Right Is Still Right

An uncomfortable moment at a Southampton dinner party: Norman Podhoretz nearly refused to shake my hand. The formidable former editor of Commentary, a man I had admired tremendously during the 80s and 90s when I wrote for his magazine, was taking his seat across from me. I had known him for years, never well, but had liked and trusted him enough to once spill my heart out in the Commentary offices about my own self-doubts as a writer. Such was my regard for his magazine and for him that when my politics changed a bit, I had hoped to avoid a real breach.

The other Friday evening, Norman was standing across a round table from me, looking older and frailer (and thus in a way sweeter). When I approached him, hand extended, his distaste in putting forth his own was palpable. "I always liked you Scott. But you wrote an anti-Israel piece, and I'm very ideological on that subject."

I asked him what piece he was talking about, and immediately he came back with, "Oh. You've written more than one, then." Perhaps this was a chance to have a memorable tussle with one of America's most famous intellectual warriors, but the other diners were gathering and I don't much like confrontations.

"Well Norman," I said, returning to my seat, "I'm happy you're reading New York Press."

To be charged with writing an "anti-Israel" column is no small thing?it has been known to get people fired. So of course I reject the indictment. Still, for the rest of the evening I wrestled with what I might have said. For instance: "Norman, the column was not anti-Israel, but in favor of a meaningful peace process with the Palestinians. It opposed the expansion of Israeli settlements on the occupied territories, and the policies that accompany them, such as the demolition of Arab homes and olive orchards. Yes, it did quote some of the more over-the-top racialist comments of the West Bank settlers (invariably immigrants from the United States) and characterized them as an impediment to peace.

"But such conclusions don't differ substantially from the report produced by former U.S. Sens. Mitchell and Rudman?a blueprint for the construction of a Palestinian state to coexist alongside a secure Israel. This is the only morally tenable solution to the crisis. It is the view of virtually all Western democratic governments, all past American presidents and, so far as I can tell, the private opinion of virtually every Christian who has given any thought to the problem.

"Such a shame that it is an opinion which for you is apparently beyond the realm of civil discourse."

One must insist on the distinction between opposing the policies of the Sharon government (and the settlement policies of its predecessors) and being "anti-Israel." The Sharon government represents that side of Zionism that views Palestinians as nothing more than an obstacle to a larger Israel, a people not to be dealt with equitably but crushed and possibly expelled. One of Sharon's ministers recently described the Palestinians?in this instance Palestinians alleged to be "illegal immigrants" to Israel?as "lice." There was no outcry in Israel or internationally, and the minister retains his post.

We all know that Israelis are not the first more-modern and better-armed people to use dehumanizing terms for those whose lands they covet. But the West is different morally than it was 50 or 100 years ago. Such language and the policies that flow from it are no longer acceptable. One can debate whether today's moral universe is an improvement, in the same way one can debate whether the new South Africa is better or worse than the old, but the change in the sense of right or wrong regarding how the powerful are supposed to deal with the powerless is beyond dispute.

Fortunately there is another Israeli consciousness besides that of Sharon and his followers. It is the source of fine recent scholarship, the root of a vision of how Israel could live peaceably in the Mideast. Books like Benny Morris' Righteous Victims and Meron Benvenisti's Sacred Landscape readily acknowledge the place of Palestinians in the Holy Land, the role Israeli arms played in emptying out Palestinian villages during Israel's war of independence, the ambivalent attitudes of Israel's leaders toward making peace. The authors are Israeli patriots, well aware that many Palestinians would just as soon Israel didn't exist at all. But their view of the conflict is far fuller and richer than that of the Israeli right.

It is that perspective the United States should embrace. The U.S. gains nothing for its own reputation or interests by backing Israeli policies that are unjust to the Palestinians, reviled throughout the Arab world and opposed by most of the world's governments. In political Washington (as at some Hamptons dinner parties), life may go more smoothly if one doesn't do or say anything that irritates right-wing Zionists. As my encounter with Norman reminded me, the consequences of speaking out sincerely can be quite unsettling. But it is still the right thing to do.