Surrounded by countries that pray for its concomitant death and destruction, Israel is a little country committed to religious liberty and the sanctity of human life. Yet Israel's demise is more likely to come about as a result of the international community's inability to see the country for what it truly is.
The start of the second intifada (Arabic for "uprising") in 2000 sparked violence towards Israel by the numerous terrorist organizations and those sympathetic to their cause. Because Israel is largely divided by religious and ideological lines, describing the conflict without mentioning the religious tensions would be amiss. To generalize for a moment, Islamic extremists - from the Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to the leader of Fatah, Farouk al-Kaddoumi - seek the imminent destruction of Israel for its supposed injustices to humanity. Their goals are supported by their indoctrinated anti-Semitism, laden with fear of the rest of the Western world.
The terrorists see themselves as fighting a worthwhile battle against the Goliath-like state despite the fact that Israel is geographically smaller than New Jersey and has less than 6.5 million inhabitants. The country has continuously maintained its commitment to peace. Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, the then-mayor of Jerusalem, correctly articulated the frustration after a series of Palestinian suicide bombings in 2002: "We are in a war, a very brutal war that has been waged against every Jewish person in the heart of Jerusalem ... My city is bleeding, day in and day out, with tens of civilians killed."
All too frequently, America is criticized for providing the lone liberal democracy in the Middle East with foreign aid and support. Of course, among other obvious facts, the critics tend to ignore the harsh reality that no other country in the world is surrounded by nations that so vehemently urge its demise.
The use of Israeli violence to counter the systemic murder of its citizens is not only permissible, but also courageous. A country's duty lies in its citizens and liberty will never be achieved without the assurance of safety. A country unable to maintain physical security can hardly be expected to preserve rights. Yet Israel has successfully been able to do so. With the influx of homicidal bombers who commit their own lives to rash destruction in the name of martyrdom, Israel moved to minimize their destruction by building a physical barrier. Since then, the security fence has worked marvels by cutting down homicide bombings by more than 90 percent, as reported by the Washington Institute for Near East Policy in 2005.
This security move, however, can serve only as a band-aid. The real solution will require more international pressure on the terrorists. But this has yet to occur. Instead, when the fence was initially built, the international community was up in arms as it accused Israel of trying to marginalize the Palestinian people and their communities.
True to its current foreign policy doctrine, America seeks to better the world by supporting liberal democracies around the globe, but why doesn't the rest of the international community?
Speaking here at Tufts last Wednesday, former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright discussed the notion that in every conflict no country is perfect, and I think she is mostly right. However, for all of its imperfections, Israel remains committed to ideals that make a state great - mainly, liberty.
Unfortunately, many people believe that the two sides in each fight are morally equivalent. In some sense, this argument is similar to the rapist who blames his actions on the clothes that his victim was wearing. So Israel has a more powerful military than the terrorists, but that does not mean it is looking to engage in war.
It is all too often believed that America only supports Israel because it is a Jewish state. Of course, this belief implies that the state is run by unwavering Jewish Zionists. But one must consider Israel in its accurate context: a liberal democracy surrounded by existential threats; the fact that it is Jewish remains tangential to American foreign policy, as it should for the rest of the international community.
Daniel Halper is a sophomore majoring in political science and philosophy. He is also the chair of the TCU Judiciary. He can be reached at Daniel.Halper@tufts.edu.
