Michael Walzer was my government professor in college. We revered him. Today I celebrate him for saying just what John Mearsheimer says, that the American gov't must put heavy pressure on Israel to defeat the settler movement; but I cannot forgive his parochialism, his endlessly justifying Israeli militarism, lately defending it during the Gaza slaughter. I have meant to write about this, but been inhibited by that old reverent feeling. Here is the brilliant Magnes Zionist:
Israelis appear to be doomed to live in a
perpetual "Groundhog's Day" where they repeat the endless cycle of
being shocked whenever they hear of the IDF's traditional and
predictable behaviour. Even their reactions are predictable. And there
will always be the New York Times Israel correspondent (using a liberal
Zionist Jew) consulting the Hartman Institute "philosopher" (a modern
orthodox liberal Zionist Jew) for the "moderate" position.
In the beginning there was Tom Friedman interviewing
David Hartman. Friedman begat Bronner and Hartman began Halbertal.
Nothing has changed; they all say the same thing.
Unfortunately, when it comes to the IDF, the Hartman
crowd just follows in the footsteps of another Israeli apologist,
liberal Zionist, Michael Walzer, who has constructed an entire Just War
theory with the IDF in mind.
All the military ethical codes don't do a damn thing
when the folks in charge are operating under their own tribal morality,
and when the "war on terrorism" becomes cover war crimes. The
difference between the US and Israel is that we have been governed by
Bushes and Chenies for the last sixty years (with maybe a slight breath of fresh air from 1993-1995.)
