September
17, 2001
Why Israel
Must End the Occupation
Countering the Lynch Mob
By Steven Alan Carr
As Pearl Harbor emerges as the metaphor
of choice to describe September 11th's horrendous sequence of
events, screaming for World War III may be the worst response
to this tragedy.
December 7th and September
11th share obvious parallels, as well as crucial disparities.
As Thomas Friedman notes in one of the first New York Times
editorial to appear after the attacks, Pearl Harbor pitted America
against a world superpower. Then, December 7th tipped the scales
after a protracted, yearlong Great Debate between intervention
and isolation. We are now the superpower, and terrorism notwithstanding,
we are still the world1s only superpower. The U.S. entry into
World War II meant a fight at least as much against the consistent
and certain record of Nazi aggression as it did against a devastating
surprise attack. The U.S. manufacture of World War III will
occur without any debate, against a protean enemy yet with the
odds stacked in our favor.
However misguided, enemies
of the U.S. see us as the equivalent of Nazi Germany. Only the
most extreme fundamentalist could defend any justification for
the recent terrorism. But only the most rabid patriot would
deny that this country has made mistakes some of which
seem, in retrospect, entirely consistent with Nazi beliefs.
When one anti-globalization website compares the collapse of
the World Trade Centers to the burning of the German Reichstag
in 1933, we have an ethical obligation to heed that warning.
The comparison reminds us of what the attacks on the Pentagon
and the World Trade Center cannot become. The Nazi Party used
the highly visible destruction of its Parliament to build its
military machine and centralization of power upon the ruins of
civil liberties and basic human rights. History has taught us
nothing if we succumb to that example.
George W. Bush is no Hitler
and comparing any political party to Nazism reeks of demagoguery.
But the emerging lynch mob mentality toward financially impoverished
Arab and Muslim nations is no more suited to democracy than crashing
a jetliner into a skyscraper or the wholesale slaughter of civilians.
Before mounting an all-out
military assault costing the lives of even more men, women and
children, we must consider one of the most powerful weapons that
we have at our disposal. It carries great sacrifice, but costs
relatively little in terms of lives. It is a non-exclusive option,
and in the long term, it will truly disable terrorist adversaries.
The United States must demand an end to the Israeli occupation
of the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem. The United
States must demand that Israel completely evacuate all settlements
in these areas, and a return to all pre-1967 borders. Taking
terrorism by surprise, such an initiative would splinter whatever
support a small band of extremists now have.
In Hebrew, Tikkun Olam means
the just repair of the world. Bombing civilians abroad is neither
just nor certainly repairing. If we are truly the leaders of
a civilized world, then we must demonstrate this leadership now
by seizing upon an opportunity, instead of wreaking more havoc.
Amid the passions of their respective eras, there were plenty
of justifications for slavery, lynchings, genocide, internments
and holocausts nuclear and otherwise. We grew to regret
those actions, at least in part. Let us not give in to the instant
gratification of a vengeful war meant to destroy convenient Muslim
and Arab scapegoats. Like past mistakes made amid passion and
unreason, we can only grow to regret such self-righteousness
later. CP
Steven Alan Carr is author of Hollywood
and Anti-Semitism: A Cultural History up to World War II
(New York: Cambridge UP, 2001).
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