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May an American, Comment
on Israel? by Daniel
Pipes May I, an American citizen
living in the United States, comment publicly on Israeli decision making?
I recently criticized the
Israeli government for its exchange with Hizbullah in "Samir Kuntar and
the Last Laugh" (The Jerusalem Post, July 21); to this, the
eminent counterterrorism expert at Tel Aviv University, Yoram Schweitzer challenged
the appropriateness of my offering views on this subject. In "Not That Bad a Deal" (July 24) he explained to Jerusalem
Post readers how the "contents and tone" of my analysis
"patronizing and insulting, overlooking as they do the fact that the
government and public have the right to decide for themselves …, and to
shoulder the resulting price." He also criticizes me for offering an
opinion on Israeli issues from my "secure haven thousands of miles
away." Schweitzer does not spell out
the logic behind his resentment, but it rings familiar: Unless a person lives
in Israel, the argument goes, pays its taxes, puts himself at risk in its
streets, and has children in its armed forces, he should not second-guess
Israeli decisionmaking. This approach, broadly speaking, stands behind the
positions taken by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee and other
prominent Jewish institutions. I respect that position without
accepting its discipline. Responding to what foreign governments do is my meat
and potatoes as a U.S. foreign policy analyst who spent time in the State and
Defense departments and as a board member of the U.S. Institute of Peace, and
who as a columnist has for nearly a decade unburdened himself of opinions. A
quick bibliographic review finds me judging many governments, including the British, Canadian, Danish, French, German, Iranian, Nepalese, Saudi, South Korean,
Syrian,
and Turkish. Obviously, I do not have
children serving in the armed forces of all these countries, but I assess their
developments to help guide my readers' thinking. No one from these others
countries, it bears noting, ever asked me to withhold comment on their internal
affairs. And Schweitzer himself proffers advice to others; in July 2005, for
example, he instructed Muslim leaders in Europe to be "more
forceful in their rejection of the radical Islamic element." Independent
analysts all do this. So, Schweitzer and I may
comment on developments around the world, but, when it comes to Israel, my mind
should empty of thoughts, my tongue fall silent, and my keyboard go still?
Hardly. On a more profound level, I
protest the whole concept of privileged information – that one's location, age,
ethnicity, academic degrees, experience, or some other quality validates one's
views. The recent book by Christopher Cerf and Victor S. Navasky titled I Wish I Hadn't Said that: The Experts Speak - and Get it
Wrong! humorously memorializes and exposes this conceit. Living in a
country does not necessarily make one wiser about it.
During the Camp David II summit
meeting of 2000, when Ehud Barak headed the government of Israel and I disagreed with
his policies, more than once, my critique was answered with a how-dare-you
indignation: "Barak is the most decorated soldier in Israeli history – and
who are you?" Yet, analysts now generally agree that Camp David II had
disastrous results for Israel, precipitating the Palestinian violence that
began two months later. It is a mistake to reject
information, ideas, or analysis on the basis of credentials. Correct and
important thoughts can come from any provenance – even from thousands of miles
away. In that spirit, here are two
responses concerning Schweitzer's take on the Samir al-Kuntar incident.
Schweitzer argues that "to fail to do the utmost to rescue any citizen or
soldier who falls into enemy hands would shatter one of the basic precepts of
Israeli society." I agree that rescuing soldiers or their remains is an
operationally useful and morally noble priority, but "utmost" has it
has limits. For example, a government should not hand live citizens to
terrorists in return for soldiers' corpses. In like manner, the Olmert
government's actions last week went much too far. Another specific: Schweitzer
claims that, "relatively speaking, the recent exchange with Hizbullah came
at a cheap price. It is debatable whether Kuntar's release granted any kind of
moral victory to Hizbullah." If that deal was cheap, I dread to imagine
how an expensive one would look. And with Kuntar's arrival in Lebanon shutting
down the government in giddy national celebration, denying Hizbullah a victory
amounts to willful blindness. |
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