd only be more charged up to take on the Zionist-dominated Crusaders of the Great Satan, America. Without an external enemy --and as Iraq's Sunni-Shia civil war has shown, even with one-- intra-Muslim hatred and violence is ancient and powerful. Better to keep the focus on an infidel enemy.

And how many of the Western liberals who hate Israel (and usually really hate their own society, too) see this as a repeat of the Passion Play of the post-colonials: White men once again stealing land from Indians? That tired moralism is thin but very powerful amongst the high-minded.*

Can Israel survive long term? Even more daunting, I think, than the hatred of its neighbors is the demography of Israeli Arabs. Jews are 75% of Israel, Arabs 20%. Their birthrate is almost twice as high as is the Jews'.

* I have a Canadian friend who says he is tempted to apologize whenever he encounters an American or Canadian Indian. My reaction is to pray that my people are luckier, stronger, more adaptable and more awake than they were. I wonder if my friend, of English extraction, feels a desire to apologize to the Irish...or the Welsh or the Scots? I wonder if the Iroquois ever feel like apologizing to the Hurons? Zzzzz.