The Moral Case for Israel (The One You Probably Have Never Heard Before)
Guest Post by Steven Schub
Steven Schub, Renaissance man and my friend, wrote this. He graciously allowed me to publish it here. Do yourself a favor and listen to his bands The Fenwicks and HaSkaLA. Watch his performances in film and television as well.
The Moral Case for Israel (The One You Probably Have Never Heard Before)
by Steven Schub
I want to begin with a thought experiment. I want to begin by asking you to imagine a country. A country whose very right to exist is called into question on a daily basis. A country which is vilified in the media, and denounced on college campuses. A country which has been subject to at least 27 United Nations Human Rights Council resolutions condemning it, more than any other nation on earth. A country whose survival is threatened militarily by its neighbors, neighbors who explicitly call for it to be “wiped off the map” or “pushed into the ocean.”
Ask yourself: Is this country some kind of monster? I must be talking about some kind of totalitarian slaughterhouse, right? Am I referring to North Korea, perhaps? Maybe China which has murdered at least 60 million of its own people? Or the Congo where 5 million people have been slaughtered? Perhaps I’m referring to perennial human rights violators like: Syria, Libya, Zimbabwe or Sudan? Maybe I’m talking about the Islamist dictatorships in Iran or Saudi Arabia, in which homosexuals are routinely executed and women are third class citizens at best? Hold that thought, k?
Ok, now I want you to consider another country...
Picture a tiny country smaller than El Salvador. Smaller than New Jersey. Even smaller than Delaware. A country founded a mere 75 years ago by impoverished immigrants and refugees from around the world who purchased over-priced, sparsely populated, desert and swamp land, and built a free, prosperous democracy out of it. A country that was invaded and threatened with destruction on the day it was born--- and has had to fight 8 major wars in its 75 years---- yet despite that, in spite of it, has become one of the most diverse and dynamic nations in the world.
Now what if I told you that those two countries were one in the same? The same country denounced as a monster and threatened with extinction--- is also one of the freest countries on earth.
What would that tell you about the world’s moral compass?
Well my friends that is the actual case. Both countries are one and the same, and that tiny beleaguered country is the free state of Israel.
My subject today is the State of Israel. And my theme is that:
Not only does the state of Israel have a “right to exist”, but the very same standard I will use to justify Israel’s existence, is the same standard which delegitimizes its enemies and renders their regimes morally obscene.
And more: That as individuals who are lucky enough to be citizens of the free world, we have a life or death stake in this conflict, and that Israel’s enemies are ours as well.
Today I am going to start by making the moral case for Israel in a way few of its defenders do. And I want to distinguish and contrast my case for Israel from the traditional case.
Often the case for Israel is made on the following basis, some of which is true, but to my mind misses the essential point entirely. The traditional case for Israel is usually some mixture of these three points: God & History, Antisemitism, and/or the idea of “Ethnic Self-Determination.”
1. For religious believers they will cite the fact that in the Old Testament God promises the land to Abraham and his descendants. They will go on to state the fact that Jews have a connection to the land that goes back over 3,000 years, that it was 1,000 years after Jews first settled the land, sometime in the first century AD, that the Romans conquered the area and changed its name to Palestine. These “historical” defenders of Israel will also mention that the only independent sovereign political entity that has ever existed in the area is some form of a Jewish State.
2. Antisemitism: Others who defend Israel will focus on the fact that for the 2,000 years of their exile, the homeless, wandering Jews faced a level of persecution unlike any other minority on earth. Often the Nazis are the ones people think of first (including the fact that while 20,000 Jews a day were being gassed to death not one country, not even the U.S., opened its doors.) That too is true, but long before the Nazis there were the Romans, the Persians, The Catholic Church (with its Crusades and Inquisitions), pogroms against the Jews for centuries in Poland and Russia. Basically, the point being that without an army or a homeland to quote novelist Leon Uris: “Jewish blood is cheap, it is cheaper than water.”
3. Others claim that the Jews (like every other “people”) have a right to self-determination, to determine their own course of cultural and social development. The idea being that Jews are a “people”, and like the Italians, the French, the Spanish or the Turks, they have a right “as a people,” to self-determination.
From my point of view none of these facts or concepts give a country legitimacy or a right to exist. Not the fact that Jews are slaughtered en masse without a homeland, not the idea of ethnic self-determination (a concept I whole-heartedly reject.) Not the fact of the historic connection to the area. And certainly not the idea that God promised the land to the Jews in the Bible. I am an atheist, so I grant zero deference to the Bible, much less to the idea of God, as some sort of “celestial real estate broker.”
So, what does give Israel a quote “right to exist?”
First let’s ask what gives any country, any state a right to exist?
What does give a government legitimacy?
From the perspective of what is broadly called “Natural Rights” (a perspective I share) governments have legitimacy to the extent (and only to the extent) that they protect the Individual Rights of all the citizens under its domain.
From this “Natural Law” point of view, a view which grew out of The Enlightenment, every individual, by virtue of being alive, has a right to his or her life, and thus as a corollary, the right to take all the actions necessary to support this life. John Locke identified these rights, as the rights to: life, liberty, and property. And this was the view shared by America’s Founding Fathers as well.
Why should we embrace this standard? Well, this standard: (That every individual owns his or her own life, and thus needs and deserves freedom to survive and flourish), has given rise to the freest most prosperous civilization in human history.
So, again: A government is legitimate to the extent it protects the rights of its citizens, and it is illegitimate to the extent it fails to do so.
The point I hope to make clear today is, that Israel (though not a perfect country), most definitely meets this standard and that not one of the surrounding 22 Arab dictatorships, monarchies or theocracies does, much less the Palestinian Authority in what is called the West Bank or the Jihadist Hamas led regime in Gaza.
It’s not enough for me to assert that Israel protects individual rights, I have to prove it to you. So, why don’t we start by looking at Israel’s laws, institutions, and government, and see if Israel essentially respects each person’s equal rights to “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” And then let’s take a look at Hamas ruled Gaza, and the West Bank ruled by the Palestinian Authority and see if they even remotely meet that same standard.
One good way to start is by studying the founding documents of each.
Here’s a link to Israel’s Declaration of Independence:
https://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/israel.asp
I’d just like to quote verbatim a few of its lines (scroll down to around the 13th paragraph, 3/4s of the way down):
“The State of Israel... will foster the development of the country for the benefit of all its inhabitants; it will be based on freedom, justice and peace... it will ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion, race or sex; it will guarantee freedom of religion, conscience, language, education and culture; it will safeguard the Holy Places of all religions.”
And then this:
3 more paragraphs down:
“We appeal in the very midst of the onslaught launched against us now for months -to the Arab inhabitants of the State of Israel to preserve peace and participate in the upbuilding of the State on the basis of full and equal citizenship. We extend our hand to all neighboring states...”
And then the last sentence of the paragraph just after that:
“The State of Israel is prepared to do its share in a common effort for the advancement of the entire Middle East.”
Now let’s compare and contrast this with the Charter of Hamas, the Islamist party that rules the Gaza Strip, (and actually won in a landslide election in 2006, and would be ruling the West Bank as well if there wasn’t a stalemated civil war with the Palestinian Authority):
https://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/hamas.asp
2nd paragraph: “Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it".
Article Six:
“The Islamic Resistance Movement is a distinguished Palestinian movement, whose allegiance is to Allah, and whose way of life is Islam. It strives to raise the banner of Allah over every inch of Palestine...”
Quoting the last paragraph of article 7:
"The Day of Judgement will not come about until Moslems fight the Jews, when the Jew will hide behind stones and trees. The stones and trees will say O Moslems, O Abdulla, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him.”
Quoting from Article 8: (Defining the movement)
“Allah is its target, the Prophet is its model, the Koran its constitution: Jihad is its path and death for the sake of Allah is the loftiest of its wishes.”
Now founding documents are not enough. Does Israel actually embody the ideals expressed in its declaration?
Israel today is a thriving, open, stable democracy on par with any western European country. Meaning yes, it has many flaws, and at times fails to live up to its own ideals, but...
It has a set of “Basic Laws” which function as a Constitution, and they guarantee: freedom of assembly, freedom of speech, and freedom of the press.
The government is a parliamentary democracy with a separation of powers, including an independent judiciary, and an elected executive/legislative branch.
Every Israeli citizen: Arab, Jew, Christian, Muslim and Atheist alike has the right to vote and form political parties.
Another important question to ask is how does Israel treat its minorities, here’s a few relevant statistics:
There are 1.7 million Israeli Arabs who make up 24 percent of the total population.
There are 5 official Arab political parties,
Many Israeli Arabs hold high level positions:
For example, there was an Arab-Israeli permanent member of the Israeli Supreme Court, Salim Jourban (he retired in 2017.)
There have been Israeli Arab deputy foreign ministers, two Arab-Israeli ambassadors,
an Arab-Israeli as the commander of Israeli border police, and an Arab-Israeli deputy speaker of the Knesset.
As for women and gays, their equal rights are recognized (like any Israeli citizen) and Israel is the only Middle Eastern country in which they are.
Now, with all these rights and all these freedoms, what kind of country has Israel been able to build? Israel has become a world leader in economic development, a leader in biomedical and technological innovation, and has made major contributions to the world in science, medicine, technology, the arts and humanities.
Here’s a few last statistics:
Israel has the highest per capita of university degrees in the world.
The highest per capita number of scientists in the workforce.
2nd highest number of new books published per capita in the world.
More scientific papers published per capita than any nation on earth.
Israel is the 3rd in the world, per capita for patents, only behind US and Japan.
Highest concentration of hi-tech companies, 2nd only to Silicon Valley
3rd highest number of NASDAQ listed companies, only behind US and Canada
To me all this, is the basis of Israel’s right to exist. Because it is free.
And because it is free, that is why it is strong, thriving and prosperous.
What about the Palestinian governments?
On the West Bank under the Palestinian Authority you have a completely corrupt authoritarian dictatorship. In Gaza under Hamas you have a Jihadist theocracy.
No free press. No independent judiciary. No free speech. No freedom of assembly.
And what kind of society does this lead to? Exactly what you might imagine: Poverty, unemployment, misery and desperation.
All of this could change tomorrow if the Palestinian regimes and the 22 surrounding dictatorial, theocratic, autocratic regimes simply accepted Israel’s right to exist, and chose to live in peace.
But for this to occur, for these countries (and their populations), to fully accept and embrace a modern rights respecting country like Israel in their midst, there would need to be a cultural and philosophic revolution in the Arab world. They would need to accept reason as opposed to faith, and freedom instead of force.
There were many peace plans proposed long before Israel even came into existence. At least 10 peace plans. In 1921, 77 percent of the original Palestine Mandate was lopped off to create the country of Jordan. The remainder of the land was again partitioned in 1947. Israel has accepted every offering. The Arab-side (with the exception of Egypt in 1978 and Jordan in 1994) has not.
So, does this make me a pessimist? Do I think there can never be peace?
Well, as Israel’s former Prime Minster Golda Meir once said: “There will be peace when the Arabs love their children more than they hate us.”
Hamas often says, (as if in reply): “We love death, the way Israelis love life.”
And to me, that is the problem in a nutshell.
But why should this concern you? Well as decent life-loving people I believe we should support all freedom-loving, life- loving people.
(Which of course, most definitely includes any, and all, freedom-loving, life-loving Palestinians tragically trapped under Hamas or Fatah rule.)
But here’s really why you should care:
Israel is hated for the very same reasons America & The West are hated.
To quote Elan Journo from his most excellent book What Justice Demands:
“We share the same values, and thus-- we share the same enemies...
And the problems of the Middle East do not stay in the Middle East.”
This is not in any way just two tribes fighting over the same sliver of land.
This is not a war between Jews and Muslims.
It is a war between those who embrace freedom and the modern world, and those who want to take us back to the 7th century.
Listen to the Jihadists, read what they write, and take them at their word, they have global aspirations. Israel is merely the frontline of this battle.
So, I will close by saying: If you care about justice, if you care about women’s rights, gay rights, individual rights, if you care about personal liberty, civil liberty, economic liberty---- “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,” if you care about progress, science, human flourishing and the future of Western Civilization... then you must care about the tiny beleaguered, essentially free state of Israel.