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By Paul J Cella Posted in apartheid | discrimination | Foreign Affairs | Israel | Liberalism | Palestine — Comments (10) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »

A new round of Israeli-Arab peace talks is under way. Whether something enduring will come of it seems rather unlikely, though even some normally skeptical observers have expressed guarded hope.

There is one curiosity here worth expounding: Thanks to Jimmy Carter, you’ll probably need both your hands to count the number of times the charge of APARTHEID will be hurled against Israel, sometimes with the esteemed former president actually cited, during interviews of Arab PR men. “Apartheid system,” “apartheid regime,” “apartheid state,” “apartheid government,” possibly even the infelicitous phrase “apartheid occupation” — over and over and over: these guys are suckers repetition of striking phrases. And while we’ve heard the apartheid accusation before, it is Carter’s recent book has vastly increased its currency.

Read on.

The curiosity is this: Since in Liberal parlance, apartheid has become a mere synonym for discrimination, which is the most wicked of all things, there is a certain logic to this charge. If a state that discriminates is an apartheid state, why, then Israel is an apartheid state.

Not being a Liberal myself, I have nothing against discrimination in principle, and indeed believe that a population which has for decades incubated a long train of depraved terrorists, as Palestine has, richly deserves considerable and unapologetic discrimination. Further, I am on record, repeatedly, here at Redstate and elsewhere, in calling for various policies of open discrimination against the Islamic religion, precisely for its incubation of a much longer train of depraved terrorists, brigands, and mad revolutionaries.

I have no illusions about what I’m up against here. The principle of nondiscrimination is the very god of Liberalism. And it is (alas) a solid fact that a great many self-styled conservatives do not hesitate to genuflect before this jealous god. One of my cobloggers at another website calls such men right-Liberals. Right-Liberalism grants the normative status of nondiscrimination, but makes a big scene about critiquing its excesses. The posture is inherently problematic, as the right-Liberal is always vulnerable to the left-Liberal raising the stakes. And in many cases right-Liberals have been so outmaneuvered by their cousins further Left that they become the mere consolidators of Leftism.

But there is nothing inherently virtuous in nondiscrimination. There is nothing inherently wicked in discrimination. At the level of abstraction, there is really not much we can say about it. We need particulars in order to judge properly (and “judging properly,” is in truth another phrase for the mental process of discrimination.) Is it unjust to discriminate against job applicants purely on the basis of race? Yes, I believe it is. Is it unjust to discriminate against job applicants on the basis of criminal record? Clearly not. Is it unjust to discriminate against potential immigrants on the basis of religion or national origin? on the basis of education level? on the basis of professional skills?

In short, on the question of discrimination, there is no universal, unequivocal answer. Some kinds of it are plainly unjust; others are wise and good. It is the task of self-government to work out the particulars. In a republic like ours, all we can demand is that men bring their own particular experiences, their capacity for reason, and their patriotic good will to the discussion table.

There is certainly some unjust and brutal discrimination against Palestinians by Israelis. No one will deny that. But there is also some very wise discrimination. It will only be removed when the latter begin to trust that the former are not perpetuating a whole culture of murderous terror against them. And the folly of Liberalism, exemplified by former president Carter, is to sweep away all these distinctions, leaving only the absurd conclusion that because Israel discriminates she must be an apartheid state, that is, an illegitimate and brazen affront to Liberalism.

This logic of nondiscrimination will issue in the dissolution of all Western nations, Israel included; because to maintain a Western nation means, strictly speaking, to discriminate in favor of Western things, at the expense of non-Western things.