Dromi’s complaint
Uri Dromi is puzzled. Dromi, an Israeli whose invariably pro-Israel columns are a regular feature of the Miami Herald, recently travelled to the United States at the invitation of the Center for Entrepreneurial Philanthropy (CEJP) for a meeting “where philanthropists and foundations gathered to hear some outstanding pro-Israeli organizations showcasing their innovative work and financial needs.”
Dromi mentions just two of these “outstanding” pro-Israeli groups. One, The Foundation for Defense of Democracies, scarcely a household name, is a fierce supporter of such policies as Bush’s excellent Iraqi adventure and other Washington efforts to export democracy. The other group Dromi mentions, “the Sino-Global Network and Academic Leadership,” is so obscure that even Dromi got the name wrong. When I searched the web I discovered the group’s real name is the Sino-Israel Network and Academic Leadership. That’s a distinction with a difference.
After hearing nothing but good things about his country from these groups, Dromi was “excited, even moved.” Then he was perplexed, even chagrinned. Israel, such a wonderful country, how come it is so unloved by virtually the entire world – with the crucial exception of the United States?
Dromi is dismayed by the evidence of the low regard in which Israel is held by the world. “For example, in a country-popularity poll conducted annually by the BBC all over the world, Israel is fourth from the bottom: only North Korea, Pakistan and Iran are hated more.” At this information, a critical citizen might ask: “Are we doing something wrong?” After all, that is a seriously bad club of which to be a member.
Asking the question about the source of the hatred and answering it is crucial because Israelis are only fooling themselves by being in denial or using the anti-Semitism card. Indeed, there are plenty of good things about Israel, a country in which the likes of Gideon Levy regularly expresses his sharp disagreement with government policies in the liberal newspaper Haaretz and doesn’t have to worry about getting unexpected callers at his door that night. Moreover, the aversion toward Israel exists despite the natural sympathy and sorrow countless people in the world, myself definitely included, naturally feel regarding a people that has suffered prejudice, persecution, and murder – from Russia to Spain and everywhere else, for centuries – culminating in the horror of horrors, the Holocaust. So why the aversion?
Dromi, who is apparently a journalist but writes more like a propagandist, isn’t going there. He is part of a virtual club the membership of which is mainly in the United
States and is obligatory for American politicians: “that Israel can do no wrong club.” As such, the possibility that Israeli actions are responsible for much of the world’s animosity doesn’t even enter his mind. Instead, he contrasts the global negative opinion of Israel to the generally positive view of the country in the United States. Hey, if the Israelis and the Americans are members of the club, the people in the other two hundred or so countries in the world must be wrong.
Here Dromi, whose column, ironically, is titled “Israel is the U.N.’s punching bag,” identifies the real culprit behind the world’s low opinion of Israel, namely “one particular entity that has been systematically spreading anti-Israeli sentiments all around the world: The United Nations.”
It’s a clever if transparent way to avoid the real question, reverse the causal sequence and, in passing, curry favor in the United States, where using the UN as a whipping boy is a popular sport, especially within the right. But the cheap trick of demonizing the UN doesn’t answer the question that Dromi begs: What sentiments should the member states of the UN express toward Israel when, as the BBC poll found, most of the people in the countries they represent dislike or even despise Israel?
The UN is not a propaganda machine that has helped cast Israel as a pariah state, as Dromi argues. It is a mirror that accurately reflects the world’s judgment of Israel. The basis of that judgment is, in the main, not anti-Semitism, although that scourge unfortunately has not yet been wiped from the face of the earth.
The principal basis is the policies, actions, and attitudes of the Israeli state backed by the opinions of too many Israelis who think like Dromi. When Israel was born, much of the world cheered. But such support has turned to disgust as a result of too much Palestinian land and water stolen, too much Arab blood shed in the invasions of Lebanon, too many bombings, incursions and blockades of the West Bank and Gaza, a deadly commando raid against a peaceful civilian flotilla flying the flag of Turkey, one of few (former) friends of Israel in the neighborhood, and finally, far too much arrogance and intransigence embodied in leaders like Sharon and Netanyahu.
Israel has a lot of assets: wonderful musicians, artists, and writers. It has critical public intellectuals and a developed economy. It has democracy – to a point: Israeli Arabs are decidedly second-class citizens and the residents of the Occupied Territories are off the bus altogether. Israel has free expression – to a point. Criticize the government but don’t speak of the nuclear arsenal.
The one thing that Israelis like Dromi seem to lack is a mirror. Dromi dismisses the idea that sentiments toward Israel are colored by its role as Goliath versus the Palestinian David. But the David-versus-Goliath nature of the conflict is evident, as a simple comparison of the two sides’ arsenal and casualty figures makes clear. But there is more to it than that. Israel, the regional Goliath, faces the powerless Palestinians not only with its formidable military. It faces the Palestinians and the world with the undying support of the global Goliath, the United States.
That two countries which, historically and currently, often act as bullies on the local or global stage should form a mutual admiration society is not a shock. Nor is the fact that neither of them are objects of the world’s love. “Why do they hate us?” Not surprisingly, Dromi’s complaint and puzzlement are shared by millions of Americans who fail to see the consequences of their country’s actions and policies on the lives of other people near and far.
