Another Tack: Out of Africa

Is it our duty to be better than any other nation - even if it destroys us?

By SARAH HONIG
There's a firm link between some Israelis' touchy-feely mobilization on behalf of Sudanese infiltrators and leftist espousal of anything which bolsters the Palestinian case and socks it to the Zionist state. Whatever trashes Israel will do for our uber-tolerant society's skewed media and poseur artsy cliques. Our domestic radicals, leftover vestiges of the once-grand international proletarian revolution that alas expired with a whimper, focus their do-gooder zeal on the Third World - downtrodden but, as stylish mythology would have it, spiritually superior. The sufferings of the Jewish people, it goes without saying, never aroused significant requisite sympathy, whereas pro-Arab sentiments - especially under the Palestinian label - became de rigueur. Arabs radiate Third World allure. Therefore, if Arabs slaughter Third-Worlders - like the subjugated blacks of Darfur - then the villains' identity mustn't be specified, lest it sully Arab mystique. But in-house guardians of other Jews' ethics will score a double hit if they manage to ascribe to the Jewish state some onus for the misery of Darfur's wretched masses. It'd constitute yet another super-opportunity to demonstrate left-wingers' moral supremacy, while at the same time embarrassing the Israel which is such a never-ending embarrassment to them. Superficially, their facile formulation appears undeniably compelling: Jews once were exiles denied haven by an inimical world. Our tragic past obliges us to unique penitence for the guilt of having survived both Hitler and callous Allied apathy to our existential plight. It's our duty to be better than any other nation - even if it destroys us. Israel's raison d'etre isn't to unflinchingly look after and provide sanctuary for Jews, but to solve the world's problems within the exceedingly narrow and increasingly vulnerable confines of the still-threatened Jewish state. This emotional manipulation is entirely constructed on the premise that Jews owe the world contrition for having so long imposed on its conscience. The world is fed up with having its mistreatment of Jews thrown in its face. It's not the persecution which perturbs it, but reminders thereof. Having arisen from the smoldering ashes of European Jewry, Israel in its very essence is an unwanted memory-jogger and hence its existence as such is sinful. TRENDY homegrown beaters of Jewish breasts, eager to luxuriate in the ambience of European enlightenment, have no problem subscribing to any calumny that wins them coveted approval abroad. If their own country is denigrated as uncool and oppressive, then local lefties dissociate themselves from its cause and gleefully initiate mudslinging fests, lest they be suspected of allegiance to the forces of darkness. Israel's unique brand of postmodern universalism evinces no qualms about jeopardizing the self-determination of the ancient Jewish people while championing self-determination for so-called Palestinians, whose ethnicity is a recent artificial invention cynically calculated to counterbalance renascent Jewish national sovereignty. Purported Palestinians - many descended from migrants who flocked here from far-flung Arab/Muslim dominions even on the very eve of Israel's birth, craving prospects Jewish pioneers created literally with their blood, sweat and tears - are considered uprooted aboriginals. Although native-born offspring of Jewish refugees forever remain foreign interlopers, Africans who violate our borders may seethe with indigenous indignation. Hence Israel's sanctimonious elite insists that Jewish bloodletting in the incomparable Holocaust behooves us to admit Africans. Those who defame political rivals remotely resorting to Holocaust imagery themselves readily diminish the Holocaust with spurious analogies that can only appeal to the intellectually indolent. There's no way of ascertaining who among the gate-crashers is a bona-fide Darfurian. For all we know, we may be sheltering Sudanese Muslim mass-murderers instead of their fleeing prey. Moreover, these supposed escapees arrive here not from Sudan but from Egypt, where they shouldn't be imperiled. Why shouldn't Arab Egypt harbor those displaced by brother Arabs? Odds are that most Israel-bound Africans were never near Darfur. The politically incorrect fact is that decades of African independence only shame Africa. Any African resourceful enough seeks a way out, including Muslim Africans who hanker after Christian Europe or even Jewish Israel. They try all routes - from Spanish Sahara all the way to the Sinai. The more word spreads about what suckers Israelis are, the more lucrative the Israel-via-Sinai option becomes. Real asylum-seekers, fearing for their lives, wouldn't automatically decline Egypt. Economic migrants pursuing higher living standards inevitably prefer modern Israel to backward Egypt. If we choose to glory in our righteousness rather than recognize that in today's globalized reality Israel is a very attractive destination, we'll find ourselves as deluged with illegals as Europe. Yet our plight will be immeasurably worse, since - unlike fat, smug Europe - Israel is acutely endangered. Standard-bearers of broadminded bon-ton expect us to atone for our endurance by opening our fragile miniature home to any African who regales us with tales of woe, because we owe it to the world to solve humanitarian ills created by others (especially by our genocidal enemies). If we thereby lose our home, so be it. The idea of a Jewish nation-state is anyway anathema to our beautiful souls, who advocate "a state-for-all-its-citizens" or a binational state to be shared with the same Palestinians who just demonstrated the ghastliness of their self-rule in Gaza. If that's a no-go, the leftist alternative is an "inclusionist multicultural country," into which the Islamic/Jihadist octopus can extend an arm out of Africa. Once Israel's hospitable inclinations gain repute throughout sub-Saharan Africa, Islam will have found yet another avenue for menacing the hated Jewish state. When that happens, don't count on Israel's own preachy seekers of justice-at-Jewish-expense to deem their own nation worthy of compassion or understanding - even if it again becomes the victim. Never underestimate their penchant for blaming Jews for Jewish misfortunes.