Newsgroup: it.politica.internazionale
Titolo: The Lady Justice test

The Lady Justice test
May. 25, 2009
david kirschenbaum , THE JERUSALEM POST
Justice, it is often said, must not only be done, but must be seen to
be done. Unfortunately, in the Western world, especially in left-wing
circles, the appearance of justice is often all that matters. The
actual doing of justice is scorned if it places one against the side
anointed by the Left.
One of the easiest ways of appearing just in western society is by
taking the side of the "other." This requires no serious investigation
or intellectual rigor. After all, if you're taking a position that
seemingly goes against yourself, you must be concerned only with what
is right.
This effortless way to be seen as just is seized upon across the
western world by students and professors, opinion makers, members of
legislative bodies and NGOs, and is prevalent among Jewish students
who want to fit in on campuses and Israeli academics, journalists and
jurists who want to find favor with their American and European
counterparts.
But all those who argue that their position on the Middle East is
motivated by considerations of justice must be able to pass the Lady
Justice Test. Lady Justice, a bindfolded woman holding the biblically
mandated balanced scales, symbolizes the fact that justice must be
meted out without fear or favor, regardless of the identity, power or
weakness of the opposing sides. Thus, Lady Justice would require that
one's views on the Arab-Israeli conflict be the same if the Arabs and
Jews swapped positions in every key respect.
It is here that the ethical bona fides of Israel's critics and those
who argue that justice demands Israel assume additional risks
collapse. The Left cannot pass the Lady Justice Test.
ASSUME THE FOLLOWING: The Jews have 21 largely despotic states
stretching over 13,000,000 square miles with a population of over 300
million. Most of these Jewish states prohibit any religion other than
Judaism. In fact, virtually all Arabs - close to 900,000 - were
expelled from these Jewish countries and their property seized. The
Jews allow their own people few freedoms, with most women treated
abominably.
In the midst of the 21 Jewish states is one tiny, fiercely democratic
and open Arab state - let's call it Arabee - consisting of five
million Arabs. The Jewish states have 650 times more territory than
Arabee. The expelled Arabs fled to Arabee, where they were resettled
by their brethren.
The Arabs had been viciously persecuted outside Arabee throughout
history, including by the Jews, who treated them, in the best of
cases, like dhimmi - a subjugated class. One-third of the world's Arab
population was brutally slaughtered 65 years ago, during which time a
chief Jewish religious figure was a guest in the country that led the
slaughter, urging that the attempted genocide of the world's Arabs be
brought to the Middle East. While Jews also lived in Arabee for
centuries (as they did throughout the Middle East), they never created
anything resembling a state there, or much else for that matter.
Throughout history, only the Arabs had ever been sovereign in Arabee.
In fact, only when the Arabs started returning to Arabee after a 2,000-
year exile did Jews in turn start moving there in large numbers.
Seven Jewish states tried to destroy Arabee in its infancy. During
that war, about 500,000 Jews fled Arabee at the urging of Jewish
leaders. But to this day, with rare exceptions, the Jewish states have
refused to integrate any of those who fled, or their descendants. Over
the past 61 years, various combinations of Jewish states have
continued to wage war against Arabee, and Jewish terror organizations
have been engaged in an unrelenting 140-year war to uproot any Arab
presence in the Middle East.
A few years ago, Arabee withdrew its army and uprooted all its
citizens from one of the areas claimed by both Jews and Arabs. The
international community purchased from Arabee, on behalf of the Jews,
state-of-the-art hothouses built by the Arabs in the areas they
withdrew from. But the Jews destroyed the hothouses and turned the
agricultural areas into sites for launching missiles against the
Arabs. Over 3,200 rockets and mortal shells, typically fired from
civilian areas, landed in Arabee during 2008. In its response, Arabee
took unprecedented measures to avoid civilian casualties.
Nevertheless, Jewish civilians near the launching sites were sometimes
killed.
Arabee has a population of over one million Jews. It affords its
Jewish citizens full rights, with Jews having full religious freedom,
access to health care and education and representation in Parliament
and the Supreme Court. Another one and a half million Jews live in 40%
of an area that Arabee captured 42 years ago, when three Jewish states
launched another war of attempted annihilation against Arabee. This
area is the cradle of Arabee's civilization. It was there that its
founders lived and are buried, where its kings ruled and its prophets
walked. Fifteen years ago, Arabee gave the Jews control of their own
affairs in this territory. Since that time, Jewish terror attacks from
this area intensified, with over 1200 Arabs killed and thousands more
wounded. In the past nine years alone, around 31,000 terror attacks
were carried out against Arabee.
Under these circumstances, on which side would we find the Left,
especially the Jewish Left? Would we find Jews who think of themselves
as liberal taking part in anti-Arabee hate-fests, writing columns and
plays that present Arabee as the intransigent aggressors and the Jews
as the brutalized victims, or blasting Arabee for placing Arab life
and limb ahead of questionable Jewish property claims? Would we find
liberal western leaders and parliamentarians or liberal journalists,
academicians or college students righteously demanding that Arabee
accept the 22 Jewish state solution - that Arabee shrink even further
and relinquish areas that were its heartland in order to establish a
22nd Jewish state? Would the Left villainize Arabee's prime minister
for refusing to yield to those demands?
I HAVE NO PROBLEM passing the Lady Justice Test. I have no designs on
any of the 21 Arab states. My most menacing wish is simply that they
cease their efforts to destroy the one Jewish state. Under the
opposite circumstances - 21 despotic Jewish states surrounding one
free and democratic Arab state - far from being involved in efforts to
bring about the demise of Arabee, I would look upon it with a sense of
marvel, and as a model for what I hope the 21 Jewish states could
become.
The reason the Left cannot pass the Lady Justice Test is that it is
not really concerned with justice. Indeed, the Left shows utter
contempt for the principles of uniform standards and equality under
the law. The most charitable way of explaining the Left's sheer
hypocrisy is that it is clueless. Unfortunately, in most cases, the
real reasons are far more damning.
Prime Minister Netanyahu is well versed in Israel's historical rights
to Judea and Samaria, and in the justness of Israel's case for
retaining these areas. But he seems not to have closed the door on the
now-discredited notion that a peace agreement may require painful
amputation. This would be a colossal error. For in a world unconcerned
with Jewish rights but consumed with Arab rights, real and fictional,
it would be a fatal fantasy to believe that the Arabs, with all their
emphasis on power and pride, would agree to keep a 22nd Arab state
demilitarized, or that the world community, including the United
States, would long enforce such a limitation.
The writer is an attorney in Israel and New York.

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