Is criticism of specific Israeli policies raising doubts about Israel's right to exist?

Illustration by Carlos Latuff

And is Israel now on the PR offensive to fight back?

Via intifada Voice



BY Dr. Alan Sabrosky

Four observations:First, no country has a "right to exist," and that includes Israel or the United States or even (heavens forbid!) China. The concept is a neat "sound bite" that is historical nonsense, and anyone who has even the slightest grasp of the interplay of international affairs over time understands that elemental truth. Anyone who doesn't might consult the ghosts of the elders of ancient Carthage and Troy, or the leaders of modern USSR and South Vietnam, for their insights.

Second, if a country's or regime's specific policies are sufficiently noxious, then everyone else has both the right and the duty to criticize those policies, and if the result is regime change in that country or its dissolution, so be it, either or both would be morally and legally justified. Hitler's policies justified the removal of his regime, and so, for that matter, did (e.g.) those of Stalin; one lost, the other won for a while, but deserved to go. If the Israelis treated both the Palestinians and their neighbors better, and were less militarist and racist in their overall approach, they wouldn't be in such a situation.

Third, comparisons of apartheid in South Africa before and in Israel forever are only superficially justified. In reality (having seen both on the ground), the South African variant at its worst was a pale shadow of what Palestinians suffer under Israeli hegemony. Whites in South Africa never hated and brutalized blacks there a fraction as badly as Israelis brutalize Palestinians. No Jenin or Gaza City in the old South Africa, for instance. Blacks in the old South Africa could and did serve in the armed forces and police, for instance, and not encounter white civilians with assault rifles swaggering around and randomly shooting them up. Not so with the Palestinians. If apartheid in South Africa justified the BDS (Boycott, Disinvestment, Sanctions) campaign of the day, embargoes and the removal of that regime, then its even nastier cousin in "Greater Israel" <sic.> more than justifies the same, and if that entails some form of merger into a single state and the disappearance of Israel as it now exists, so be it.

Finally, while Israel has a perpetual motion PR campaign in operation, especially in the US, it isn't so much a matter of it "fighting back" as it is of Israel trying to create a new propaganda reality in public opinion like the geopolitical one it has created on the ground in the West Bank with its settlements. Remember that because of its virtual monopoly on the mainstream media, very few people will hear much of the case against Israel, especially in the Anglo-American countries. Besides, the first battle for Palestine has already been fought and lost in the US, and it is in the US that the real war for Palestine can be won. Israel and its partisans abroad understand this perfectly, and their current PR campaign reflects that understanding. Sadly, the partisans of Palestine largely do not share that understanding, and tend to focus on more of the flea-bitten tactics and street theater that has failed to derail the Israeli juggernaut.

My guess is that we are entering the end game of this conflict, and need to change the dynamics or a few years from now this whole matter will be moot -- and the outcome will not be one Palestine's supporters will appreciate.


*Alan Sabrosky (Ph.D, University of Michigan) is a ten-year US Marine Corps veteran and a graduate of the US Army War College. He can be contacted at docbrosk@comcast.net