REMARKS
On most questions, the Left has been opposed almost on
principle to the official position of the Government. But by some strange
convergence, Israel has become the victim both of the power politics
of the Big Four and of the ultra-highmindedness of the Left.
England and France, as well as the Soviet Union, have been
playing the old power game in the Middle East, while America, stunned
by its failure in Vietnam, has expressed its newly found caution by trying
to play both sides.
On the other hand, many liberals and radicals, particularly the
militant blacks, have taken pro-Arab or neutralist positions. Cleaver
and Carmichael, for example, have identified the Arabs with North
Vietnam and Israel with American imperialism.
(If,
as some charge,
Israel is an "outpost of American imperialism," President Nixon seems
not to have been informed.) And an internationalist like Chomsky,
ignoring the patent Arab and Soviet provocations, has proposed a
standard socialist solution. Put forward as a political abstraction, Chom–
sky's long perspective presents an appealing vision of a socialist com–
munity in the Middle East sometime in the future. Its meaning for the
present
is
not so clear: so far as one can make out Chomsky seems to
be
demanding the instant withering away of the state
of
Israel while
calling for no such revolutionary changes in the Arab countries.
Who can object to the investment of one's hopes in genuinely
socialist societies? But meanwhile, back in the here and now, it's clear
that the current level of military activity is being maintained not by
Israel but by the Arabs, who, after all, invited the Six Day War, and
the Soviet Union, who stimulated it. One might argue about the
right of the Jews to
be
in Israel in the first place; but it is now a
fait accompli
and can
be
reversed only by the kind of extermination
threatened by the Arabs.
The threat of war
is
an Arab threat.
If
the Arabs wanted to prove
that Israel is the aggressor, all they have to do
is
control their guerrilla
activities and then leave
it
to the rest of the world to discover whether
or not Israel
is
still making punitive strikes.
As for the Palestine refugees, it should
be
obvious that a solution
could be found if there were a will by both sides - as well as by the
American and Soviet governments - to resolve the problem.
In the present situation, we feel Israel should have our moral and
political support, whatever views we might have about an ultimate
solution. And we see no reason why the revulsion properly felt about
Vietnam should prevent the Left from taking such a stand. Nor should
the hope for socialism be taken as a license not to think.
w.
P.
