According to the BBC, Tzipi Livni, herself a former Mossad officer, has now openly applauded the murder of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh in Dubai. Well, that is just another proof that the self-declared “Jewish state of Israel” does not care one bit about being considered a pariah state beyond the pale rather than the “only democracy in the Middle-East”.
Saker Message:
It is very easy to get excited or disgusted by the behavior of this or that individual in the Mideast, and we should because the behavior of individuals matters. If we don’t react at all, then how can they ever be held responsible?
However, there is a deeper layer that also bothers me about the behavior in recent years of actors in and related to the Mideast: leading public figures seem to be degrading the level of morality. The case of Livni’s public approval of murder is an excellent example.
Sure, people have always done bad things, but it seems to me that human society can only advance by pursuing a vision of decency. Leaders are called “leaders,” rather than, say, “parasites,” because they are expected to articulate a vision of something better (even if they personally fail to live up to that vision). When a leader of a so-called democracy publicly approves of murder, that “leader” is degrading his or her own society and setting a new low standard for adversaries as well.
Livni’s remark fits well with a long list of others over the past decade – bin Laden’s glorification of terror, Hillary Clinton’s warning about “oblitering” Iran, and the many not-so-veiled calls by Israeli and American political hacks for a nuclear attack on non-nuclear Iran.
If bin Laden wanted to destroy Western democracy, he has achieved considerable success, as measured by the degree to which Western leaders have gotten down in the gutter with him. We could discuss actions (Grozniy, Jenin, Fallujah…), but my point here is that words also matter. Livni has debased herself and Israel.
@William deB. Mills:leading public figures seem to be degrading the level of morality. The case of Livni’s public approval of murder is an excellent example. Sure, people have always done bad things, but it seems to me that human society can only advance by pursuing a vision of decency.
I completely agree. Other countries do have special assassination teams, including probably every single permanent member of the UN Security Council (the USA and Russia for sure). One can even make a very good case that it is far preferable to kill only ONE person with such an assassination team, then using drones or bombs and kill many innocent bystanders. I would even reluctantly agree with this logic.
But what is most shocking in the case of the Israelis is not the fact of Kidon units killing political opponents deemed dangerous, but the absolute arrogance of the Israeli government. When leaders make such ugly actions the object of their official praise they do really degrade their entire nation. But then, in this case we are talking about the last openly racist state on the planet, the only nuclear armed state which does not accept IAEA inspections, the only state to build a separation wall, the only state which uses artillery and F-16s against its own civilian population, the only state to openly defy the UN, the Geneva Conventions and all of international law, etc. etc. etc.
I think that the very existance of this state degrades all of humanity.
The Saker
“the only state to build a separation wall”
Well, the US is also building one, though comparatively smaller than the Israeli one.
@Carlo: you are referring to the wall on the Mexico border I suppose. Well, the big difference is that it is built on a border and not to separate Americans of different ethnicities or religious beliefs. Palestinians on their own lands can hardly be considered as undocumented foreigners. Although I would agree that the southern US states did, in fact, belong to Mexico before the Yankess stole if from them.
Yes, there are differences, and I agree that the Israeli wall is worse than the US one. But anyway, no doubt that the wall in the Mexican border won’t stop illegal immigrants to come to the US, but the number of them dying (which is already big) will surely increase. A useless and not very humanitarian response to the problem of illegal immigration.
@Carlo: A useless and not very humanitarian response to the problem of illegal immigration.
I completely agree. of course, the real goal of that wall is to make money for the companies who build it. They are, as far as I know, the very same ones who built the Israeli wall too.
Ain’t free market capitalism wonderful!