DAVID TWERSKY
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rest on its being held to a superior standard of moral behavior.
In any event, I cannot see how, by any moral yardstick, the
tens of thousands of Lebanese dead during the late seventies-Arabs
killed by Arabs-pose less of a problem than the five hundred to a
thousand, or even three or four, tragically killed during this war,
unless we believe that one hundred thousand deaths for "progress"
weigh less on the conscience than five hundred in the name of
" reaction. "
Yes, Israel does have special standards it imposes on itself, and
these values are threatened by Sharon and Co. But Israelis also have
a desire
to
live securely and in peace and, if they have to go to war, to
win while losing as few of their own as possible.
Within Israel, the unprecedented dissent over this war, and I
emphasize
unprecedented,
touched off a debate as to the acceptable
limits of dissent during war. Needless to say, Peace Now and the
Labor left (and Mapam, etc.) were attacked as "traitors stabbing
our boys in the back." Some have taken to calling Peace Now "knife
in the back"
(sakin b'gav).
The colonel who resigned in protest has
been called " knife in the back," to which Amir Oren, the military
correspondent for Davar, replied, "He isn't the knife, he's the
back. "
One Likud MK, Michael Kleiner, has proposed outlawing all
demonstrations during wartime. One wonders when demonstrations
would be legal according to Kleiner, since one could argue that
Israel ' s security always requires political restraint. (When asked
how he could reconcile his proposed law with his attending the pro–
government rally, Kleiner, whom the opposition press have dubbed
" McKleiner," replied, with a straight face, "The law hasn't been
enacted yet.") Kleiner also announced that he had received "confi–
dential" information that Peace Now is on the Saudi payroll. This
echoed charges made two years ago by Kleiner's colleague Ronnie
Milo that Peace Now was on the CIA payroll, although Milo
thought that the CIA probably was unaware of it (like
Encounter?).
In
any event, Labor MK Uzi Baram replied that Kleiner was the recip–
ient of phony intelligence peddled by an agent ofIran
(!)
to discredit
the Saudis. Who said Robert Ludlum was imaginative? Simply
mimetic.
The government has tried to restrict severely the state-owned
media (there are only state-owned media, except for Abie Nathan's
Peace Ship, which also broadcasts the news from Kol Yisrael).
