The ideological divide between idealists and realists stems from two sets of assumptions about human nature and reality. Realists are wary of men’s real intentions, while idealists rely on human goodwill: the state of nature is heaven to Rousseau and hell to Hobbes because the former believes that man is naturally good and socially perverted, while the latter assumes that man is ‘solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short.’ Realists and idealists also see reality from two different viewpoints: to the realist, reality is a given to which man needs to submit and adapt his will; to the idealist, reality is man-made and can therefore be subjugated to man’s will. Machiavelli teaches the Prince how to adapt to reality, while Kant implores him to change and adapt it to his ideals.
These two different sets of assumptions – Is man good or bad? Is reality stronger than human will or the other way round? – are at the core of the ideological divide between Right and Left in open societies, and this debate applies to foreign policy.
This debate is ideological precisely because one cannot prove scientifically whether man is intrinsically good or bad, and whether reality is amendable to human will. History, however, provides a useful list of examples that can help make a reasonable guess. So does the gauging of failed and successful policies. In that regard, President Obama has made a remarkable contribution (albeit inadvertently) to an age-old philosophical inquiry.
In his Cairo speech (June 2009), Barack Obama tried to sweet-talk the Muslim world into abandoning its animosity toward America. A year-and-a-half later, it would be an understatement to say that his overtures have been rebuffed. Turkey, once a close ally of the US and Israel, has become Iran’s foremost apologist. Iran continues to defy the United States by pursuing its nuclear program and by progressively overtaking Iraq and Lebanon. The Talibans are as determined as ever in Afghanistan and in Pakistan. Syria keeps deepening its ties with Iran and Hezbollah despite (or because of) America’s gestures (such as resending a US Ambassador to Damascus). And now, the pro-Western and anti-Islamist regime of Ben-Ali has been overthrown in Tunsia, while Hezbollah is about to effectively run Lebanon’s next government.
It would be admittedly unfair to focus on President’s Obama’s failure. For his confidence that Islamists would be tamed with a good speech is hardly different from Woodrow Wilson’s assumption that the League of Nations would keep German militarism in check, or from Jimmy Carter’s belief that Khomeini was a human rights activist.
Wilson, Carter and Obama crashed down to reality because they failed to recognize that some ideologies are based on the need for a sworn enemy. As Professor Emmanuel Sivan explains in his book The Clash within Islam, jihad creates a dichotomy “between Muslim and all external, heretical groups, which are fundamentally evil … Thus coexistence over time is certainly not a plausible political option.” Indeed, no amount of goodwill or elevated rhetoric can appease ideologies that make the eternal struggle against “The Enemy” a divine commend or the founding principle of collective identity.
Naïveté has a price –a price that America has been able to afford thanks to its power and geography. Israel, by contrast, has no strategic tolerance for silliness (though it certainly has a political attraction to it). A popular Israeli joke offers the ultimate answer to the realism vs. idealism debate in foreign policy: Isaiah prophesizes that one day the sheep will lie down peacefully next to the wolf; yet even when the dream comes true it will be safer to be the wolf. Especially, the joke could have added, if the sheep is being watched by the village’s idiot.
Monday, January 24, 2011
Thursday, January 6, 2011
Trading Truth for Money
Yesterday (Jan. 5), the Knesset decided to establish a parliamentary committee to examine international sources of funding for Israeli organizations that “aid the de-legitimization of Israel through harming IDF soldiers.” While the decision enjoyed a wide support (41 in favor, 16 against), it turned into a heated spat between the Right and the Left.
The Knesset’s decision was adopted following revelations by organizations such as NGO Monitor and Im Tirtzu that many Israeli NGOs (Non-Governmental Organizations) testified against Israel in the Goldstone Report; that they are involved in the issuing of arrest warrants against Israeli politicians and IDF officers in Europe; and that some of those NGOs’ funding comes from foreign governments.
Those who oppose yesterday’s decision generally make two points: a. the organizations that stand accused deal with human rights and therefore only deserve praise and protection; b. their sources of funding are already public knowledge, so there is no need to double-check them.
Both claims are half-true.
The same way that the UN “Human Rights Council” is dominated by human rights abusers, many NGOs use the “human rights” fig leaf to harass democracies at war and to whitewash murderous regimes. Why else would the Human Rights Council be presided by Thailand (since June 2010) and why else would Human Rights Watch do fundraising in Saudi Arabia (as revealed by the Wall Street Journal in July 2009)? Not all human rights organizations in Israel and in the world are a sham, of course. Some actually do care for human rights and dignity. But for many NGOs (including Israeli NGOs that are trying to get IDF officers arrested in London), using the “human rights” agenda has become a clever way of enjoying impunity for political activities that have hardly anything to do with human rights.
Claiming that the sources of funding for Israeli NGOs are already public knowledge is no less misleading. Of course, Israeli NGOs report every penny raised and spent to the Non-Profit Authority. But many funds and foundations that donate money to Israeli NGOs are themselves supported by individuals, organizations and governments whose name and identity do not appear when NGOs report their donations. The public information disclosed by Israeli NGOs on their donations does not reveal the entire money trail –a trail that often includes foreign governments. The same way that many “human rights” organizations have nothing to do with human rights, those organizations call themselves “non-governmental” while being funded by governments.
Many Israeli NGOs have simply gotten used to their sense of impunity. So have Israeli universities. Last week, for example, Ma’ariv journalist Kalman Liebskind caught Ben-Gurion University (BGU) red-handed lying to its donors.
Liebskind revealed that BGU’s French donors recently asked for explanations about reports that the University’s Political Science Department has become a uniform hub of radical politics. To which the University replied (via its representative for French speaking Europe) that many of the Department’s professors are “right-wing” and even listed them: David Newman, Danny Filc, and Renée Poznanski. Now, all three proudly define themselves as left-wingers –and for good reasons too. They’ve all signed petitions calling for Israeli soldiers not to serve in the disputed territories. Filc is a Board member of Physicians for Human Rights. David Newman is known for lambasting NGO Monitor and Im Tirtzu. One wonders if Newman, Filc and Poznanski will now sue their university for libel…
BGU’s reply contains another fantastic claim: that the Israeli Council for Higher Education is dominated by the Right, especially Shas and Israel Beitenu. In truth, however, the Council is a non-political body composed mostly of tenured professors. Claiming the Shas and Israel Beitenu are strongly represented at the Council is pure science fiction.
BGU seems to assume that its donors don’t have access to Google. Or rather, it suffers from the same syndrome than the so-called human rights NGOs: the syndrome of abusing your respectability to fool people.
As Abraham Lincoln said: “You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you cannot fool all of the people all of the time.” Thanks to the Internet, most people can’t be fooled most of the time, and trading truth for money is no longer a profitable business.
The Knesset’s decision was adopted following revelations by organizations such as NGO Monitor and Im Tirtzu that many Israeli NGOs (Non-Governmental Organizations) testified against Israel in the Goldstone Report; that they are involved in the issuing of arrest warrants against Israeli politicians and IDF officers in Europe; and that some of those NGOs’ funding comes from foreign governments.
Those who oppose yesterday’s decision generally make two points: a. the organizations that stand accused deal with human rights and therefore only deserve praise and protection; b. their sources of funding are already public knowledge, so there is no need to double-check them.
Both claims are half-true.
The same way that the UN “Human Rights Council” is dominated by human rights abusers, many NGOs use the “human rights” fig leaf to harass democracies at war and to whitewash murderous regimes. Why else would the Human Rights Council be presided by Thailand (since June 2010) and why else would Human Rights Watch do fundraising in Saudi Arabia (as revealed by the Wall Street Journal in July 2009)? Not all human rights organizations in Israel and in the world are a sham, of course. Some actually do care for human rights and dignity. But for many NGOs (including Israeli NGOs that are trying to get IDF officers arrested in London), using the “human rights” agenda has become a clever way of enjoying impunity for political activities that have hardly anything to do with human rights.
Claiming that the sources of funding for Israeli NGOs are already public knowledge is no less misleading. Of course, Israeli NGOs report every penny raised and spent to the Non-Profit Authority. But many funds and foundations that donate money to Israeli NGOs are themselves supported by individuals, organizations and governments whose name and identity do not appear when NGOs report their donations. The public information disclosed by Israeli NGOs on their donations does not reveal the entire money trail –a trail that often includes foreign governments. The same way that many “human rights” organizations have nothing to do with human rights, those organizations call themselves “non-governmental” while being funded by governments.
Many Israeli NGOs have simply gotten used to their sense of impunity. So have Israeli universities. Last week, for example, Ma’ariv journalist Kalman Liebskind caught Ben-Gurion University (BGU) red-handed lying to its donors.
Liebskind revealed that BGU’s French donors recently asked for explanations about reports that the University’s Political Science Department has become a uniform hub of radical politics. To which the University replied (via its representative for French speaking Europe) that many of the Department’s professors are “right-wing” and even listed them: David Newman, Danny Filc, and Renée Poznanski. Now, all three proudly define themselves as left-wingers –and for good reasons too. They’ve all signed petitions calling for Israeli soldiers not to serve in the disputed territories. Filc is a Board member of Physicians for Human Rights. David Newman is known for lambasting NGO Monitor and Im Tirtzu. One wonders if Newman, Filc and Poznanski will now sue their university for libel…
BGU’s reply contains another fantastic claim: that the Israeli Council for Higher Education is dominated by the Right, especially Shas and Israel Beitenu. In truth, however, the Council is a non-political body composed mostly of tenured professors. Claiming the Shas and Israel Beitenu are strongly represented at the Council is pure science fiction.
BGU seems to assume that its donors don’t have access to Google. Or rather, it suffers from the same syndrome than the so-called human rights NGOs: the syndrome of abusing your respectability to fool people.
As Abraham Lincoln said: “You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you cannot fool all of the people all of the time.” Thanks to the Internet, most people can’t be fooled most of the time, and trading truth for money is no longer a profitable business.
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