Killing In The Name Of: Given the chorus of rage currently directed at the “Zionist Entity”, why are those who profess “progressive” sympathies so silent when it comes to the outrages perpetrated by the self-proclaimed Islamic State?
WHERE ARE THE IMPASSIONED STREAMS of citizens flooding our
nation’s streets to protest the actions of the Islamic State? The righteous
wrath stirred up by the Israeli assault upon Gaza has been plain to see. But
the barbaric punishment meted out to Christians, captive Iraqi soldiers, Shia
Muslims and followers of the ancient Yazidi faith has yet to inspire anyone to
apply paint to placard. Given the chorus of rage currently directed at the
“Zionist Entity”, why are those who profess “progressive” sympathies so silent
when it comes to the outrages perpetrated by the self-proclaimed Islamic State?
The latest of these, the beheading of a young American
journalist, has generated a wave of revulsion around the world. Not least on account
of the perpetrators’ cynical (but effective) use of social media to publicise
their medieval celebration of cruelty and death. But where are the Hollywood
movie stars emoting to camera over the ritual killing of their defenceless
compatriot? Where are the protest crowds of outraged progressives demanding
justice for James Foley?
James Foley's Last Moments: A medieval celebration of cruelty and death.
Does nobody else think it odd that the gunning down of an
unarmed black teenager in Ferguson, Missouri, can spark days of passionate
protest, but the agonising decapitation of a helpless journalist elicits
condemnation only from “mainstream” politicians and the equally despised
“mainstream” media? Did progressives maintain a similar silence when images of
a terrified Palestinian boy, caught in a deadly crossfire of Israeli bullets,
appeared on the world’s television screens? No, they did not.
More and more, it seems to me, we are being presented with
what some commentators are calling “good dead” and “bad dead”.
The Palestinian mother and child who die under Israeli
bombs; the Dutch tourist who dies when a missile destroys Flight MH17 over
Donetsk; these are the “good dead”. We may mourn their loss openly and loudly,
and angrily condemn their killers. But the women and children killed by
Ukrainian jets and artillery, or by the missiles fired into Israel from Gaza,
these are “bad dead”: to be passed over in silence.
Now, you may say that it was ever thus: that people around
the world have always been encouraged to hate who their leaders hate and mourn
the dead of their valiant allies. But this has never been the position of those
who described themselves as progressive. People on the Left of politics used to
condemn cruel and unusual punishment wherever it occurred. Racial
discrimination, religious persecution and the subjugation of women were
likewise held up as unequivocally bad practices.
Not any more.
It always struck me as extraordinary that Western
progressives were willing to put their bodies (and even their lives) on the
line for the sake of racial equality and democratic freedom in South Africa,
but that there was no equivalent international mobilisation against the vicious
repression of women in the Taliban-controlled areas of Afghanistan. The
universalism of the twentieth century had, by the early years of the twenty-first,
given way to an empty ethical relativism. Today, it would seem, progressives
are free to pick and choose who they deem to be right and wrong. Raging
unceasingly against the Israeli “apartheid” state, while maintaining an
ambiguous silence in the face of the Islamic State's atrocities.
So, for those who chant “Palestine will be free, from the
river to the sea!” I would counsel this little thought experiment.
Suppose in October 1973 Syria’s Soviet-equipped armoured
divisions had broken through Israel’s northern defences and that Ariel Sharon’s
tanks had not outmanoeuvred Egypt’s in the Sinai. What do you suppose would
have been the response of the Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO)? Would
they have demanded a cease-fire, pending the creation of a secular and
democratic Palestinian state? Or, would they have driven every Jew living west
of the River Jordan into the sea?
If you were to ask 100 Israelis that question, I’m pretty
sure how 95 of them would respond. They would tell you that from the moment of
its formation in 1964, the PLO wagered everything on Egypt and Syria (with
Soviet weapons) becoming militarily strong enough to do what the Palestinians, alone, could never
do: destroy the Israeli state. When it lost that bet the PLO adopted a
dual-track strategy: officially recognising Israel’s right to exist while
unofficially sanctioning a long and deadly asymmetric struggle against the
Israeli people. Using terror not to defeat the Israeli state, but to reshape it
in the terrorists’ own murderous likeness. Having transformed Israel into a
monster, the Palestinians could then implore the world to come to their rescue.
Of course, for this strategy to succeed, Israel had to be constantly goaded
into unleashing ever more murderous attacks.
Morally, there is little to distinguish the Palestinian
leadership’s conduct from that of the Islamic State's. Because no good end ever
came from such evil means.
Progressives knew that … once.
This essay was
originally published in The Press of Tuesday,
26 August 2014.
