Understanding the Israeli Exhortation "Why Not Them" (1)

In a recent piece published in Huffington Post (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-harris/to-the-free-gaza-movement_b_602061.html),one amongst many, David Harris, the President of the American Jewish Congress (AJC), asked the now infamous question of the Free Gaza Movement, "why not them".

The Free Gaza Movement was one of the major organizers of the "provocation with a bad ending" flotilla. Harris asked them, rhetorically, why don't you organize to stop mass human rights abuses all over the world -why Israel? His conclusion, is that they do not seek to help Gaza but to hurt Israel.

Amongst his supporting evidence is the assertion that if they wanted to help Gaza, they should have delivered the aid the fastest way possible, via established land routes.
For the sake of balance, the Free Gaza Movement responds that they organized to help Gazans not other victims.

But this essay is not about this specific article or event. Rather it is meant to offer a number of perspectives on Harris’s underlying argument, as his observation is not new. Pro-Israel, and watch-dog groups covering NGO's, human rights groups, and of course the UN Human Rights Council - (UNHRC) in response to habitual and sustained criticism of Israel- regularly make this same accusation .

The "why not them argument" boils down to the question of why so much energy and resources are expended on criticizing Israel while the other more sever human rights violations are ignored?

Is this a legitimate argument?

Before that can be answered a more expansive understanding of this oft cited rhetorical question and the corresponding answers offered is in order.

Here I will attempt to analyze and expand the underlying question from three perspectives.

1. The implications perspective.

The implications perspective is always offered rhetorically and is historical in nature. It asks what can possibly explain the obsession with Israel, and the disproportional negative attention it engenders, except history? History explains the criticism of Israel as it comes from the same quarters that perpetrated the crusader riots, the wave of expulsions of Jews from almost every nations-state of Western Europe and later the Arab world, ghettos, and of course the holocaust.

Some in the Jewish community point to the Talmudic maxim, “Esiv Sonei et Yaccov” Esau hates Jacob –the decedents of Esau -commonly understood to refer to the descendants of Rome -as part of their nature hate the descendants of Jacob, the Jews (please see post “http://factoru.blogspot.com/2010/05/why-do-i-hate-jews.html).

The implications perspective argues that the disproportionate criticism of Israel, is explained by the source of the criticism, i.e. much of criticism is not of Israel but of the Jewish nature of the state of Israel (please see post http://factoru.blogspot.com/2010/04/i-have-no-problem-with-jews-its-just.html). The implications are that good old historical anti-Semitism is alive and well, as evident by the, otherwise unexplainable extent of criticism of Israel, to the detriment of 10’s of millions really being oppressed across the globe. The point being that anything Israel does, short of disappearing, is open to attack.

This is one way to understand the “why us not them argument”. In part two we look at two others and attempt to draw a concrete conclusion.