Thursday, January 22, 2004
With a hat-tip to Mal, The American Thinker has a very good piece entitled Why Does the Left Hate Israel? by Richard Baehr. The piece examines the issue, finds seven potential explanations and comes to the same conclusion I do - that Israel, and I believe Jews generally, have, at this point in history, far more to fear from the political "Left" than the political "Right."
I believe there are several reasons:
1. It is an easy way to express one’s hatred for America.
2. Israel is viewed as an outpost of colonialism , and an active practitioner of it.
3. Israel is a western nation, and hence can be judged by the left. Israel is not protected by cultural relativism, as the Arabs are.
4. Leftist Christian churches can escape any lingering guilt about the Holocaust, by turning Israel into a villain. Some leftist churches hate Israel because they think this will help protect their members in the holy land- in other words they feel threatened.
5. Ferocious Muslim hatred of Israel and the Jews reinforces the natural cowardice of many on the left who go along with the Muslims to stay out of their line of fire.
6. Jewish leftists are prominent in the anti-Israel movement. This opens the floodgates for everybody else.
7. Israel is attacked because the secular left is appalled by the influence of religious settlers and their biblical connections to the land of Israel, and by the support for Israel by evangelical Christians, and Christian Zionists...
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull&cid=1074691764973
ot: moving letter