Sunny Days in Heaven
Spiritual/Political/Philosophical Blog on the Nature of Truth and Falsehood and Heaven


Thursday, August 18, 2005  

Rationalizations of Jews

Dennis Prager and Michael Medved, Jewish radio talk show hosts, both celebrate that Israel, regardless of what you think of the government's decision to abandon Gaza, is behaving as a nation that holds the rule of law as supreme.

There is one problem with their satisfaction with Western legal principles -- exactly what rule of law allows a government to deprive its citizens of their property, their homes, for temporary political considerations?

If this is the rule of law, spare me such ratiocinations.

Explain how the survival of Israel, and the abrogation of citizen's property rights determine that the forced relocation of people, the destruction of their homes and livlihood, loss of their communities is of such expedience that actual human rights don't matter?

This is the result of a socialist state even when it is ruled by so called conservatives.

What Sharon has done is an act of pure dictatorial power that one marvels that a psuedo-democracy (which is parliamentary Israel) can ratify such effects.

This is not the rule of law, but either a tyranny of the majority or a basic contempt for civil rights.

What crime did the settlers commit? What lack of value had their land that it should be given away for nothing? How cheap were their lives or numbers that they did not deserve defense against criminal threats?

I am amazed at how power corrupts the tremulous, fearful, and appeasers.

What was it again that terrorism doesn't work? It does against Jews in Israel.

I have an essay in mind which I will write about how Judaism doesn't work for most Jews, and Christianity is anathema, and so secularism is the default position for Jews which leads to a cynicism towards others who are near while creating a fool's idealism for the future which is self-destructive and essentially insane.

Israel keeps proving that it wants peace at any cost, and does not value the lives of its children, women, or men enough to fight for their protection.

Addendum

National Review editorializes on the genius of Sharon and his strategy. They miss the elephant in the room, though.

This is a civilized, democratic society at work. Prime Minister Sharon's decision to pull out of Gaza represents the lawful will of the Israeli majority, and it will not be frustrated by a minority, no matter how passionate or committed.



Look, just because a government passes laws or a majority supports new laws or decisions, it still doesn't make it right. What are the rights of the Gaza settlers who were encouraged to invest their blood and lives in their communities?

Israel had little enthusiasm for occupying this hellhole in the first place, but acquired it through the exigencies of the Six Day War. The settlement policy in Gaza — crafted by Sharon himself years ago — has been a fizzle, with only around 9,000 Israelis settling there.



Is this how law and politics works in Israel? Yes, we wanted you there but now we don't so that's that. You exist at our whim and caprice. You have no actual property rights because such rights are not expedient at this time. And we passed a law which makes it entirely legal and marvelously democratic to take from you what is yours.

Here's a nice little passage on the strange moral arithmetic of National Review:

And there are many other ways to signal strength other than preserving settlements in Gaza indefinitely for no very good reason.



You see the catch? Preserving settlements in Gaza is an entirely arbitrary matter to NR. Should I stay or should I go? The people who live there, their rights as individuals, as property owners, as people with businesses, investments, cemetaries, blood, and sacrifice don't matter. It's all a bunch of Monopoly houses which are placed or swept off the board as it pleases the government.

Please explain to me how this is the action of legitimate government? Sharon giveth and Sharon taketh away. If this isn't the height of arrogance, it's awfully close. It is clearly a condition of State over individual.

More

And the idiot John Podhoretz makes this incredibly strange observation:

. . . the entire "disengagement" process has been an extraordinary display of democratic civility -- a nation, bitterly torn over a policy and people being wrenched from their homes, that is obeying the rule of law nonetheless and doing so in the most moving possible fashion. The hugs, the tears...there's something ineffably beautiful going on in Israel this week. . .



. . .people being wrenched from their homes . . . rule of law. . . something ineffably beautiful. . .

Amazing. This is lovely because a majority determined (when there was no referendum at all) that some among them no longer have a right to their land and homes. And that is ineffably beautiful?

It is really hard not to despise so-called conservatives sometimes. The inconsistancy of applied principles boggles the mind. The Kelo decision was a blow against the American citizen and a triumph of tyranny, but forcible removal of Jews from their homes in Israel is a triumph of democracy.

And why is it being done? Because the Gaza settlers have become nothing more than an inconvenience (their is no other word that best describes it) to Sharon and his demented will.

Exactly who are the settlers hurting? Exactly what greater public good of eminent domain demands the land be used for other purposes? Well, the land isn't being taken to be used by Israel at all. It's to be given away for nothing.

So please, please tell me exactly by what democratic, civil right the government of Israel has to do this? This is a betrayal of democratic rights. Not an ineffably beautiful example of the rule of law. Hitler and Stalin and Mao all acted according to the rule of law, too. It's such a phony claim to insist that this act of Israel is somehow good because it is civil rule.

It is in fact the violent usurpation of the people's rights disguised as legal action.

posted by Mark Butterworth | 12:02 AM |

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