In the wake of Oslo’s predictable collapse, Israel’s only option is to hang tough and wait for its enemies to change. Given the predilection of many Jews to focus only on their own actions, and to ignore the motivations and plans of their foes, that is advice some are incapable of accepting.
Those who prefer to obsess about Israel’s inability to achieve an impossible moral perfection may find themselves applauded by Jewish and non-Jewish audiences. But given that Israel is a state still marked for death by Iranian mullahs who may soon have nuclear weapons, Palestinian terrorists and a new generation of Western anti-Semites who masquerade as humanists, the triumph of such views is a luxury Jews can ill afford.
For Wisse, the good news is that in the wake of Sept. 11, the great power of our day, the United States, has come to understand that its own security in the war against Islamist terror is indistinguishable from that of Israel. Whether that belief will continue to be vindicated as Americans shrink from the rigors of a long war against a foe who cannot easily be defeated has yet to be seen. But no matter what the U.S. does, Israel’s battle for survival will continue to depend on a willingness to assert power in self-defense.
“The glorification of powerlessness is as antithetical to Judaism as belief in the son of God,” argues Wisse. Drumming that piece of common sense into Jewish heads raised on myths of a Jewish morality that ignores self-interest won’t be easy. But the alternative will be a repeat of ancient tragedies that none of us may live to rationalize.