To the Editor:
Richard Just makes a valid point regarding dictators wholecture on democracy [Democracy Hypocrisy], but his accusation of hypocrisy wouldhave more weight if it didn't look suspiciously like another thinly disguisedpaean to the "only democracy in the Middle East," Israel. The only problemthere is that the Israeli democracy has cheerfully chosen a known war criminal tobe its prime minister. Sharon's murders, which go back to1953, are well known tothe Israeli public, yet somehow he has managed to avoid a life spent in prison.
I don't wish to single Israel out; America has its share of high-ranking warcriminals, as do other democracies. But that's the point. Too often, whensinging the praises of democracy, we fail to recognize that democracies are onlythe least bad form of government. Nothing stops people from choosing to look theother way when one of their own has a record that ought to lead to a war-crimestrial.
Donald Johnson
Richard Just Responds:
Donald Johnson is severely mistaken in assuming that the election of ArielSharon as prime minister proves that Israel is no more moral than its enemies. Infact, Sharon's career makes a strong case for the superiority of Israel'sdemocratic government to the autocratic systems of its neighbors.
In calling Sharon a "war criminal," Johnson is no doubt referring primarily toSharon's failure to prevent the massacre of hundreds of civilians at the Sabraand Shatila refugee camps in Lebanon during the 1982 war. Following thosemassacres, Israel's government formed the Kahan Commission of Inquiry, whichfound that the Israel Defense Forces had erred in allowing Christian Phalangists-- who perpetrated the massacre -- into the camps. The committee specificallyheld Sharon (who was then defense minister) and General Raful Eitan (who was thenthe Israeli Army's chief of staff) responsible for failing to anticipate that thePhalangists would kill civilians. Both men were dismissed. It was widely assumedthat Sharon's career had ended in disgrace.
Let's compare Sabra and Shatila to another 1982 incident, Syrian PresidentHafez al-Assad's massacre of 20,000 of his own citizens in the town of Hama. Itmay come as a surprise to Mr. Johnson that Assad was never held "indirectlyresponsible" for these massacres by an independent commission of inquiry. Nor washe forced to resign in disgrace. Why? Because genocidal autocracies don't formcommissions of inquiry to investigate themselves. But democracies -- such asIsrael -- do.
Amazingly, King Hussein of Jordan never formed a commission of inquiry topublicly question his offensive against Palestinian militants in September 1970,which resulted in thousands of deaths. I may be going out on a limb here, butI'll bet the fact that he's a king has something to do with this. And I amcertainly looking forward to Saddam Hussein's formation of a commission ofinquiry to publicly rebuke his own government for the gassing of its citizens atHalabja in 1982.
No democratic government -- Israel's included -- is perfect. But to imply thatthe election of Sharon as prime minister calls into question the moralsuperiority of democracies to nondemocracies makes no sense. In fact, the arc ofSharon's career is a perfect example of how democracies succeed in discipliningthose who err -- especially when compared with the record of nondemocracies inhandling similar circumstances. Sure, knee-jerk opponents of Israel think thatSharon's punishment for Sabra and Shatila should have been a lifetime in jailrather than 15 years in relative political purgatory. But that's a matter ofopinion, and one that almost always serves a cynical political purpose ratherthan an objective interest in human rights. At least he was punished at all.
Mr. Johnson need not like Ariel Sharon; a decent percentage of Israelis don't,either. And how do we know that many Israelis dislike their prime minister? Byway of a little concept called freedom of speech -- which just happens tobe peculiar to democracies.
A Separate Peace?
To the editor:
It is true that moderate American Jews who support Israel, a two-stateSolution, and human rights feel very much alone these days (JeffMandell,"ASeparate Peace? In search of pro-Israel Moderates") . Trapped betweenJewish establishment "leaders" who move in lockstep with the Sharongovernment and a progressive community that is too quick to condemn Israeland often sees only Palestinian suffering, we feel we have nowhere to turn.But even though some would silence them, other voices do exist. ProgressiveJewish Alliance, for example, stands firmly with the Israeli peace camp. Weare a grass-roots Jewish social-justice organization, and there are otherslike us across the country. Our pro-Israel, pro-peace, pro-human rightsposition and programming resonate with many American Jews. The challenge isin reaching them at a time when many in the Jewish community's leadership arescared and defensive, and thus inclined to tar any opposition voices -- nomatter how loyal -- as divisive and inappropriate. But the hundreds ofthousands of Israelis in the peace camp are not disloyal; nor are theirAmerican supporters. Moderate American Jews should not lose hope: There aretens of thousands of us out there. You just may have to look a little harderto find us.
Daniel Sokatch
Executive Director
Progressive JewishAlliance
Still UnbiasedTo the editor:
Geoffrey Nunberg's article [Still Unbiased: Closing the Case on Media Labeling] isinteresting and convincing, but it seems almost moot. Even if the mediawere far more likely to label conservative politicians "conservative" thanto label liberal politicians "liberal," it would be no evidence of bias, becausethere would be such a simple explanation for the behavior.
Due largely to the efforts of talk-show pundits such as Rush Limbaugh, andarguably to the bumbling of Michael Dukakis, the term "liberal" has been turnedinto a slur among a large portion of the population. It's not that the populationhas swung far to the right and hates all liberals on sight; it's literally thatmany people have forgotten that the term ever meant anything beyond the negativeconnotation they now attach to it.
(The most egregious, though anecdotal, case might have been the man in 1996 whotold a pollster that he was voting for Bill Clinton because Bob Dole was "aliberal." It's not clear what anyone who would consider voting for Clinton couldhave meant by calling Dole a liberal, unless they were using the term as arandom term of abuse.)
"Conservative" has gone through no such transformation. Even people extremelyhostile to conservatives don't use the word as a content-free slur. It seemsextremely hard to imagine anyone voting for Dole because they considered Clinton"a conservative", unless they were following the (idiotic but, among the left,sadly common) strategy of sending a message to a politician they dislike byattempting to ensure that he lose to a politician they dislike more.
Of course, most newspaper editors are sensitive to the actual meaning of theterm "liberal." But they may also be sensitive to the fact that some, perhapseven many, of their readers are not. It would stand to reason that an editorwould be afraid of labeling a politician "liberal" for fear of seeming (to someof the readership) to gratuitously insult him or her; no parallelconsideration applies to the label of "conservative."
So in fact, ignoring any accusation of bias, it's extremely surprising thatnewspapers employ the term "liberal" as often as they do.
Sincerely,
Avrom Faderman
